Loaded Baked Potato Soup Freezer Meal

1. Place potatoes, ham, onions, chicken broth and black pepper in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
2. Add the optional heavy cream and cook until warmed through 15-20 minutes.
3. If you are not using heavy cream then remove and mash some of the potatoes and then stir back in and warm through.
4. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with toppings of your choice.

FREEZER MEAL INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Place potatoes, ham, onions, chicken broth and black pepper in a freezer bag. Label with the recipe name, cooking instructions from above and the "Froze On" date or "Use By" date (best to use within 3-6 months). I also like to make it very big and obvious (colorful works) if there are things to add on the day of cooking so that you can be sure to either have it on hand or plan to stop at the store on the way home to your deliciously hot and ready supper.
2. The pork or chicken broth could be added on the day of cooking instead of directly in the freezer bag in order to save freezer space, however, the potatoes will likely discolor then.
3. Note: do not freeze the heavy cream, add at the end of the cooking time on the day you cook the meal.

NOTES:

• This recipe is very forgiving so if you don't have 1 lb of ham, whatever you have will work.
• Include the ham bone for extra flavor and nutrients.
• It is also designed to be easily doubled (one for now and one for later) since potatoes come in 3# bags, the 1/2 onion, etc.
• I very highly recommend using organic potatoes! They rank very high on the EWG dirty dozen list because of all the chemicals used pre and post harvest (note that the EWG is only looking at pesticides that persist to your plate, but more than just pesticides are used on potatoes).
• If you use organic potatoes than I also highly recommend leaving the peel on to get all the great nutrition they have (definitely peel non-organic though).
• As a general rule of thumb I don't peel organic veggies.
• Meat is the most important food to buy organically since the animals eat and bioaccumulate all the -ides (pesticides, fungicides, herbicides....) and then have other things like hormones injected into them to worry about. To get Together Farm's worry-free ham and bacon head over to our store.

UPDATE: We made the freezer meal version WITHOUT the cream and it was FANTASTIC! I couldn't stop eating it actually. With the cream I'm sure it would be even better but we didn't have any on hand.