Skinny Baked Potato Soup

I took a little break from blogging to refresh and recharge my batteries and now...

I'm BACK!

I've been trying to cook lighter meals lately with the holidays right around the corner.

I have a hard time finding recipes that are both healthy and comforting.

The Skinny Taste Baked Potato Soup recipe is just plain awesome. It's so simple and delicious that I plan on making more today to freeze for later.

The best part about this recipe is that it allowed me to sneak CAULIFLOWER into my husband's meal without him knowing. When he ate and enjoyed the soup, I almost died. Small victories! 

I changed the recipe a slight bit so this is what I used:

3 Russet Potatoes

1 small head of Cauliflower

1 1/2 cups Low-Sodium Chicken Broth

1 1/2 cups of Reduced-fat Milk

Salt

Pepper

Butter

1/2 cup Light Sour Cream

Reduced-fat Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Chopped Chives

Turkey Bacon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and dry the potatoes. Poke holes into each spud with a fork. Bake for one hour.

2. In the meantime, wash the cauliflower and steam it. I put a small amount of water into a pot. Brought it to a boil. Added the cauliflower and salt and covered it. Cook until tender. 

3. Once the potatoes are cooked through, let them cool and then peel them. Or don't and burn your fingers like I always do.

4. Add the potatoes, steamed cauliflower, chicken broth, and milk to a pot. Bring to a boil.

While the mixture was boiling, I used a large fork to break up and mash the potatoes and cauliflower.

This is what it looked like after boiling and mashing for a few minutes.

For the next step you will need an immersion blender, regular blender, or food processor.

5. I opted for my food processor. An immersion blender would be ideal but I don't have one. So I used my ladle to spoon the mixture directly into my food processor. I had to do half of the "soup" at a time. Got kind of messy. 

This is what it looked like after blending more a few minutes, too much like mashed potatoes. So I added a splash of chicken broth and milk. The flavor wasn't exactly "hopping" so I added butter too :)

Once you have pureed or blended the soup to your liking, transfer back to a pot on the stove.

6. At this point the puree didn't have a ton of flavor so I added more butter (naturally), salt, and pepper.

Then I added the sour cream, and chives and cooked it on low until Cam got home about 15 minutes.

I got bored while waiting on him so I decided to look up how to make a cheese crisp.

You know what I learned?

A cute, dainty little cheese crisp is the EXACT same thing that Taylor Strickland's mom Pat used to make for my chubby childhood self like every day. 

Place parchment paper on a baking sheet.

Make teaspoons sides mounds out of shredded cheese.

Bake at 350 for 5-7 minutes.

Once the edges are browned, take the baking sheet out of the oven and slide the parchment paper and cheese crisps onto a cold surface. My granite counter tops worked perfectly.

and Voila! Perfect cheese crisp! 

I finished the soup off by adding fried Turkey Bacon bits, sprinkled some cheese and chives, added a dollop of sour cream, and dunked my crisp into the soup. 

This soup was uh-mazing. Like seriously. So good. Cam was going to town on his bowl of soup when he looked over and saw my grin. Cauliflower surprise!

Muahahaha 

Enjoy!