Potato soup

As a mom with two kids who have opposite opinions on everything I am a big fan of meals that allow everyone to add what they like. The base of this meal is a potato soup, and everything else is optional and served in separate bowls. I even recommend blending half the soup and serving it as two separate soups because my son wants chuncky potato soup and my daughter wants creamy potato soup...of course. When you are finished cooking each part I recommend putting them into idividual serving dishes and into a warm oven (put it on your ovens lowest possible temp) to keep them warm until everything is ready.

Makes: 4 servings

Preparation time: 10m
Cooking time: 40m
Total time: 50m

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
64 ounces vegetable stock
16 ounces beef bone broth
2 russet potatoes; washed and chopped
3-4 yellow potatoes; washed and chopped
1 bunch of curly kale; washed and chopped
Optional: corn, peas, shredded cheese, hot sauce

Equipment: large saucepan, small saucepan, blender

Instructions:

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high. Then brown the beef.
Remove the beef from a pan to a bowl, cover and keep warm.
Pour the vegetable stock and bone broth into the saucepan. Bring to a boil.
Remove 1 cup of vegetable stock and put it in the small saucepan with the chopped kale. Cook the kale for a couple of minutes until it is soft. Remove the kale to a separate bowl, cover and keep warm. Then strain the stock into the large saucepan.
Put all of the potatoes into the boiling stock.
Boil for 20 minutes then turn the heat down to medium or low until you are ready to serve everything.
Just before serving place half of the potato soup in a blender and blend until smooth. Serve the soup in 2 separate containers so that people can pick either chunky or smooth, or chose to mix them. Serve with any other items your family likes that would be good in soup. We chose corn, peas, shredded cheese, and hot sauce. Each person can add what they want to build their own meal.