Twice Baked Potatoes

Tay & I have been trying to eat what's in our fridge and cupboards over the last few weeks.  It's sort of like rotation in the produce department, except most of what we have doesn't go bad.  On the last trip to Price Chopper I picked up a value pack of steaks at 50% off, and thought for a change that baked potato would be a good accompaniment.  I brought home some good-sized baking potatoes with the steaks, and figured we could put something together out of what we had in the fridge.  Of course, I often start cooking without having any real plan, so just after the potatoes went in the oven Tay suggested we make twice baked potatoes.  For which we had almost none of the ingredients and Tay ended up running down the street to the Valu Mart as I prepped the steaks, defeating the purpose of not buying an entire meal and eating what we have.

Anyway, this is basically what happened:

Tay's Twice Baked Potatoes (makes 4 medium potatoes)

Ingredients (approximate as always):

• 4 russet baking potatoes - size 90 or whatever is commonly available on the market
• cooking oil - enough to dip potatoes in (1 tbsp ish)
• salt - I used coarse ground sea salt, dunno how much
• 2-3 green onions or 4-6 stalks chives, diced (dried chives would do)
• 1/2 cup (or so) butter or margarine - we used a salt-free margarine
• sour cream - 250g tub
• bacon bits (Tay bought strips of bacon to cook because it was cheaper)
• cheddar (or your favourite kind of) cheese, enough for 2-3 strips per potato, or shredded

Preheat oven to 350*F.  Wash potatoes and scrub with a potato brush, or gently with a scrub pad being careful not to remove too much of the skin - you'll want thick skins.  Pierce each potato deeply with a fork a half dozen times to let steam out during cooking.  Pour the cooking oil into a shallow bowl, and roll the washed potatoes in the oil.  You can use your fingers to spread oil all over the skin of the potatoes, then put the oiled potatoes on a plate.  Sprinkle and try to cover evenly with the salt.  Place the potatoes in the oven directly on the rack, and put a baking dish or drip tray on the rack underneath to catch drippings from the potatoes, or your smallish Beach apartment is going to fill with smoke awful quick.  Trust me.  Bake the potatoes for an hour to an hour and a half, until the skin appears wrinkled and golden.

The long baking time gives you ample time to dice your onions/chives, prep your steak or other meat, or if you prefer, get drunk.  It also gives you ample time to send your girlfriend to the grocery store because you don't have any of the ingredients you need, and then to cook the bacon if you choose to go that route.

When the potatoes are baked, remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack until they are cool enough to handle.  Be careful, potatoes hold heat really well!  When they are cool enough, or if you're brave enough to do this with oven mitts, use a sharp knife to cut a slit along the length of each potato from end to end, and squeeze at the ends to open them.  Use a spoon to scoop out the inside of the potatoes into a mixing bowl, and save the empty shells for the next step.

To the mixing bowl with the potatoes, add the margarine and let it melt from the heat of the potato, then fold in the sour cream and onions/chives.  Mix well!  Tay used my grandma's electric stand mixer, because she loves to use it for everything but it really gets the job done.  Use a spoon to stuff the empty potato shells with the mixture in the bowl.  You should have enough to fill each potato shell enough for them to be just overflowing.

I cut the potatoes just a bit too far and the shells didn't hold up when I re-stuffed the potatoes, so we needed a tray with high sides (like this 8x8 cake pan) to finish baking.  Add the bacon bits to the potatoes, and cover with the sliced or shredded cheese.  If you are going to use a pan like this, I recommend greasing the sides.  I didn't, and the potatoes took some effort to get out of the pan after re-baking.

Return the potatoes to the oven for another 10-15 minutes to cook the potato stuffing and melt the cheese.  As an added touch, I broiled for about 5 minutes to brown the cheese, as seen in the picture.  Ignore the dirty pans and messy stove, that is not part of the recipe.

These can be served with more sour cream on the side if you prefer, although we just ate them as-is.  I was really impressed with Tay's suggestion, and the way they turned out.  As an accompaniment to a decent-size steak, one potato would serve one person.  However, it was a good thing we made four, because the discount steaks turned out really REALLY tough, enough that we ended up throwing them out when even the cats weren't interested.

Happy baking!  And remember, put the batteries back in the smoke detector when you're done.