Ahh, Marie Calendar's pies! and spinach salad with the warm dressing.

I have tried to make good potato soup and fail each time. I must not put something in that my mother did because it's never really Good.

You need to jazz it up or it is too bland. I love potato soup, especially the recipe my mother made, but I have never made potato leek soup. A first.

Imhappy, If your mother made it in the Midwest, I'd bet there was a lot of unseen cured pork (bacon, ham, salt pork, etc., cooked down). Which brings along with it the fat (carries flavor), the salt (people rarely put sufficient salt in soup because it seems like so much so they use salt pork or bullion cubes or whatnot), and the umami. I read somewhere that bacon has five kinds of umami.

If that's not the answer, some things to try are: bullion cubes or soup base (start gently or you may over salt), roasting the heck out of the potatoes -- cut in half, oil lightly, turn halfway through. 350-375° F. The roasting brings out some natural umami along with everything else; white pepper -- just be careful not to scorch it or it'll turn bitter; lots of celery, or even better a celery root broken down with the potatoes; leeks or onions -- more than you'd think.

I'm making it right now!! Got the recipe from my BIL, who just happens to be the best cook I know. (Lucky sister) I do add a pound of browned burger to mine....

If anyone wants the recipe, let me know.

My mother used a recipe from the cookbook she used, which was The Settlement Cookbook: The Way to a Man's Heart. It was different in that the milk is put in a double boiler with lots of thinly sliced onions for the milk to absorb the onion flavor. Then you strain out the onions and proceed to potato soup making with the flavored milk.

Potato leek soup doesn't have a strong flavor that hits you like flashing neon lights. It's mild and subtle. It strikes me as similar to clam chowder without the clams.

It's typically made with some herbs, like tarragon or thyme. Personally, I'd never put a hot pepper flavor into it. And I wonder if part of the problem is the use of old potatoes.

Clam chowder without the clams is potato soup!

There are so many versions of potato soup, but I think of a potato-leek soup as being very plain and delicate, without meat. Mine has potatoes, leeks, celery, chicken stock, fresh thyme and parsley, butter, cream, salt and white pepper. I usually smooth it with my immersion blender.

Other versions will be built upon a hambone simmered in chicken stock, carrots, celery, onions, chopped ham, herbs and spices. Sometimes with cream but oftentimes not. It's very robust, chunky, a meal in a bowl.

I don't disagree, Snidely, but bland I am avoiding and trying to develop depth of flavor, so a pinch of cayenne is nice.

Try some tarragon or thyme, but not both. Maybe also a bay leaf.

Try Emeril Lagasse's recipe! but I don't puree it.

Emeril Lagasse's Potato & Leek Soup

YUM!

I second the bacon fat idea. I brown my onions in that at the beginning of making the soup.