Loaded Baked Potato Soup

It's turning off cool, and the lower temps make it the perfect time to start having soup for supper.
So, as promised ladies (we have the nicest bank tellers), here's my recipe.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup
baked potatoes               raw potatoes
1 small onion                   bacon
cheese                            sour cream
green onions (optional)    butter
flour                                salt and pepper

Bake several potatoes.
I usually plan on making this the day after I served baked potatoes with a meal. That way I can just go ahead and bake several extra potatoes to have on hand for soup the following day.
Oh, and in case you can't tell from the list of ingredients, I'll warn you in advance that this soup is not low calorie. :D

Peel and cube your raw potatoes, and get them boiling in a large pot.

You'll want to cook these until they are very done - as in, practically falling apart.

Once they are done, just turn the pot on low and let it sit until everything else is ready.

While those are cooking, you want to cube your baked potatoes,

grate your onion,

and fry your bacon.

Fry your bacon slowly because you don't want to scorch the bacon grease. You want to use that to make the rue. After the bacon is done, pour the grease off in a small bowl (or coffee cup) and wash your pan.

Melt a little butter in the pan and cook your grated onion just 'til it barely starts to turn light brown.

You don't want to do this in the bacon grease because the grease can scorch too easily.

Then pour your bacon grease back in and add flour to form a rue.

You can use all butter for the rue if your bacon grease did get scorched.

Turn your pot of potatoes back up until they come to a boil again and whisk in your rue.

I'll be honest here, once I whisked my rue in, my soup still wasn't thick enough so I had to make a bit more.

After you have it as thick as you like, season with salt and pepper and add your baked potatoes and some shredded cheese. Cook for a few minutes until the baked potatoes are warm. Because it's already thick and you've added your cheese, you'll want to keep this stirred so it won't scorch.

Then turn off the heat and stir in 2 or 3 healthy size dollops of sour cream.

Serve it topped with a bit more shredded cheese and some crumbled bacon.

It's very pretty topped with some green onions or chives too, but it was already dark outside, and damp, so I didn't want to forage around in the garden for chives.

Go ahead and bake some potatoes for supper tonight so you can make this tomorrow.