Baked Potato Variation

Today I was feeling super confident because of the tasty garlic chicken I made yesterday. So I decided to try yet another recipe I found via Pinterest. The Food Pusher calls it "Baked potatoes... sort of" and well.. I don't have a different name for the variation I made today. I followed the recipe on the website, but added things here and there and made little variations.

Picture of the original recipe at Food Pusher

If you look at the recipe on the website, it's about twice baked potatoes. Instead of baking the potatoes, I cooked them. Only until they were just a little less tender, too tender to normally eat.

I mixed the sour cream, cream cheese and garlic in a different bowl, just because I like having different bowls for my ingredients. It makes me feel as if I'm star chef in a TV show. Before I added the butter to it, I let it melt a little in the microwave so it's easier to mix it and you don't have butter lumps in your dish. I also added a few twigs of rosemary because the Doctor really likes that herb.

I roughly mashed to potatoes so I had small bits of potato rather than "real" mash. I added milk to make sure the potato would go soft in the oven, then mixed the sour cream, etc., into the oven dish. Again, I didn't mix it until it was mash but just made sure there's sour cream all around the potatoes.

I was a bit confused by the "enough for 9-10 servings" in the original recipe, so I used 6 potatoes rather than 8. Spoiler alert, we didn't have to invite friends over. It was enough for the Doctor and me, but no third person.

After everything was mixed, I put it into the oven as instructed, waited half a hour and then roasted the bacon bits. Rather than leaving it in the oven for 40 minutes, I took it out about 5 minutes early and spread the cheese, bacon and green onions over it. I put it back in so it would form a bit of a crust and keep roasting the bacon. Bacon can never be over-roasted. Unless it's completely coal-like, I guess.

The end-result wasn't as crusty as I had hoped, but we could've left it in the oven for a few more minutes, if we hadn't been so super hungry, so that probably wouldn't have been a problem.

And let me just say... it tasted delicious. I never tried the "real mash version" of it, so I can't compare, but I really liked the potato bits in the dish. It tasted super creamy but still had a bit of a crunch to it and you didn't have to slurp it up like a really thick soup.

I believe this would be great for noodles instead of potatoes, too. In fact, the next time I make that one, I'll use noodles instead of potatoes and add minced beef to see how that works out. I'll report, of course.  But so far, I can definitely say that this recipe is recommendable. It's especially nice now that it's getting colder outside because it gives you that "warm on the inside, warm on the outside" feeling and makes you so full that you just want to lie on the couch under a blanket and cuddle a little. With a doctor. Or the rabbits that behave suspiciously well tonight. I should look into that and see what their true plans are.

Happy eating!