Two things on a winter day

• YakTrax are terrific lightweight easy traction-givers. Wearing them means you never have to worry whether that shiny patch ahead of you is water or black ice.
• Does anyone have a nice thick potato soup, something like the one you get at Panera? Nb. it should be a recipe will not be harmed by omitting onions and garlic.

Baked Potato Soup, Part 1a

Thanks for the links to recipes, all. I ended up going with something from Cooks.com, but after comparing it to your links and other recipes to get a feel for what could be done with the concept.

I think, after making the linked recipe, that I will probably make the following changes unless someone can tell me why not:

• Boil rather than bake the potatoes. While I could peel the fresh-baked potatoes (yay, silicone oven mitts), I think that the ~1cm layer under the skin should really be discarded too, as it's different in texture and flavor; but trying to get rid of that resulted in the potato crumbling in my hand, which was annoying.
• Reduce the amount of chicken stock, as its flavor was still coming through, which is not what I want in a potato soup. Currently it's 4 cups stock to 2 cups milk; I'm not sure how far to push those proportions, though I see some recipes out there that don't use stock at all.
• Maybe some parsley? Bay leaf? I don't like celery and I'm not sure I want carrots or broccoli, but I think it needs something else.

Also, though this isn't a change to the recipe, next time I will mash some of the potatoes to thicken the soup, and get really really lean bacon and cook it just before the point of burning, to get it suitably crunchy.

Oh, and congratulate me: I successfully (as far as I can tell) made a roux!