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This week I made ATK's Garlic-Potato Soup. They were right to put the garlic before the potato when they named this soup. The recipe calls for 3 cloves of garlic, minced, plus 2 whole heads of garlic that get poached in the cooking liquid until soft enough to make a garlic paste. Of course that gets thrown into the pot, too. And at the end you sprinkle on some garlic chips for good measure. With preparation and cook time, it took me about 2 hours to make.

Yes, the soup had good flavor, but was it really that much better than my mom's plain ol' potato soup? I was more impressed with the texture which was very silky and creamy (with only 1/2 cup cream added), but I think that's because I used an immersion blender instead of the potato masher that my mom uses. I'm just not sure it was worth the extra effort (or the time to type out the whole recipe--Sorry!). Plus, the next day at work I was told I smelled "spicy." Not sure if I'll make it again, and I guess I'll have to be careful with the leftovers!

This week we also had our old standby, Chipotle Black Bean Soup, which I've posted before. It takes about 15-20 minutes to make and I always have the ingredients in my pantry. I always freeze the leftover chipotles in a small container, but I think I like Rachael Ray's suggestion better. She recommends pureeing the whole can and pressing it into the bottom of a freezer bag. That way you can just slice off a tablespoon or so instead of trying to chip a whole pepper out of the container.