ReviewMyFood: Crock Pot Potato Soup (Pinterest)

My Daughter is allergic to dairy and corn.
I Love to make soup.
Those two statements do not mix well.

When THIS recipe for Potato Soup from MamaLovesFood showed up on my Pinterest feed, two things piqued my curiosity: CROCK POT and NO HEAVY CREAM. YAY! there is 8 ounces of cream cheese in this soup. but it makes a large crock pot FULL of soup, so it works out to be very little dairy.

I have made it twice. A couple things stand out in my mind about it, both positive and negative.

Negatives first, because that's how I roll:
Dicing 5 lbs of potatoes is NOT FUN. at ALLLLLLLLL. boo. It takes a while. I like crock pot cooking to be quick, and easy. This is easy, but kinda tedious. I had used 4 potatoes from my 5lb for my Fish and Potato Casserole so I substituted those missing potatoes with some hashbrowns I had in the freezer. I figured 1 potato would be 1 cup equivalent shredded potato, so I used 4 cups of hashbrowns. Don't quote me on those measurements. =)

Mincing 10 cloves of garlic. Really? Yummy, but annoying! A garlic press is a must. Please don't use garlic from a jar. Dried minces garlic is better than garlic in a jar. It can be found at any bulk food store.

I want an Immersion Blender. Evidently, I am a messy ladle-er. If you do not have an immersion blender you must ladle 1/2 or more of this soup into your food processor or blender to blend with the cream cheese and make the soup creamy so you have more than just chunks of potatoes and onions in broth. so yeah... soup everywhere. Perhaps you are a clean ladle-er and you will not have this problem. =)

Positives:
well, after you dice a truckload of potatoes and get everything going, you walk away for 6 to 8 hours, YAY!

Things I did differently (mostly out of laziness):
It was early morning when I put this recipe together, I was not in a mincing garlic mood, so I had some dried minced garlic in the pantry. I just sprinkled a bunch of it over the top.
 My Sister in Law and her Husband were coming for dinner. She is a Vegetarian. At first, before I remembered her Vegetarian-ness, I was going to substitute the chicken broth with 8 of these.

One chicken boullion cube makes one cup of chicken broth. As I was peeling the paper off the first cube, it struck me, "What am I doing!". So I re-wrapped it and stuck this back in the pantry. Thankfully I had vegetable broth frozen from a month ago when I had the urge to make some. I thawed it quickly, in the freezer bag, in a sink full of hot water and poured it over the onions, potatoes, garlic and seasoning.

I strongly believe that anybody can make good food. Think about what flavors complement each other and you can change up any recipe you have!


This recipe makes a LOT of soup, feel free to halve it. It makes enough to feed 12 people, easily.

You don't need many ingredients, just:
5lbs of Potatoes,
1 large Onion,
1 Tbsp Seasoned Salt,
10 cloves of Garlic, minced.
8 cups, (64 ounces) of Chicken Broth, or Vegetable Broth, if you are Vegetarian.
and 8 ounces of Cream Cheese.
Then some shredded Cheddar, chopped Bacon, or Chives and whatever else you like to top your soup with.

Directions:
Wash your potatoes and dice into 1 inch (or so) cubes. Do not peel the potatoes. Put diced potatoes in your large crock pot.
Dice your onion. (HERE is an AWESOME tutorial on how to dice an onion. It just might change your life.) Add it to the potatoes.
Sprinkle your 1Tbsp seasoned salt over top.
Pour 8 cups of chicken broth, (or vegetable broth) over top.

Cook on High for 6 hours or Low for between 8 and 10 hours. Mine was done in 8 hours, and looked like this.

Blend Half or a bit more of the mixture in your food processor, or with your immersion blender with the cream cheese. Mix soup all together and serve when you're ready!

This soup freezes well. It also makes a great, "Hey, you just had a baby!" meal, or a meal for someone who has lost a loved one.

This is delicious. Make it my way or MamaLovesFood's way. A big "Thank You!" to the person who first posted this on Pinterest. It may not be as easy as we like slow cooker recipe's to be, but it is for sure worth making for your family and friends.

Thanks! FeedMyFood!

Momma.

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ReviewMyFood- Pepperoni Cheese Stick Crescents

Have you seen the Pepperoni Crescent Rolls floating around Pinterest? Of course you have. there are a Bazillion different pins of them. Evidenced Below:

With entirely too many recipes to look at, I narrowed down the type of recipe to try. the one using cheese sticks. I thought it would be cheesier and gooey-er than making them with shredded cheese.

Here we go.

String Cheese Sticks, about 1 cup plus a bit of chopped pepperoni, 1 tube of crescents and Italian Seasoning.

~First, when I was glancing through other blogger's "recipes", I didn't notice that they only used 1/2 a cheese stick per crescent roll. oooops! All the cheesier for my belly though, so no regrets.
~Second, for some reason, a while ago I thought it would be a good idea to buy a pepperoni LOG instead of slices of pepperoni in a little bag. BAD CHOICE. buy sliced pepperoni. It's just easier.

So, ya know... I just assembled them, like this:

You could only use 1/2 a cheese stick if you like, also you could used slices of pepperoni. I would use 4 or 5, wrapped around the cheese stick.

You should not need to spray your cookie sheet. Crescent Rolls are by nature, oily.
but you may lightly spray with cooking spray oil if you have fears of food sticking. My Mother is of that type of person.

I meant to sprinkle the Italian Seasoning inside the crescent before rolling it up. I forgot. So, onto the top of them goes the seasoning!

Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes and they will be gooey and baked cheesy and smell like pizza.

I was looking forward to eating one, so first I took the above crooked photo.


And then I took the below blurry photo.

And then I ate one (or 2) and saved the rest for the kids afternoon snack.

My Daughter should not eat things like this because she is allergic to dairy. We sometimes splurge. We always pay for it though. With intestinal distress or with bad dreams and disrupted sleep. Its hard to deprive a 3 year old of yumminess. She IS normally following a dairy free/corn free diet.

When I make these for snack again, I might actually make them the same way. With a full cheese stick and the chopped pepperoni. I would probably just chop up pepperoni slices though, instead of buying another log.

They are good. In no way healthful, but a fun snack for your kids. I wouldn't make them as a meal. As will all things "dough in a tube" its pretty hard to mess up. This is something that would be good "Game Day" finger food. Easy and most people have the ingredients laying around already.

Momma


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