Loaded Baked Potato Soup in Bread Bowls

This Loaded Baked Potato Soup in Bread Bowls is the perfect meal for your trick or treat night! It's always easier to get your kids to eat on Halloween night if you have a tradition of making something fun to eat. I love this Loaded Baked Potato Soup because it's a quick, easy, filling and delicious. You can load it up with extra toppings, or serve it straight out of the pot.

I found these cute bread bowls at Harmons Grocery in Farmington, if you don't live close to Harmons, you can pick up any type of small loaf artisan or french bread and carve out the middle. I loved the Harmons loaf, it was a bit more dense than other bread bowls I have purchased, which was perfect for holding a thick rich bowl of soup. We used the carved out pieces for dunking in the soup. Mmmmmm. So good.

Don't you love the little stem made out of pretzel?
Happy Halloween!

ABK's Loaded Baked Potato Soup
A Bountiful Kitchen

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
2 cups milk, plus additional for thinning soup
1 cup cheese
2 cups baked potato, scooped out or in chunks
1/4 cup sour cream

crumbled cooked bacon
additional grated cheese
sour cream
chopped chives or green onion

Melt butter in a stockpot over medium to medium high heat. Add flour, whisk and continue to cook for about two minutes, add salt and pepper. Whisk in broth. Stir until smooth. Turn heat to medium.
Slowly add milk, continue to whisk. Add grated cheese and whisk. Fold in cooked potato. Cook until bubbly and smooth. Just before serving, add sour cream. Heat until bubbly. Turn heat to simmer.
Scoop out bread bowls. Serve soup in bowls, add milk if the soup gets too thick.
Top with crumbled bacon, grated cheese, chives, and a spoonful of sour cream.
Serves 2-4, about 1 1/2 cup servings.

Tips:
-I used potato that had been baked a few days earlier. I scooped the potato into a bowl and used the skins for baked potato skins. If you are baking the potatoes for this recipe, scrub the skins, bake the potatoes to use in this recipe. It is not necessary to peel the potato before chopping for the soup.
-This recipe may require more salt and or pepper depending on the amount of flavor in the broth.
-This recipe is easily doubled.

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Caramel Apple White Chocolate Cookies

It's caramel apple season again! Have you ever met a person who doesn't love a caramel covered apple? What could possibly be better than a caramel apple?! How about a Caramel Apple Cookie? Add a little white chocolate, and you've got perfection. The Caramel Apple White Chocolate Cookie captures the caramel apple we all love, the cookie and white chocolate all in one wonderful treat!

After weeks of working on this recipe, the process went something like this: oatmeal, no oatmeal, fresh chopped apples in the dough? too much moisture...cut out half of the apples, still too much moisture...Place apple slices on TOP of the cookie, add cinnamon for a bit more flavor, add a little more flour to stabilize the cookie so it can support the apple slices on top. The list goes on. Finally after a few dozen alterations, I came up with a cookie that is chewy, sweet, tart, gooey, sticky all in one bite of goodness.

I think you're going to love it even more than a plain old caramel apple.
Happy baking!

Caramel Apple White Chocolate Cookies
A Bountiful Kitchen

1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips*

1 apple, Granny Smith, Honey Crisp, or other crisp/firm variety
Peter's Caramel or other soft caramel**

Prepare apple by washing and drying. Slice apple into 4 pieces, around the core of the apple. Discard the core. Thinly slice the apple and set aside. Cut the caramel into about 20-24 pieces and set aside on a plate or other clean surface such as a piece of wax paper or cutting board that is non -stick.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place rack in middle of oven. If you have a convection oven, use the convection setting.

