Twice Baked Potatoes Worth More than a Million

Over the weekend my blog went over 1 million views! This was an exciting milestone for me. I have never considered myself as having anything worth saying that others would want to hear/read about. So seeing my little blog get bigger and bigger has been a very encouraging experience. Maybe there are people out there who enjoy some of the things I do and write about. On the same day I went over 400 e-mail followers, this amazes me as well. Most of the time I am pretty sure my friends and family don’t even have any interest in my blog, but 400 people want to receive an e-mail every time I post something new! Then I noticed my Pinterest followers have jumped from 170 followers a month ago to over 1100, again I’m floored. I have been terribly busy over the last week renovating our bathroom until the wee hours of the morning, baking and cleaning for our annual open house party and participating in Christmas events. So I haven’t been posting like normal, but I felt I needed to stop and say thank you to my readers for helping me achieve these milestones. I am sharing a recipe I use as a thank you to my husband often since it is one of his favorites, my twice baked potatoes.

Ingredients:

5 smaller baking potatoes
4 ounces room temperature cream cheese
4 Tablespoons of melted butter
3 heaping Tablespoons of sour cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
5 slices of cooked bacon
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1. Bake the potatoes on the rack sprayed with canola oil at 350 degrees until fork tender. About 30-45 min.

2. Let them cool for 10 minutes. Then slice in half longways and scoop out the soft potato insides into a bowl, leaving about an eighth of an inch to help the skins hold their shape.

3. Place the skins insides down on a greased cooking sheet, I used canola oil spray in the sheet and then on the skins themselves. Then salt and pepper well.

4. Bake them at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and then flip the skins over and bake for another 10 minutes.

5. While they are baking smash the potatoes in the bowl with the cream cheese, melted butter and sour cream. Mix until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

6. Cook the bacon and crumble. Stir four crumbled slices into the potato mixture, keeping one slice crumbled for topping. Stir in 1 cup of cheddar cheese as well.

7. When the skins are cooked fill each one with the potato mixture. I fill mine a little heaping but it does spill out some if you do. Then top with the extra bacon crumbles and last 1/2 cup cheddar cheese.

8. Bake them at 350 degrees for 10/15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the insides are a bit bubbly. Let cool a bit, but serve warm!

These taste amazing and even my pickiest eater will eat at least two of these at a meal 🙂 they are creamy cheesy potato heaven! I usually have some potato mixture left that just won’t fit into all the skins and I put it in a small ramekin and bake alongside the skins. My husband doesn’t mind eating the filling without the skins!