Baked Potato Soup

Baked potato soup is nommy and super easy. Go make it. Go make it now.  It's one of my favorite winter recipes since chances are good I have all the stuff on hand, and it only requires one pot.

What you need:
baked potatoes. 4 or so should be sufficient, but quantities aren't set in stone here
4 cups milk
4 cups chicken stock
bacon!
cheese
green onions
sour cream
salt
pepper

Cook some bacon. I use like 6 pieces, because I want the fat, and bacon is delicious. I suppose you could use turkey bacon, but why? Anyway, cook off your bacon and set aside, but don't drain the fat. Throw in some flour (roughly the same amount of liquid and flour). Stir around and cook for a couple of minutes. Pour in the chicken stock and deglaze a bit so that you have all those yummy bacon bits. Pour in the milk. I usually cook it for a few minutes and let it all heat through, then dump in the potatoes. Now, I usually put in the skin of one and the innards of the rest. I sort of chop them up, but since baked potatoes don't chop real well, don't spaz if they just kind of chunk up. Dump these in and stir around. As it simmers some more, if it looks like the soup isn't going to be thick enough for you, just mush up some of the potatoes and stir it around. Once everything is hot and thick, put in a glob of sour cream, a cup or so of cheese, the bacon, and some chopped up green onions or chives. If I don't have green stalky things, I just saute some onion in the bacon fat instead.  Anyway, do this and then cut your heat. At some point in this process I throw in a good amount of fresh ground pepper, usually a little paprika, and some season salt.  This is definitely a taste as you go kind of thing. Remember that milk and potatoes are bland as hell, so chances are you are going to use more seasoning than you think you need. Just keep tasting. But you can honestly throw in whatever the hell you want, it's all good!