Friday we had soup weather here in New York, so I pulled out a recipe that I've made before: Baked Potato Soup. (Yesterday and today, though, have been beautiful. Yesterday we went to an afternoon Yankees game--my first time at Yankee stadium--and it was pouring rain all morning but had cleared up beautifully by afternoon. And the Yankees won 5-4 against Tampa. The hot dogs were exquisite, but the pretzels were basically bread with a lot of surface area.)

Anyway, Friday's soup: I baked 2 potatoes in the microwave since I just discarded the skins anyway, and mashed them up roughly with a fork. Then I scattered 1/3 cup flour in the bottom of my Dutch oven and slowly whisked in 3 cups milk (no heat). Then I turned on the burner to medium and cooked until the milk started to thicken (less than 10 minutes), stirring. Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, then add about 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, finely chopped scallion and diced ham. Top each bowl with more chopped scallion and shredded cheese. Pretty simple. (You won't find much complex cooking here.) It gets very thick, especially the leftovers, which end up the texture of twice-baked potato filling.

Todd has left for Minnesota, so I get to make whatever I want for dinner (I'd rather he were here, though). Tonight it's fresh cod cakes, then tomorrow I'm going to try spoonbread with ham (this Little Meals cookbook instructs you to bake the spoonbread in large mugs, which I thought was cute but can't do because I don't have any mugs that size).