Saturday, December 10, 2011

Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup

Yes folks, it was slow cooker week in the Lucas Casa! Here is another goodie. I am not really known to go for the baked potato soup at a restaurant but the weather has been cold and dreary lately so I thought I would give this one a try and I am really glad that I did! I found this recipe online and apparently it is similar to the Panera Bread baked potato soup. Anyway...the hardest part of this recipe was pealing 5 pounds of potatoes, no fun, but didn't really take that long. I also got to use my immersion blender for the first time, what a fun and efficient little gadget that is! It only took 7 hours in my slow cooker for the potatoes to get soft and I used low fat cream cheese which worked just fine. I garnished with crispy bacon, green onions and shredded cheddar cheese, yum!

The Ingredients.

--5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced in 1 to 2-inch chunks
--1 small onion, diced
--4 cloves garlic, minced
--1 teaspoon seasoned salt
--1/2 teaspoon black pepper
--1/2 teaspoon red pepper
--2 quarts chicken broth
--2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, to add at the end
--crumbled bacon and green onion or chives as garnish, cheddar cheese (optional)

The Directions.

Use a 6 quart or larger slow cooker. Peel and dice the potatoes, and put them into the stoneware. Add onion and garlic. Sprinkle in the seasonings, and pour in the broth. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4. The potatoes should be fork-tender. You can use a potato masher to mash the potatoes in the soup, or a hand-held immersible blender. I suppose you can also leave the potatoes in chunks, if you really wanted, but I wanted a smooth soup.

After smashing the potatoes, crumble in both packages of cream cheese, and put the lid back on. Cook on high for about 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is completely dissolved. Stir a few times during the 30 minutes.

Garnish with crumbled bacon, green onion or chives, and shredded cheddar cheese.

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