🥗 Appetizers

Start the evening right

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Baked Potato Soup Beanless Bean Dip Cheese Straws

Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients

  • 4 large baking potatoes
  • ⅔ cup butter
  • ⅔ cup flour
  • 6 cups milk
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp pepper
  • 4 green onions, chopped
  • 12 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled
  • 1¼ cups shredded sharp cheese
  • 8 oz sour cream

Instructions

Bake potatoes and cool. Cut in half, scoop out pulp and set aside.

Melt butter; add flour and stir until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk; cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly.

Add potato pulp, salt, pepper, 2 tablespoons of the onions (save the rest for topping), ½ cup of the bacon, and 1 cup of the cheese. Cook until heated through. Stir in sour cream. Add extra milk if needed.

Serve with remaining cheese, onion, and bacon sprinkled on top — though I usually just mix all of it in at the end.

Note: This is another recipe that freezes well. However, if you are going to heat it for lunch in the microwave at school, I suggest you thaw it a little first. The other teachers get mad when you take 20 minutes to heat up your lunch.

I know this is listed under appetizers but you can really serve it as a main dish.
Dad suggests you can make it something else: This soup makes a fine base for all kinds of variations. Swap the bacon for quail meat and you've got quail stew. Chicken works too — chicken stew for the city folks. Add diced ham and broccoli for a mighty nice lunch. And always consider adding a can of whole kernel corn to any version for that little extra crunch.

Tips from Dad: Bake the potatoes — don't boil them. Keep the heat gentle after the sour cream goes in. This is not diet food, and that is part of its charm.

Beanless Bean Dip

Ingredients

  • 1 big pack Velveeta
  • 1 lb meat (sausage or hamburger)
  • 1 can Rotel
  • Tortilla chips for serving

Instructions

Brown the meat in a large saucepan and drain. Add the Velveeta in chunks and melt. Add the Rotel and cook until warmed. Serve with tortilla chips. (The little scooper chips work great.)

Note: Mr. Jeffords — my 10th grade chemistry teacher, who always referred to me as "The Reverend" — was the first person to make this for me. He told us once that he only missed one day of school each year: opening day of duck season, when he'd take his boys hunting. My father always referred to this as "that bean dip your chemistry teacher made." Why he called it that when it had no beans I don't know, but due to these two facts I call it beanless bean dip.

Cheese Straws

Ingredients

  • 8 oz medium cheddar
  • 8 oz sharp cheddar
  • 1 stick butter
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ¾ tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 cup self-rising flour
  • 1 cup plain flour

Instructions

Mix all ingredients by hand. When the mixture stops sticking to your hands it's mixed well enough. Press onto a cookie sheet and cut into 3–4 inch straws. Bake at 375°F for 10 to 12 minutes.

Note: This is the often imitated but never duplicated Lancaster cheese straw recipe. The trick is you need a special extruder piece for your cookie press so the straws come out the proper thickness. Dad is constantly searching eBay for these.