Bring on the Starch!

Everyone knows that on Hanukah, we Jews eat potato latkes.  Ok, maybe if you're not Jewish you have no idea what I'm talking about.  Google it.  Potatoes. Shredded. With onions. Eggs. Etc. FRIED.  Key is fried.  It's not Hanukah until you smell like a latke.  And since I've been there, done that on the first night of Hanukah this year, I'm all set smelling like a potato pancake.  Yet for some reason I'm still craving potatoes.  Obviously I just haven't had enough starch.  What?!

Really it's just because I love potatoes.  All forms. Mashed. Baked. Broiled. Scalloped.  Wait, wait, I'm getting hungry typing this so I better contain myself.  Which brings me to this blog post: potato soup.  As in I wanted more potato-y things this week and didn't feel like frying anything.  So I went to my favorite distraction, Pinterest of course and found myself staring at a potato soup recipe.  And since I don't really follow directions well (hence my baking skills are not quite top notch), I used it as inspiration and decided to make my own recipe based off of a few others I found. 

AND IT'S FREAKING AWESOME.

So awesome that I made lame facebook posts about said soup all day as it was cooking in the slow cooker.  And I promised the recipe if it came out good. Since I'm all about spreading the positivity, there's nothing more positive than YUMMY SOUP.  BRING IT ON!

Why just post the recipe on facebook as requested? Why not share the awesomeness with the world aka the 5 of you reading this?  So I present you my version of a recipe, which I expect you to all immediately start making this soup.  Especially since it's going to snow in a few days.  Really - the weather man said so. And that's the truth.

Amy's Not-So-Famous Slow Cooker Potato Soup

Ingredients:
(gather these up first!!)

• 1 bag of frozen hash browns.  I used the southern style ones.  Which means they come diced in pieces.  If you're not lazy like me, you could actually peel your own potatoes and dice them up in little pieces.  I just don't have that kind of energy people.
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup.  (I used low sodium/low fat)
• 2 cans of chicken broth. (again, low sodium, low fat.  It works out to about 24 oz of broth.  I bought one of those boxes of broth which was 32 oz and used most of it.  I'm a bad measurer.)
• 1 block of cream cheese. The standard size? I think it's 12 oz.  I used full fat.  It's pretty much the only fat in the soup.
• Pepper.  I used straight up from the pepper shaker.  Just shook a bunch in.  Use however much you want.  How's that for specific?
• Optional: bacon bits.  I heart bacon.  I know, I know, it's not very kosher of me.  I heart it anyway.  And in my opinion, good potato soup needs bacon bits.  Use as many as you want.  Again, so specific of me.

Directions:

• Place potatoes in slow cooker.  Poor all soups on top.  Add in pepper and bacon bits.  Mix it all together.  This is complicated, right?

(this is what it looked like.  all watery and non-yummy like.)

• KEEP THE CREAM CHEESE IN THE FRIDGE! You don't need it yet.
• Cook the potato/soup/bacon/pepper concoction on low for 6 hours.  I set my slow cooker on 8 hours so it would go longer for the next step.
• After 6 hours, get that cream cheese out of the fridge, open it up, take it out of that vacuum packed foil wrapper and plop it on top of the what now looks like soup.  Right in the middle.  You might want to stir the soup mixture first, and then plop the cream cheese in.
• Put the cover back on and let it cook for another 20-30 minutes.
• Take the cover off, the cream cheese will be all melty (I promise) and mix it all together.
• Cover back on, cook for another 10-20 mins and restir.
• Eat.  It's good.  I promise.

finished product.  non-watery and totally yummy-like.

See you next time for another episode of Amy's Kitchen! (maybe.)