Broccoli Cheese Potato Soup

My family has the flu. My dad is running a temperature of 101 and my mom thought she was for sure getting sick last night. That left me to make dinner. And after grocery shopping and packing boxes all day yesterday (I'm moving to the cheaper apartment!), I was too pooped to make anything time consuming.

So I cheated.

This soup came from a bag — sort of. I started with potato soup mix. Followed the package's directions for the amount of liquid, but used 1/2 chicken broth and 1/2 water. When it came to a boil, I whisked in a block of shredded sharp cheddar cheese until melted, and then whisked in the soup mix as directed. Then, I added about a head of fresh broccoli florets chopped small.

Then, I let it simmer for 15 minutes like the package says, stirring often. I didn't stir often this time, as evident from the brown-ish chunks of burnt soup. Still tasted OK.

My only complaint about using a soup mix is that the potatoes are clearly reconstituted dried potato chunks. Otherwise, I guess you'd never know I didn't make this from scratch. I can't claim credit for this idea though, the back of the bag suggests adding cheese and broccoli.

Never said I was a genius in the kitchen. :)

I don't have nutritional information for this because I pitched the bag before I thought to write down the number of servings per bag. I found the nutritional information per serving, though, and I would say it serves 6 to 8 depending on what size of bowl of soup you want. I was using regular sharp cheddar because that's what was in my fridge, but you can cut calories with low fat sharp cheddar. But definitely use a sharp cheddar so the flavor doesn't get too lost in with the potatoes.