This soup has been a part of our Christmas tradition for many years.  It's so easy to make and perfect for a Christmas Eve dinner at home because it gets your belly full to sleep and wait on Santa.

Baked Potato Soup
Serves 6 and can easily be halved.
Cook time varies from 20 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes depending on how the potatoes are prepped.  I prefer baking them but you can also microwave them.

Ingredients

• 4 large baking potatoes
• 1/2 stick of salted butter
• 1 Tablespoon of flour​
• 4 cups of whole milk
• 8 oz. bag of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 1/2 cups of sour cream
• Salt & Pepper to taste

​Directions

• Bake or microwave potatoes
  • ​To bake, wrap potatoes in foil and bake in 450° oven for 1 hour or until they feel soft when squeezed.
  • To microwave, pierce potatoes with a fork and wrap in plastic wrap.  Microwave for 5 minutes and then turn potatoes and microwave for another 5.  They are done if they are soft when squeezed.
• Once potatoes are cooled, peel and discard peel.  Roughly chop potatoes and set aside.
• In a heavy sauce pan or dutch oven, melt butter over medium high heat,
• Allow butter to just begin to brown before sprinkling flour over the butter.  
• Stir butter and flour mixture and add milk stirring constantly.
• Reduce heat and allow mixture to begin to thicken while stirring gently.  The flour and butter will create the thick base for the soup so be sure to stir well so you don't get lumps.
• Add in potatoes, cheese, sour cream, salt and pepper and gently stir.
• If soup is too thick add a small amount of milk.
• Taste soup and see if you need more salt at this point.

Tips

• Serve soup in a hollowed out bread bowl or roll.
• Set up a topping bar with small bowls of shredded cheese, chopped green onion, sour cream and bacon pieces.

​Love,

Hurricane season is here which means the weather went from 89 a few days ago to 65 today. That is basically winter weather for us!  With the cooler weather comes warmer meals at home!  I love soup weather so much that I've been known to cut the AC down so that it felt more Chili appropriate.  😬😂
Hands down my absolute favorite soup recipe is my tomato basil soup.  It is seriously the easiest thing to make, takes about 5-10 minutes total and tastes like it's from a lovely little bistro!
While this tomato basil soup is great alone, I must insist it be paired with at least 1/2 of the perfect buttery grilled cheese. Honestly it takes longer to make the grilled cheese than the soup but it's all worth it, I promise. 
This soup will keep for several days in the fridge.  I don't recommend freezing, you probably can, but there's a very slim chance any will be leftover.

Tomato Basil Soup 
Recipe serves 4  and can easily be doubled!

Ingredients

• 1 large can of whole tomatoes if you do not have a blender you can use crushed tomatoes (I strongly recommend san marzano style tomatoes)
• 1/4 cup of heavy cream
• 1 heaping Tablespoon of dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt
• A pinch of crushed red pepper to taste (a little goes a very long way)
• 2 Tablespoons of salted butter (optional)

Directions

• Add first 5 ingredients to blender and blend until smooth. 
  
• Transfer to a small pot on stove and bring to a simmer.
  
• Add butter to melt and continue to stir. The soup should be a shade of orange red.  Taste and see if you want to add more cream or spices etc. 
  
• Serve warm with small cuts of grilled cheese for dipping.

Love,