Back in the Swing of things

I'm having a hard time getting back to normal after having so much time off work over the holidays. I know...oh poor me took too much time off..wah wah wah... but it really is hard to get back into the routine. We are halfway through our first full week back of the New Year, and it's slow going for me. I have a couple projects on the go and I am slowly getting back to where I was before the break. It feels a little like coming into something halfway through even though I'm the one that did the first half.

Sunday I made a big roast and did a double baked potatoe that had sour cream, bacon, mushrooms, and green onion in the mix, but last night I took the potatoe to a whole new level. The potatoes on Sunday were missing that little bite of flavour, so I added parmessan cheese, and Darrell suggested sticking a stick of cheese in the potatoe mixture so it would have a melty center. So last night's creation was:
1) Bake Potatoes until almost completely finished.
2) Chop up some bacon & Mushrooms and fry in a pan.
3) take potatoes out of oven and cut in half.
4) Scoop potatoe out of skin leaving enough around the edges to make the outer peel sturdy like a little bowl.
5) Brush the outer peel with Olive oil and place on a pan
6) mix Potatoe, Bacon & Mushroom, chopped Green onion (or chives or both), a sprinkle of dill, some grated parmessan, and sour cream... then mash it all up nice and gooey (I used the new stand up mixer for the task)
7) spoon a shallow layer of the mash into the potatoe skin bowls.
8) put a stick of cheese in the center of mash layer. (I used swiss but you can use anything)
9) spoon more mash on top of cheese stick filling the potatoe skin bowl. (you can be fancy and use a piping bag with a tip if you want it to be decorative)
10) put the tray back in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. You can brown the tops with the broiler if you want (matter of personal taste).

I made about two dozen of them last night because they're really great heated up in the Microwave for lunch.

You can substitute the sour cream for goats milk if you've got a problem with lactose... same goes for the cheese. In fact you can put almost anything you want in the potatoe. the basic recipe is just to bake the potatoe, spoon out insides, mash, pipe back in, and bake some more..... all the extra stuff is whatever you want it to be... hell you could put chocolate chips in there if you really wanted too.