To celebrate this Winter season a bit more, I decided that even though it was still 70 degrees out, I was going to make some baked potato soup. Not just your average baked potato soup either. But the loaded kind. The kind that warms not only your stomach, but your heart too!

I've had a BUNCH of leftover potatoes from the holidays, and what better way to use those up than in a potato soup? For this soup, it really doesn't matter what kind of potato you use, but I went with russet. I kept the peels on about half of them and removed them from the other half. That's because I like the peels, but too much is too much and I didn’t want the soup to be brown. I lightened this soup up simply, by using reduced fat evaporated milk and cheese.

Usually, I would have subbed in some cauliflower, but I wanted the texture of this soup to be creamy and potato dense. The center cut reduced sodium bacon is another favorite trick of mine. It tastes like traditional bacon as compared to it's turkey brethren. Don't get me wrong. Turkey bacon has it's place in this world too! But, not here. And not today.

Yum. Yum. Yummity-yum! This soup is so SO good and so SO easy to make. Just a few hours in the crock pot, a good stir or two and ta-da!

Step-by-Step Photos: