(Vegetarian) Potato Soup

I do not pretend to understand this thing where a 15-year old does a happy dance over Potato Soup, but it happened. Again. Every time I make it, Alexis rejoices. It's probably time for her to make it herself since she -enjoys- peeling potatoes. So, here kid, have the recipe.

Potato Soup (Vegetarian, even)

10 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3/4 cup sliced carrots
2 celery stalks, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
3 leeks, chopped (just the white part)
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups heavy cream
salt to taste
black pepper to taste

1. Fill a large stock pot with water and toss in the diced potatoes, carrots, and celery. Boil at medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until it all begins to soften. Don't let the veggies get mushy, though. You want them edible, but not necessarily appropriate for the toothless crowd.

2. Drain the water from the pan, but keep it. You're going to add some of the potato water to the soup at the end.

3. In a nonstick skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Toss in the leeks and sauté until the leeks begins to soften.

4. Add in the flour and stir with a fork until the butter and flour join together in beautiful harmony.

5. Gradually add the heavy cream, stirring constantly. If it seems like you're making a typical white sauce, it's because you are. So far.

6. Once the heavy cream is fully incorporated, pour it over your cooked potatoes and such. At this point, you should have some really delicious potatoes that aren't quite a soup.

7. Remember that potato water? Now is when you want to use it. Add a little at a time to the soup until it reaches a thickness/soupiness that you're happy with. I end up adding about two cups, but it's OK if you go with more or less. Do a whole bunch of stirring as you go so that you can be sure of how thick your soup is.

8. Add salt and black pepper to taste. I usually go with a teaspoon of each.

9. Turn the heat on and keep that stock pan over medium/low heat until you're totally happy with the softness of the potatoes and such. I end up cooking it for about five minutes.

10. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and crackers. Because OF COURSE you need crackers. It's the law.

The Tree Photos

I will start by answering the question that I generally refuse to answer: 37. There are a total of 37 of them.

Now that we have that out of the way, photos of Christmas trees! I took some! I haven't done that in a few years for reasons I cannot explain, but this year I need to mark down which ones are going to cause drama next year. Because that's a thing. Remember that scene in Christmas Vacation when Clark has just finished hanging thousands of lights on the house and he has two cords in his hands and puts them together and ... nothing? THAT EXACT SCENE has played out with so many trees this year.

So many.

It was defeating and annoying and frustrating. For reasons I do not comprehend, a bunch of lights decided 2021 was the year they would die. But they did it together like there is some sort of union of lights when they decide to stop working and demand ... nothing? I don't know. I just know that there are still four trees that are in varying states of disarray. I'm not fixing them until next Christmas. I have been defeated for this season.

Anyway.

TREES!

None of this translate to photos as well as I would like, but this first one especially is better in person. It's one of the trees that gave up on 2021, but in this case I had to replace the whole tree because the previous one had turned yellow over the summer. I also did something completely nutty and took apart strings of multi-colored lights and made them solid strings instead. And, yes, it was necessary because it's impossible to find the entire rainbow with white cords.

It took HOURS, by the way. Literal hours. As long as it stays working for 3-5 years, it will have been worth it.

Next! Another rainbow tree! This one is my current battle because yes there are rows of lights out. That happened a day after I fixed a different row of lights that were out. And I don't want to talk about it.

Here's the ornaments on that majestic beauty.

Next up, the twins. They aren't terribly exciting, but they make me happy.

They are in the living room with the main tree, which happens to be red, white, and silver with all sorts of snowflakes.

It's a terrible photo, but if you imagine what Martha Stewart's tree looks like, that's it. It's very much so perfect and lovely.

This one is far less perfect, but I love it for all of its randomness and chaos.

That is a new tree this year, though the ornaments are the heirloom/homemade/etc. ornaments that we've collected over the years. The stars of the show are the Hallmark motion ornaments because they actually move.

Another bit of chaos is the Barbie tree. Are it's lights working? Of course not. Did I contemplate just replacing the whole damn tree after seeing a similar one for $12? YES. It still may happen because I do not have the patience to find why the lights stopped.

ANYWAY. There are eight trees in this photo. The good news is that the lights work on all of them, except that I need to replace the batteries in the little ones across the bottom of the table. And, yes, the little trees count. Would you tell an old woman who lives with her six cats that a tiny tree with lights and ornaments "doesm't count" if that's what she put up every year? Of course not. They count.

The Nightmare Before Christmas tree does not photograph well at all, but it is a delightfully tacky silver and pink tinsel tree covered in the best ornaments ever.

And then there is the Sock Monkey tree.

And, yes, I said "Sock Monkey tree." It holds about 30 sock monkey ornaments.

It would have more if I could find more, but for now it's filled in with standard red and green ornaments.

There's also a Winnie the Pooh tree. I probably should have fixed the topper before I took the photo, but oh well.

It's covered in really old Classic Pooh ornaments. As in, they're older than both girls combined.

Next up, the Bubble tree. It's green tinsel with fairy ornaments and bubble lights, though the bubble lights are probably going to kick the bucket in the next year or two. They've earned the right to give up, though, becuase they were antiques when I bought them and that was easily 10 years ago.

For the record, it sucks that lights aren't this cool anymore. Nor are they fire hazards like these ones, but that's not the point.

Let's meander into my office, shall we? That's where the Toy Story tree resides.

It's in my office becasue 1) It's a great Zoom background and 2) Mila is constantly stealing the ornaments off of it. They are literal toys, so it makes sense, but I got tired of my tree being naked.

Speaking of Mila, she has two trees in her room. She has a little unicorn tree.

And then her regular tree. Both girls have their own trees. They get ornaments when we go on vacations and then for Christmas each year with things that they are into at the time.

For Mila this year, that means Baby Yoda, Buddy the Elf, Jojo Siwa, Monsters Inc, Stitch, and a few other things.

And here's Alexis' tree.

She is opposed to a lot of lights on her tree, so photos are terrible, but this year she mostly added Harry Potter and Friends ornaments. One of my favorite things is that she migrates the ornaments that she has "outgrown" to the back so she can claim to not care about them anymore. Dora is back there, for example, but Monica is front and center.

Also in Alexis' room is a boring teal and white tree. I need to figure out what theme to turn it into next year. For now, I'm mad at it because it had to get all new lights this year and I know the lights on it before were only 2 years old.

And the Harry Potter tree. Previously it was a white tree, but the lights were all dead and the tree itself was discolored, so I replaced it with a rose gold tinsel tree this year. Alexis commandeered it to her room and added candle lights, which means it's suuuuper cool in person.

The ornaments are mostly Funko Pop figures, by the way.

And now for the loft. There are two trees up there. The first one is the Boyd's Bears tree which I am SUPER mad at because its lights are busted, the ornaments are a mess, and basically I will deal with it before it goes back to storage, but I plan to give it the stinkeye every day until then.

And the snowman tree.

It's mostly blown glass snowmen. It falls in the category of trees "still in progress." If only after-Christmas clearance was still an actual thing. I guess I'm going to have to give in and buy ornaments at full price becasue I haven't added anything for a few years.

Which brings us to the last one. This is the gnome tree. It is completely new this year because somehow I found boxes and boxes of clearance at Big Lots last year in February for 90% off. I'm guessing someone forgot to put it all out, and they were kind enough to forget things that mostly matched. I added the garland and topper and that's about it.

I am planning to crochet some extra gnomes for it, which I'm only saying because if I type it, it will happen.

I hope.

So! There's your grand tour! I am missing some because lazy. I just plain didn't feel like taking photos of the bathroom tree (yes, bathroom tree), Pittsburgh sports, and fiber optic trees. They exist, though. I promise.

37. That's how many there are in total.

Happy 2022!