Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup

Baked potato soup is one of my favorite soups this time of year, so I was very intrigued to find a recipe to make it in the slow cooker. When I saw that Cub has 5lb bags of potatoes for 68 cents (!) this week I figured it was a great time to try this.

Wow, is this soup good. It is so creamy, perfectly seasoned, and tastes better than some restaurant soup I've had. The only difficult thing about this recipe is that I do not have an immersion blender or a potato masher, so I ended up just using my blender and doing about 3 batches of soup. I did leave some big chunks of potato as well. Also, this makes A LOT of soup, so make sure your slow cooker is at least 6 quarts. We probably have enough left over to eat for lunch and dinner for the whole week! Maybe next time I'll try to halve the recipe.
Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup
Source: A Year of Slow Cooking, adapted from RecipeZaar

Ingredients:
-5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced in 1 to 2-inch chunks
-1 teeny onion, diced
-4 cloves garlic, minced
-1 teaspoon seasoned salt
-1/2 teaspoon black pepper
-1/2 teaspoon red pepper
-2 quarts chicken broth (8 cups)
-2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, to add at the end
-crumbled bacon and green onion or chives as garnish (optional)

Directions:
Use a 6 quart or larger slow cooker. Peel and dice the potatoes, and put them into the stoneware. Add onion and garlic. Sprinkle in the seasonings, and pour in the broth. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4. The potatoes should be fork-tender. You can use a potato masher to mash the potatoes in the soup, or a hand-held immersible blender. I suppose you can also leave the potatoes in chunks, if you really wanted, but I wanted a smooth soup.

After smashing the potatoes, crumble in both packages of cream cheese, and put the lid back on. Cook on high for about 30 minutes, or until the cream cheese is completely dissolved. Stir a few times during the 30 minutes. (I let it cook for about 1 hour more after adding the cheese)

Garnish with crumbled bacon, green onion or chives, and I'd assume cheddar cheese would be just delightful.