Crockpot Baked Potato Soup

Today is Friday!
Finally!
Anyone else feel like this week has dragged on?
I am so glad that the weekend is here
and about sharing this recipe for Friday's Fabulous Foods.

I wanted to prepare this ahead of time as much as possible.
See, I'm not a morning person.  
I wake up.  I need 10-15 minutes of silence before anyone talks to me.
My husband has learned this very well!!
Anyway, I wanted to get this ready so all I had to do was throw it in the crockpot.

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs russet potatoes, washed but not peeled, diced into cubes
• 1 medium/large yellow onion, diced
• 10 cloves garlic, minced
• 64 oz chicken broth/stock
• 16 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 tbsp season salt
• optional garnishes:  green onion, bacon bits, cheese

Directions:

• Last night, I went ahead and chopped my potatoes and onion.  I was skeptical of cutting up my potatoes because I thought they might not be very good in the morning.  So I got on my trusty google and googled it.  Lots of responses just said to keep them in water.  Perfect.

• 5 pounds is a lot of potato!  So I split them into two different bowls so that they could be completely covered in water and they wouldn't turn brown.

• This morning, all I had to do is drain the potatoes and dump them into the crockpot.  Then I added the chopped onion, seasoning, garlic, and chicken stock.  I have a ton of seasonings, and I need to get rid use them up.  So instead of using real garlic, I used garlic salt (I also have garlic powder in the cabinet).  I googled the substitution and it came out to be 1 clove of garlic is equal to 1/2 tsp of garlic salt.

• Then I put the lid on the crockpot and turned it on.  You can either cook on high for 6 hours or cook on low for 10 hours.  Since I work all day, I put mine on low.  {I have a 7 quart crockpot and it was FULL!}

• If you are home during this, you can set the cream cheese out to soften.  If not, you can nuke it in the micro for a few seconds, like I did. :]
• Add the cream cheese and puree soup with an immersion blender until the cream cheese is incorporated and about half the soup is blended.
• If you don't have an immersion blender {like me!}, you can blend the soup and the cream cheese in an upright blender, then reincorporate with the rest.

{as Tyler said, "It's soup in a blender!"}

• Stir well, and top with you choice of garnishes.

Well, not too bad!  It's pretty simple, really.  I should mention that this is more of a "mashed potato soup," but it's fine to leave potato chunks in the soup, too.  

**If I were to make this again, I think I would add less garlic. I'm not a huge garlic person to begin with.  But if you like garlic, then you will love this recipe.

**Also, this recipe makes a LOT!!!!!  It would be great if you're having a get together with some friends!

Servings:  approx. 15 {I'm totally guessing...it's a LOT}

Weight Watchers Points Plus:  6 per serving

224 calories

35 g carbs

6 g fat

8 g protein

5 g fiber

Happy cooking, friends!
Have a blessed weekend!

Linking up for Crocktober!!