Cheesy Potato Soup

As you could probably tell from previous posts I am SO ready for fall. I have actually already decorated my house and I am transitioning into my fall cooking. Tonight felt like a soup night. What I really wanted was a nice rich potato soup. I searched online and found about a million recipes, of course none of them seemed to have all of the elements I was looking for. So I decided to just wing it. Here is what I came up with, I think it was pretty darn good.

Cheesy Potato Soup
Recipe courtesy of me :)

5-6 baking potatoes, peeled and cut into bite size pieces
2 cloves of garlic
1 small-medium onion, chopped
1 carrot, shredded
1 big or 2 small celery stalks, cut into tiny pieces
1/2 stick butter
32 oz HOT reduced sodium chicken broth
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
1/4 cup of flour, divided
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1-2 tsp dry rubbed sage
1-2 tsp dry parsley flakes

Start by boiling potatoes with one clove of garlic, roughly chopped. While the potatoes are cooking start preparing your veggies. In a big stock pot melt the butter. Then add the onions and one clove of chopped garlic to the butter and saute for 1 minute. Add the carrots and celery and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the onions are translucent and celery tender. Season the veggies with salt, pepper, sage, and parsley. Add 1/8 cup of flour and create a paste. At this point the potatoes should be finished (about ten minutes) drain them and set aside. To the paste in the stock pot add the hot chicken broth. Next stir together 2 cups of milk and 1/8 cup of flour until no more flour chunks remain. Add the milk slowly to the stock pot and return to a simmer. After a few minutes add half of the drained potatoes. The other half of the potatoes should be lightly mashed then added to the pot. Finally add the cheese. Let the cheese melt and all of the ingredients simmer together for about 15 minutes then serve!

*I topped my soup with some crumbled bacon.