Baked Potatoes (p. 297) and Baked Potato Soup (p. 130)

First off, I posted two blogs together--so make sure you read them both!


I needed to use my chicken stock before it went bad (I have a tiny tiny freezer and no room for stock) so I went to my favorite section of TJOC--Stocks and Soups. I decided that Baked Potato Soup (p. 130) sounded great! The first step of the recipe? Obviously, making Baked Potatoes (p. 297). I even bought Russet's for the baking, passing by my beloved Yukon Golds.

Scrub the potatoes, poke them with a fork, and throw them in the oven. No problem!






What's that? No pan??? Fine.





Easy! I needed five cups of potatoes for the soup and figured that five potatoes would take care of it. So why are there eight potatoes (one potato, two potato, three potato, four?) in the picture? LEFTOVERS of course! I love baked potatoes. Love them!





The finished product! Delicious and potato-y.


The potatoes then had to be stripped nude and cubed.



The first soup step is to heat up some butter and add an onion. I think my heat was too high because my butter (and onion) browned unattractively. Oh well! It still smelled good.





The potatoes and a LOT of chicken stock (all of my stores!) were added.




It barely has to simmer and heavy cream (my favorite!) and sour cream are then stirred in. This concoction is then heated through (but not allowed to boil!).






Salt and pepper are added! And then bacon (king of foods!) and cheese is sprinkled on the top. Perfection. Absolute, delicious, artery-clogging perfection!




Watch out though...this recipe makes a TON of soup. Josh and I have eaten several servings already but...there is still a TON left! Even so, it heats up well.


My mother has a funny baked potato soup story. One of her co-workers was talking about how tasty and easy potato soup was on a cold, Iowa day and mom thought it sounded good. So she went home, looked up a recipe (very likely in TJOC), baked potatoes, chopped, sauteed, and stirred. When she finally finished, she thought the soup was good but not easy like her co-worker had said. Well, the co-worker was talking about POTATO soup not BAKED POTATO soup. The co-worker just threw some potatoes in milk and called it soup! Not the same thing :)