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix until blended well on low speed. Scrape down sides of bowl once, mix again until all butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla are blended.
Add flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and white chocolate to bowl.  Mix on low speed, just until the wet and dry ingredients are incorporated and the flour disappears.
Scoop dough onto cookie sheets, about 6-8 cookies per sheet. Flatten slightly with palm of hand.
Bake in preheated oven for about 7 minutes, until cookies flatten out a bit. Remove the pan from the oven and using a silicone spatula or other spatula, push the sides of the cookie in a bit to form a circle if the cookie has spread out unevenly. Top the cookie with one or two slices of apple and then top the apple with caramel.  Return to oven and bake an additional 2 minutes, or until caramel is melted a bit. Remove and let cool completely before serving.

Tips:
-*( I used white dipping chocolate discs from Cavanaugh's Chocolate) but also like Guittard brand white chocolate chips.
-**The caramel I used is a large 5 lb block of Peter's Caramel purchased online here. If you live in the SLC area, you may purchase this caramel at Orson Gygi on 300 West at about 3300 South.
-The caramel stays on the pantry shelf for a long time. I had my last block for about a year, and it was still fresh tasting after a year's time. It's a great purchase to split with a friend. Store on a shelf in a Ziploc bag.
-I like Granny Smiths for this recipe, because the apples are quite tart. If you prefer a red apple, use a Honey Crisp or Fuji apple.
-These cookies are best when served within a day of baking.

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Skinny Poolside Dip aka COLLEGE GAMEDAY Dip!

If you're a UTE fan, you're in heaven right about now. Winning our Pac 12 season opener for the first time EVER and hosting ESPN's COLLEGE GAME DAY  here in our own backyard for the first time since 2010 calls for a celebration!  This Skinny Poolside Dip is tasty, fresh, simple and perfect for the game tomorrow.

You know how the word "skinny" always catches a woman's eye!?!  And the words:  skinny, pool and dip all together in one recipe name? That was all it took to grab my attention. When I saw this recipe for Skinny Poolside Dip on Pinterest,  I immediately thought of all the times I had packed my pool bag with Red Vines, Cheetos and Diet Coke.

One look at this recipe and I knew it was a keeper. I must admit, I have a gift.  It's a small gift, insignificant to most, but very helpful if you're a food blogger. I can usually look at a recipe and tell you if it's going to be worth trying. This dip? One look and I knew it would be good.  I made a couple of modifications (I know, you're shocked) to make it my own and more appealing to our family.

I'm not sure why this dip is called Skinny Dip? The first recipe I looked at was made with Neufchatel otherwise known as low fat cream cheese. Ok, makes sense. That would qualify as Skinny Dip (kind of). But the recipes using regular cream cheese? Well, the word "Skinny" should probably not be attached to that recipe ;)

I loved the ease of this recipe. Start to finish, this recipe takes about 10 minutes, if you are grilling corn. Otherwise,  if using frozen corn, it's close to 5 minutes total.
It's absolutely delicious and a dip that most will love.
Oh, I almost forgot.. GO UTES!!!



Poolside Skinny Dip
modified from Buns In My Oven

8 oz cream cheese, room temperature (regular, low fat or Neufachatel)
2 red bell peppers, cored and diced
3 large ears fresh corn, cooked or 2 cups frozen corn
1 cup sweet onion or red onion, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons dry ranch dressing or
pepper to taste

In a large bowl, fold cream cheese, red peppers, corn, onion,  jalapeno, and ranch dressing mix together. Season with ground pepper.
Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to eat. Serve with crackers, tortilla chips or cut up vegetables.

Tips:
-The dip will set up and be difficult to scoop right out of the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature for a few minutes prior to serving.
-If fresh corm is not available, use one can of corn or 2 cps frozen corn, do not thaw before using.
-If grilling corn, husk corn. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Butter the corn if desired, not necessary). Wrap tightly in a piece of foil. Place on grill and cook over med high heat for about 10 minutes.


If you're looking for more appetizers,  here are a few of our  favorites...

Cowboy Salsa Everyone loves this salsa!

Buffalo Wing Dip The ultimate guy dip...

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus nice if you're trying to eat healthy!

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