I know, I know.  I’ve been talking about this all week.

But you must realize…this stuff is kind of amazing.  I had to process the level of amazing before I could talk about it.

I mean, just look at it.  There’s BACON!  And a lot of it.  With potatoes.  And cheese.  And BACON!

But, I digress.

So awhile back, I found this on Red Apron Girl (via Pinterest) and thought it looked amazing, so we tried it.  And it was delicious.  We were so happy that this made so much.  We both had two big bowls when I first made it and had plenty for another night for dinner.  When we re-heated it a couple nights later, we decided to play with the original a little by adding some more spice to it (remember, we’re a spicy household) and adding shredded chicken that we had left over from a previous night.  It was even better than before.   So I tweaked it to our adjustments for this time and added our extras straight out.

Another tweak I did, was I made it ahead and let it set for the day because, while it was good straight off the heat last time, it wasn’t quite as thick as we both would have liked and it thickened nicely and to our liking when it was reheated.  So I started the base in the morning, cooled it, let it set in the fridge and finished it at dinner time.  I’m actually going to tweak it to try it in my slow cooker the next time and see if it’ll be just as good if not better in there.  I also made the bacon in the soup pot, so that I could use the drippings to saute the onions and garlic.  It just made the bacon and saltiness even better.

I also…umm…made more than the original recipe called for…because….potatoes….are amazing.  And because, I’m lazy and it’s easier to use a five pound bag of potatoes than trying to weigh out/estimate three pounds.  I promise, it doesn’t go to waste, at all.  If we weren’t finishing it for dinner tonight, I’d have a bowl for lunch today.  But I should stop myself…and save it for dinner….I think.