Baked Potato Soup in the Crock Pot

Baked potato soup is one of those delicious comfort foods, that can make any kind of a day so much better, with just one spoonful. Even more so, if you don't have to stand, mash, and cook for hours. I have a family of five, and tonight we had an extra house guest. I love making this soup, and in this recipe, I made a half of a crock full of soup. You can obviously cut down the ingredients if you have a smaller family.  Enjoy my take on Crock Pot Baked Potato Soup:

 

 

Here's what you need:
1 medium onion, diced
5-6 white potatoes, diced
1 8-12 oz package of turkey bacon
1 boxed carton of chicken broth
garlic powder (or fresh garlic, minced)
salt and pepper (about a tsp each..to taste)
1 cup heavy cream

Dice onions and place into crock pot.

Wash, peel, and dice potatoes and add to the slow cooker.

Add salt, pepper, garlic (or garlic powder).

Add the carton of chicken broth, cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or high for 3.

About 30 minutes before you're going to eat, lower the crock pot to "Keep Warm" if yours has that setting. Add about 1 cup of heavy cream. Use your handheld mixer to beat the soup slowly. Be careful, because it might splatter out if you're making a large quantity. Don't thoroughly blend, because you want to keep some lumps. It's not going to look pretty, but it tastes amazing!

Cook your turkey bacon until it's crispy. (Real bacon crisps quicker, but the picture above is turkey bacon!)

Serve with crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, and scallions.

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Slow Cooker Cranberry Pork Chops (Pork Loin)

I tweaked this recipe a little because I had a loin of pork instead of pork chops, but I've been in the mood for cranberries and ran into this recipe at MomOnDealz. It looked SO good, so I knew I had to make it!

Her recipe:
*4-5 boneless pork chops
*2 tablespoons butter
*2 tablespoons brown sugar
*1 tablespoon corn starch
*1/2 cup of dried cranberries (original called for these plus a Granny Smith apple. I didn’t have one so there was no apple in mine)
*1 cup cranberry juice (original was apple juice)
*1 teaspoon of pepper (original also called for salt, I don’t use salt in anything)
*1 tablespoon onion chopped (original called for whole onion, I don’t like onions so I cut it down in portion)
I put everything in the crockpot and cooked it on high for 4 hours.

Mine:

• One loin of pork (approx 2 lbs)
• 2 Tbs butter
• 1 small onion
• 2 Tbs Brown Sugar
• 3/4 cup of dried cranberries
• 1 cup cranberry juice
• Salt and Pepper

It looked like this after I threw it all into the slow cooker:

I used a liner, (because this preggo mama is feeling like her hips are going to explode today), so I can have an easy and quick clean-up. I'm cooking it on high for about 4 hours. I may lower it.. Depending on how hungry the troops are in an hour or so. I'm planning on serving this yummy smelling meal with stuffing and corn; thanksgiving-with-a-twist style.

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Oh-my-gosh! Totally yummy!!! I will be making this again sometime soon, but next time I will add more cranberry juice and a granny smith apple. I will also put the cranberries in last, because the ones that were on the top tasted really yummy, and the ones in the "gravy" were ok, but I really preferred the ones on top. 

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