Best Potato Soup Ever & Apple Crisp

I can't believe that November is half way over! It seems like time is moving so fast these days. The other day I went to my first Parent Teacher Conference for my kindergartener. I can't believe that I'm old enough to be going to those. This was the first of many in the years to come. It went well. My oldest is a ball full of energy and seems to struggle a little with holding still and focusing for long periods of time. His teacher brought this up but she also said that he is a great friend. I'm thankful for that. He's a good kid. On to the food. I made this AMAZING Baked Potato Soup on Sunday night. It was absolutely fabulous. I called my friend to thank her for the recipe even before we sat down to eat it. A big thanks to Heather from Cooking Divas for this awesome recipe. We also had some homemade french bread that I posted a couple weeks ago. (Thanks again to Laura at Real Mom Kitchen for that great recipe). They were perfect together. Thanks for the wonderful recipes! I know that you'll all love this one!

Best Baked Potato Soup Ever
1-2 lbs. Bacon
2/3 cups butter
2/3 cups flour
5 cups milk
2 cups chicken broth
4-8 potatoes-baked, peeled and cubed (You could cube half and mash the other half)
4 green onions--chopped
1/4 regular onion-chopped
1 garlic clove-minced (optional--but very good)
1 1/4 cup shredded chedder cheese (grate some extra for the garnish)
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper

Cook bacon, melt butter, add onions and garlic, saute. Add flour. Stir milk and chicken broth together and add to mixture--wisk until thick and almost to boil. Put in potatoes--wisk until boiling. Reduce heat, add sour cream, salt, and pepper. Finally, add cheese and bacon.

I was asked to help prepare a dinner for the teachers at my son's school. I was in charge of the dessert. I made a very yummy apple crisp. While putting them together I decided to make one for my family to enjoy too. I did mine a little different from the recipe because I like to have more of the topping than I do the filling. I halved the recip of the filling for mine and did the whole this for the topping. It was perfect! The ice cream topped it off.

Apple Crisp (Lion House Desserts Cookbook)

Topping:

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

1 cup oatmeal

1/4 tsp baking powder

Filling:

6 cups apples (6-8 apples peeled & sliced. I used Jonathan & Granny Smith apples)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix topping ingredients using a pastry blender until crumbly. Place sliced apples in a greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Combine sugar, salt and cinnamon. Sprinkle over apples. Place topping mixture over apples and bake at 350 for 45 minutes (mine was done in 40 minutes). Top with vanilla ice cream or whip cream.