Make My Day Camp: Twice Baked Potatoes

Friday, May 13, 2022

Twice Baked Potatoes

Al and Cathy helped us put together some outdoor furniture and we asked them to stay for dinner (not just as thanks for their hard work, I would have asked them even if they didn't help hahah). This is while we were camping without working a/c but figured we could eat outside, and I'd keep the cooking to a minimum. Grilled steak, baked potatoes, and caesar salad. Super easy.

I made the potatoes following my new favorite way thanks to Tesha (click here for that post). While we were waiting for them to get done we sat outside and realized there were waaaaay too many mosquitos to eat outside. Uh oh. We scrapped dinner at the motorhome and went out instead.

Now on to the actual point of this post. The next night they asked us to eat dinner at their house (where the a/c works and we don't have to eat outside hahah) so we figured we'd eat the food we didn't make the night before - except I wasn't sure how to reheat baked potatoes. Dave suggested twice baked - yum. I googled a bit for recipe ideas and then ended up winging it. This is what I did (and everyone loved them):

note: I didn't really measure the add-ins so just eyeball it. Also didn't have a potato masher or pastry bag so couldn't get them super smooth or pipe them in a pretty pattern back into the shells - turns out it didn't matter at all.

baked potatoes
unsalted butter
milk or cream
sour cream
chopped cooked bacon
salt and pepper
shredded cheese

Cut the potatoes in half, scoop out the insides leaving a little bit in place to hold the filling. Like little potato skin boats.

Place the potato flesh (flesh? is that the right word? meat? pulp? why doesn't this sound right to me - hopefully you get my meaning) that you scooped out in a microwavable bowl and heat for a minute or so to warm it up so the butter will melt; mash with butter and milk (or cream). Add sour cream until you have the consistency you want - firm enough to hold its shape when you fill the potato skin. Stir in salt and pepper to taste, some shredded cheese, and a big handful of chopped cooked bacon (I have a big bag of chopped bacon from Costco that is super handy for recipes like this, or throw on top of salads or in scrambled eggs, or eat right out of your palm - whatever floats your bacon-loving potato skin boat).

Put the skins on a baking tray or in a baking dish. Spoon the mashed mixture into the potato skins, slightly mounding it. I put the mixture into a ziplock bag, clipped a corner, and filled that way but a spoon works just as good. Top with more shredded cheese, bake at 350' until heated thru and the cheese is melted.

If you're paying attention you might have caught that there is only 3 1/2 potatoes in the above picture. That's because before deciding to make twice-baked potatoes I had 1/2 a potato for breakfast!