Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Potato Skins

Potatoes? check. 
Bacon? check. 
Cheese? check! 
                                    
Congrats, you are now going to be making the delicacy known as potato skins. 

Troy and I have been to a few restaurants (TGIFriday's, Huey's) that have these and we decided to see if we could replicate them. The results? Pure deliciousness. These appetizers can literally be eaten as a meal... and one time they were in place of a meal because our main course was ruined (but we'll just chalk that culinary failure up to a learning experience.).

Ingredients:
5 medium sized Russet potatoes (we use red potatoes too... just as good!)
10 tablespoons of cheddar cheese
4-5 strips of bacon
1/4 cup of butter
Sour cream*
Ranch*
Chives*
* delicious optional toppings

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Cover the potatoes in foil and bake them for one hour.
2. After they have been baked for an hour, take them out and take off the foil. Put them on a cutting board and cut each potato in half length wise and let them cool.
3. Turn your oven to broil. Cook your bacon and pat the grease off with a paper towel. Crumble the bacon strips into small pieces.
4. After the potatoes have cooled (trust me, it is NOT fun to try to cut the potatoes when they are still hot), heat the butter in a mug in the microwave (it takes us about 30 seconds to melt).
5. Using a spoon, scoop about 3/4th of the potato out. So there should be about 1/4 of an inch thick potato skin. After each potato has been scooped, brush the butter on the entire potato. You can use the unused scooped potatoes as an appetizer or for future mashed potatoes.
6. Broil the potatoes on a cookie sheet, cut side up, for 5-7 minutes. Take them out and put 1 tablespoon of cheese (or more) onto each potato skin. Add the bacon on top and broil for 2-3 minutes or until the cheese is completely melted (this doesn't take long).
7. Take out and devour!

You can dip these babies into ranch, sour cream (yes, please!) and add some chives to the top. They are wonderful. Troy and I are hooked. Absolutely hooked. We will never look back and are just finding reasons for ways to make them.

I'm just glad they are healthy... oh, wait.

But at least they are tasty and impressive!


Upon making these many times, I've learned a few tricks. The first: Always wrap the potatoes in foil. If you don't, they will burn. The second: Use a mug instead of a bowl to warm the butter. Instead of a burning yourself after taking the bowl out of the microwave, you now have a handy dandy handle to use. The third: Well, this isn't a tip but I've never broiled anything before and I was pretty much terrified of it. But basically all it means is that the oven gets VERY hot and the heat comes from the top of the oven only.

We adapted the recipe from this website.
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