Baked Potato Soup

Who likes to eat?

Me too. I don’t really post recipes on her, leaving that to my sister blog Mysterious Eats.

Weeeeeeeeeeelll…with one exception. If it has to do with Jane Austen or a tea party, I review and post it.

Last year I helped put on a tea, and fashioned it after a teahouse I used to go to when I lived near Santa Rosa. They would always serve scones (I did the Cheddar-Thyme Scones and the Harvest Pumpkin Scones) and tea sandwiches. You could also add on tarts, little turnovers, salad, or soup.

This soup may not be a real “tea soup”, but I thought it was tasty, easy to make, and fancy looking.

Ingredients:

• 3 Tablespoons of Onion, finely chopped
• 5 Tablespoons of Butter
• 5 Tablespoons of Flour
• 1 14-oz can of Chicken Broth
• 1/3 Cup of Cheddar Cheese, grated
• 1 Baked Potato (6-7 inch baker), cold, cut into bite-sized pieces.
• 2 Cups of Half-and-Half
• 1 Cup of Milk
• 1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
• 1/8 Teaspoon of Black Pepper
• 6 Slices of Bacon, cooked, broken into bits (Or use Bacon Bits)
• Cheddar Cheese, to go on top

Directions:

1. Sauté the onions in butter.
2. While stirring, slowly add the flour and then the chicken broth.
3. Cook until it thickens.
4. Add the cheddar cheese, stirring until it melts.
5. Then add the potato, leaving the skin on the pieces.
6. Finally stir in the half-and-half and the milk.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Top each serving with crumbled bacon and cheddar cheese.

It is a fantastic tasting soup, and having cooked the potatoes it takes like no time at all.

Yay!

The only thing is that you have to be careful when adding the milk or half-and-half. The lactose sugar in them can burn and ruin the dish, so you have to keep stirring. The more you stir the less likely it will burn.

One time I had my niece hep me and I felt like that scene in Goodfellas when Henry Hill keeps telling his brother to watch the sauce. Just like Michael she didn’t enjoy the stirring.

No more stirring.

But it was easy, delicious, and will be a great addition to any future tea parties or dinners.

For more recipes, go to Triple Berry Salad

Harvest Pumpkin Scones

So this recipe comes from my sister blog MysteriousEats.wordpress.com. Typically I just reblog her posts onto my site, but I noticed that they don’t look the best and kind of come out weird looking. So instead I decided that I would just copy and paste her post onto my site. Here we go.

Ready for scones & tea.

So we were having a tea at church and I needed a scone to go with our food. I had already decided on a savory (will be posting soon), but needed a sweet scone.

I started scouring the internet when I came upon this recipe on The King Arthur Flour website. Everything I have made from them has been fantastic so I thought I would give it a try.

 

Ingredients:

• 2-3/4 Cups of King Arthur Unbleached Flour or Regular Flour
• 1/3 Cup of Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon of Baking Powder
• 3/4 Teaspoon of Salt
• 3/4 Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Ginger
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Nutmeg
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Allspice
• 1/2 Cup of Cold Butter
• 1-2 Cups of Chocolate Chips
• 2/3 Cup of Canned Pumpkin
• 2 Large Eggs
• Cinnamon sugar (1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon and 1 Tablespoon of granulated sugar), for topping
• Milk

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl; whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and the spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, & allspice).
2. Work in the butter until the mix is unevenly crumbly; it’s ok for some larger chunks of butter to remain unincorporated.
3. Stir in the Chocolate Chips.
4. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and eggs till smooth.
5. Add the pumpkin/egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until all is moistened and holding together.
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment; if you don’t have any use the sheet without parchment,but don’t grease it. Instead sprinkle a bit of flour on the parchment.
7. Scrape the dough onto the floured parchment or pan and divide it in half.
8. Round each half into a 6″ circle, about 3/4 an inch thick.
9. Brush each circle with milk and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture.
10. Using a knife, cut each circle into size wedges.
11. Carefully pull the wedges away from the center to separate them just a bit, about 1/2 inch space between them.
12. Place the scones in the freezer for 30 degrees uncovered. While the scones are chilling, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
13. Back the scones 22-25 mins or until golden brown and toothpick inserted into a center of one comes out clean. The edges should be baked through.
14. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

 

 

THOUGHTS AFTER BAKING:

I loved them! They were perfect!

 

They were just so delicious everyone ate them right away and wanted more.

 

I cannot recommend more strongly that you should definitely make them.

For more scone recipes, go to Lemon Scones

For more on Peter Pan, go to It’s Always Tea Time  

And for weekly recipe reviews, go to Mysterious Eats

 I wasn’t really planning on including this in my Christmas countdown, but hey a post is a post so it needs a song to go with it.

So I had never heard this song before until the other when I was driving to work. At first I was like what is this? Who is Dominick the donkey?

But then as I listened, it quickly grew on me. So much that I actually listened to it later at home and decided to include it in our countdown. After all, donkey’s need love too.

So this song is called Dominick the Donkey and was written in 1960 by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg and Wandra Merrell. It was recorded by Lou Monte and is about a donkey that Santa owns, used to help deliver presents to children in Italy as reindeer cannot climb the mountains.

To start our 25 Carols of Christmas from the beginning, go to It Was a Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451

For more Christmas Carols, go to Your Cases Have Indeed Been of the Greatest Interest to Me: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

For more Christmas donkeys, go to the 25 Films of Christmas