Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

 The staple food in Ireland is of course the potato! A lot of people may not know, but the city of Saint John (New Brunswick, Canada) is the oldest Irish city in Canada! I am a major history buff and no pun intended because I was a history major in university. Here's a little background of the Irish heritage in Saint John I want to share that I found on Wikipedia:
" The Irish potato famine (1845–1849) saw the city's largest immigrant influx occur, with the government forced to construct a quarantine station and hospital on Partridge Island at the mouth of the harbour to handle the new arrivals. These immigrants changed the character of the city and surrounding region from its Loyalist-Protestant heritage to a new Irish-Catholic culture."

So to keep with the potato theme and St. Patty's Day, I decided to make a Loaded Baked Potato Soup which is packed with tons of flavor. I used this recipe as a guideline but added more seasonings and two apple sausages removed from the casing and fried up:

1 Tbsp. butter or margarine

1/4 cup  chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped celery

1 can  (14-1/2 oz.) reduced sodium chicken broth

1-1/4 cups milk

2   baking potatoes, baked, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp.  pepper

8 slices OSCAR MAYER Center Cut Bacon, crisply cooked, crumbled and divided

3/4 cup  KRAFT Cheddar CLASSIC MELTS Cheddar & American, divided

2 Tbsp. green onion slices, divided

1/4 cup  BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream

make it

MELT butter in heavy saucepan or Dutch oven. Add onions and celery; cook and stir 5 min. or until crisp-tender. Add broth, milk, potatoes, salt and pepper; bring just to boil, stirring constantly. Slightly crush potatoes with back of spoon. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer 5 min., stirring frequently.

RESERVE 2 Tbsp. each of the bacon and cheese and 1 Tbsp. of the green onions for toppings; set aside. Add remaining bacon, cheese and green onions to soup just before serving; cook until cheese is melted, stirring constantly.

SERVE topped with reserved bacon, cheese, green onions and sour cream.

E-Z Drop Biscuits with Parsley topping 

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/E-Z-Drop-Biscuits/Detail.aspx