Potato Soup.

Here's a good potato soup recipe to warm your bones on cold snow days.  I love potato soup on snow days.  Some potato soups are ultra runny and some are mega thick.  This one is kinda in the middle: soup consistency but potato hunks.  It's good and has a bit of a spice kick, which is a-okay with me.  Plus it has cream cheese.
Speaking of mega thick potato soups, let me tell you a funny story right quick.  I was at a little gathering at a friends house.  They had soups and finger foods.  I dipped the ladle in a crock pot to see what was goin' on in that pot.  It was really thick.  I turned and asked, "Are these mashed potatoes?"  No.  It was potato soup.  Oops.

Cream Cheese Potato Soup

1 hour/15 min prep

Serves 4-6

4 cups chicken broth

4 cups potatoes, peeled and cubed

1/4 cup onion, minced

1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, cut into chunks

Combine broth, potatoes, onion, and spices.  Boil on medium heat until potatoes are tender.  Smash a few potatoes to release their starch for thickening.  Reduce to low heat.  Add cream cheese.  Heat, stirring frequently until cream cheese melts.

Add yummy goodness to top it off.  Add cheese, bacon bits, green onion...the sky's the limit, love child.  Salt and pepper to your little hearts desire.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

Y'all.  These are so good they're stupid.  Eating this is like having cheesecake and Cinnamon Toast Crunch all in one bite.  This is my second cheesecake recipe that I've posted in a three week period (in case you've forgotten the other stupid good recipe: Thank you for being a friend).  If you can't tell by now, I like cheesecake just a little bit.  Cream cheese is the stuff love is made of.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

2 cans crescent rolls

2 pkgs. cream cheese

2 cups sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 stick butter, melted

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Line a 9x13 baking dish with 1 can of crescent rolls.  Pinch seams together.  Mix together cream cheese, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and vanilla.  Beat until creamy.  Spread on top of crescents.  Take the other can of crescents and cover the top of the cream cheese mix.  Press seams together to cover.  Pour melted butter on top of crescents.  Mix together remaining 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle evenly on top of butter.  Bake at 350 for about 35-40 minutes.

When I made these I kinda misread the recipe (shocking) and mixed the butter, sugar and cinnamon all together, then poured on top of crescents.  Sometimes I don't pay attention, but I don't guess it really matters-- it all works out the same in the end.  They were still delish.

About 20 minutes into the baking time my mouth was watering.  My whole house smelled like cinnamon sugar love. Once they came out of the oven, I let them cool for just a bit so I wouldn't get a roof-of-my-mouth severe burn, but I tore into one as soon as I could.  Oh.my.stinkin'.goodness.  So great fresh and hot out of the oven.  I refrigerated the little delicious cheesecake babies overnight and then cut into bars and took some to a little ugly Christmas sweater party the next night.  

These things are great right out of the fridge and even better when they’re warmed up just a bit, like, in the microwave for 10 seconds.  These make a great dessert and also a great breakfast.  Not that I had one or four of these bars for breakfast...I'm just thinking they'd be a pretty fabulous breakfast treat all warmed up. 

Make these.  I'm passing on this recipe to better your life.  

Fresh out the oven.

Here's a square all warmed up.  Mmm.

Sketti.

I'm not the hugest spaghetti lover.  I have to be in the mood for it.  Spaghetti is such a fun name, but it's actually kind of a boring dish.  Noodles and sauce.  Big deal.  I found a recipe for Baked Spaghetti and it sounded quite delicious, so I thought I'd give it a try.

BAKED SPAGHETTI

16 oz spaghetti

26 oz spaghetti sauce (I used Ragu Robusto Roasted Garlic)

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef

1 egg

8 oz. sour cream

1 stick butter or margarine (I always go for butter!)

2-3 cups shredded cheese

While the spaghetti is cooking, brown the beef.  Drain and return to pan and add the sauce.  I also added a little onion.  Love me some onion. Drain pasta and return to pasta pan.  Add the sour cream and butter to pasta.  I sliced up the butter so it melted evenly over the pasta.  When the pasta has cooled a bit (about 10-15 minutes), add the egg.  Stir well.  Place pasta mixture in the bottom of a greased 9x13 baking dish. Top pasta with the ground beef/sauce mixture.  Then cover with cheese--that's the best part!  Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

I think I kinda let my cheese get a little past bubbly.  I'd recommend going closer to the 30 minute bake time instead of the 40. 

Pretty tasty and super easy dish.  That's what I like.

Thank you for being a friend.

If you want a very easy, very good dessert, well, this is it.  These little cheesecakes are a symphony of flavor in your mouth.

Mmm.  These are the good kind of cheesecakes.  It's not any of that soft no-bake crappy kind.  This is the hard, firm, good kind.  If you're a cheesecake lover, then you know what I'm talking about.  The Golden Girls would approve of these little babies.

Because I am a girl that loves food, I am passing on this very special recipe to you.  This is a reward for coming to my blog.  Do yourself a favor and make these.  Make them for an upcoming holiday gathering.  You only need four ingredients.  People that taste them will think that you used forty ingredients and spent fifty hours making them.  You can even make them and be selfish and hoard them all for yourself.  Let me know if you make them and be sure to tell me how much you fell in love.

Just click on this little picture to enlarge the best recipe of all cheesecake time.

P to the S: This recipe is from the 'Take Five A Holiday Cookbook" by Debbye Dabbs.  You are stellar, Debbye.