Garlic Soup? Really!

This is the bag of garlic that I harvested earlier this week and wasn't sure what to do with it.  Apparently, it is difficult to preserve garlic at home, there are lots of ways to do it, but none that sounded "easy" enough to me for now, so I decided to ask friends for ideas/recipes.

My friend, J, shared this recipe, stating that she hasn't tried it yet, but it looks good:

Roasted Garlic-Potato Soup  from Cooking Light, May 1995.

Yield 7 1 cup servings

• 5 whole garlic heads  (I used about 8, because the ones from the garden were small)
• 2 bacon slices, diced (I used three and cooked them most of the way in the microwave
• 1 cup diced onion (I used a leek we had in the refrigerator)
• 1 cup diced carrot
• 2 garlic cloves, minced  (again, I used about four cloves because they were pretty small)
• 6 cups diced baking potato (about 2 pounds, I used red potatoes, left the skin on, cut out the eyes)
• 4 cups low-salt chicken broth (four bouillon cubes and 4 cups water)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (left out, because the bouillon has some in it, but we seasoned a little at the table)
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper (left out, because the bouillon has some in it, but we seasoned a little at the table)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup 2% low-fat milk (I used cream, again, because we had some to use up)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (We only had dried...it was fine)

Remove white papery skin from each garlic head (do not peel or separate cloves). 

Wrap each head separately in aluminum foil. Bake at 350° for 1 hour; let cool for 10 minutes. 

(I let it cool about 20 minutes, while doing the rest of the recipe, so I could handle it)

Separate cloves, and squeeze to extract 1/4 cup of garlic pulp; discard the skins.

While the garlic is baking, do the rest of this:

Cook bacon in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until crisp. 

Add onion, carrot, and minced garlic, and sauté 5 minutes. 

Add potato, broth, salt, pepper, and bay leaf; bring to a boil. 

Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until potato is tender; remove bay leaf.

Combine garlic pulp and 2 cups potato mixture in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. 

Return purée to pan; stir in milk, and cook over low heat until thoroughly heated. 

Remove from heat, and stir in chopped parsley.

The finished product--yummy veggies (and bacon...)

Although we loved this soup, it was kind of time intensive--lots of veggies to peel and lots of steps.

I think it will be good though if I make it in bigger batches and freeze it or prepare the parts and freeze them...

The seal of approval from The Boy..