Happy New Year!

Happy new year! I hope you all enjoyed ringing in the new year with family and friends! The hubs and I enjoyed an evening with friends...chatting and eating it up! There was sooo much good food! Speaking of food I wanted to share a recipe with all of you! First, let me tell you why I'm sharing this one. I've been thinking of how I can make 2013 a great year and part of that is making food! Another part is blogging more. I know...2012 was not a good blogging year, but I plan on making 2013 different!
  Have you heard of people using their crockpot 365 days a year? I'm going to attempt this! No, I don't plan on being perfect with it, but I'm sure going to give it a try! So for today...my crockpot was put to use by a nice recipe found on Pinterest! It's cold here and soup always comes to mind when it's cold. Being that I was oncall today and called in before I could do anything, my husband takes a large amount of credit for today's crockpot dish. :) I love that he helps me out!
   Enjoy this Slow cooker potato soup recipe...we did!

Slow Cooker Potato Soup
(Source:Penzey's Slow Cooker Potato Soup)
*serves 10-15*
3.5-4 lbs red potatoes, chopped into chunks
3/4 tsp minced garlic or 3 cloves garlic minced (we love garlic and double this)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 heaping Tbsp chicken soup base
8 cups water
16 oz. cream cheese
* this was not part of the original recipe, but we added 2 Tbsp butter and 1/4 cup sour cream, and seasoned salt to taste...just because it tasted a bit bland*

Optional additions
-crumbled bacon
-diced green onions
-shredded cheese

Put first 6 ingredients in a crockpot. Place the lid on and cook for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low. About 30 minutes before soup is to be eaten, cut up the cream cheese into chunks and add to crockpot. Replace lid and cook another 20 minutes, stirring often to mix in cream cheese. Cook desired amount of bacon and chop it up. When soup is finished, put soup into bowls, and garnish with toppings as desired. We prefer creamy potato soup to chunky so I just put the soup in the blender and stirred it up. This is where we tasted it and then deciding it was a bit bland for us added the sour cream, butter, and seasoned salt. And...yes, the optional additions are optional, but mandatory for us. :)

~enjoy
Melissa~