Pressure Cooker Chunky Potato and Cheese Soup

Lately, I have been in a soup frame of mind.  This doesn't sit too well with the girls as they don't care for soup.  They will eat it, after they have expressed their displeasure and requested they be served waffles in lieu of the soup.  Instead, I remind them that I am the Mommy and they are the pesky little things that enjoy messing with my mind and they will eat the soup so there is a fighting chance they will get all of their vitamins!

The soup frame of mind also lends itself well to two of my favorite pieces of kitchen equipment: 
1.  My Slow Cooker
2.  My Pressure Cooker
Both make meal planning sooooo much easier.  Dump and Done! 

Both of my two favorite kitchen toys also have alarms - as I forget EVERYTHING, these alarms are great.  Then again, I have two growing kiddos.  I don't need an alarm.  It seems we live in the kitchen as they are always STARVING to DEATH (no melodrama here!).

This past week, I tried out a new recipe I had pinned to my Under Pressure! Pinterest Recipe Board.  I wanted something fast as well as something "soup" and something that could go sans meat since I didn't want to dig and unearth some of what is left of the 1/2 cow we'd purchased in the fall.  And, I just didn't want to bother thawing the meat and cooking it.   

Chunky Potato and Cheese Soup

YUP!  Cheesey Goodness Comfort Food!

If you pop on over to the site where the actual recipe is located, you'll see that it called for bacon.  Meh, we omitted this as, again, I was not in a meat of any type sort of mind.

This recipe was a big hit here!  The girls ate it - and Miss Mia actually went back for seconds.  My parents enjoyed it as well.  Oh!  and do NOT omit the Red Pepper Flakes.  They make the soup!  They are not enough to make the soup painfully hot, just a little "hiya!" as you go about eating this delicious and comforting soup!  If my Mom can eat it, anyone can eat it!

As usual, there were some additional changes to the recipe.
1.  No bacon (next time, I will probably add as we do love bacon here)
2.  I just dumped the potatoes in.  I didn't have a steamer basket and one of our family recipes of potato soup uses mashed potatoes, so smooshed potatoes are a "comfort" food for us.
3.  I used a full onion. 

Some thoughts as to the next time I make this:
1.  add diced carrots - again, family recipe.   potato soup always had tiny piece of carrots
2.  add chopped celery - again, family recipe.
3.  sub out some of the potatoes for chopped and peeled radishes (seriously, did you know this trick????  no one knows the difference!)
4.  sub out some/all of the potatoes for cauliflower (what?  this makes is Cauliflower and Cheese Soup????)

And remember - These raw potatoes need no cooking, just chop and dump in the Pressure Cooker!  You will have your meal, prep to table, within an hour (I am not making any "in just a few minutes" promises.  I have two kids.  Emergencies only happen when I am making one of those "fun and faboulous meals in 30 minutes.  But, even with the emergencies, this Comforting Potato and Cheese Soup was on the table here within an hour!