My parents came over to visit. I served them potato soup.
I peeled and diced 8 potatoes, 3 onions, a parsnip, 3 cloves of garlic and a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger.
Put all of it in a pot with 3 table spoons of sunflower oil, and let it braise till the veggies browned a bit.
Then I deglazed it with 200g of crème fraîche, 4 tea spoons of vegetable broth powder, and boiling water till it was all covered.
Added copious amounts of freshly-ground black pepper, nutmeg, turmeric, and something a Moroccan street trader sold to my sister-in-law as "lazy wives' spice" ("you won't need anything else to make your husband happy").
When the potatoes were boiled soft, I blended the soup to a creamy consistency and served it with a dash of Sriracha sauce.
Leeks would work well, too.
But spices are key.
You really want a variety of hot, savoury, earthy and sweet flavors in there.
Cause the root veggies are kind of bland by themselves.
My wife makes the best potato soup. She found some recipe for "loaded potato soup" that called for basically all the same stuff you'd put in a good loaded potato and then added her own spin to it.
I offered a bowl to my neighbor and he declined with a weird look, like "why would you ever offer potato soup to somebody?"
I brought him a small bowl anyway. Potato soup topped with sour cream, crispy bacon, and green onions. He said it was the best soup he'd ever had, and he didn't realize potato soup could taste like that.