Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Yeah, yeah, I know...I'm seriously lacking in posting recipes lately and I'm going to work harder to post more, but a lot of times I forget to take pictures when cooking.  Sue me.

For this soup, you'll need about 10 large potatoes, one cup of shredded cheddar cheese (half a bag), 6-9 slices of bacon, 1/2 a stick of butter, and about a cup of green onions.  Usually I chop the green onions myself, but the whole ones at the store just looked awful, so I had to get these stupid diced, pre-packaged ones.  Boo.

Step 1 - Melt half the butter.

Dice all the potatoes and set aside about 2-3 potatoes after dicing.

Put the remaining diced potatoes into a large bowl, season with sea salt and black pepper, then pour the butter over them and toss them until they are all coated.

Put your oven on broil and lay the potatoes on a pan or cookie sheet and slap them in the oven until they are golden brown on one side.  Flip them all over and let the other side get all golden-y.  Roasting them will help them hold together in the soup and will make the leftovers keep for several days (or freeze) without turning into a cream-of-potato-and-mush soup.

While those potatoes are roasting, take the 2-3 that you reserved and put them in a large stock pot with enough water to cover them by about an inch and boil them.  At this point you're thinking "why the fuck am I roasting AND boiling", right?  We'll get to that.

While those are boiling, fry the bacon up then chop it...Or tear it apart, whatever makes you giddy.

Once the potatoes are boiled to the falling-apart point, remove and drain them, reserving the liquid - we'll put that back later.

Mash the boiled potatoes up, then mix the liquid back in and put it back into the stock pot with the remaining butter.  What this does is creates a thick, creamy base for the rest of the ingredients to bathe in.  If you're uber lazy you could skip the boiling and just use water and enough instant mashed potato flakes to thicken it, but I'd consider that a crime against humanity.  You have been warned.

Toss in the roasted potatoes, onions, bacon, and cheese....Oh yeah.  Now things are looking good.  At this point they should also be smelling so divine you're ready to chew on your own shoe.

That's all there is to it.

Top it with a  bit of extra cheese and onions if you feel fancy.  The recipe is much easier than it sounds and this amount usually lasts us 4-5 days.

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WW