Okay the steak is done, the potato is done, the grill is turned off, the oven is turned off, the food is in the plate and now I can multi-task eating and typing. (I eat really slowly and I type really fast.)
I want to get this recipe down before I forget it. This version of twice baked potatoes turned out really good!
First, bake a Russet potato by your usual method. (I bake mine.) Then take it or them out of the oven and let them cool. Mine sat on the counter for a few hours while I was busily typing away on my computer.
Then cut the potato in half and scoop out the insides. I mashed up the pulp with a spoon and nuked it a few times to get it up to maybe 120 or 130F, and then I mashed it some more (hot potatoes are easier to mash) and added some chopped green onions, some cooked and crumbled bacon, some roasted jalapeno peppers I made a few days ago (roast them until the skins are blackened, then chop them), then add some fresh cream and mash them some more. Then I threw in some chunks of blue cheese (from Trader Joe's, the package said "Castelo" but I wondered if they had misspelled "Castellano"), and I put it back in the oven so I could type some more (by this time I was typing on DC).
I turned on the grill to pre-heat, went back to my potato and added some thin slices of the same blue cheese on top and put it under the broiler, went back a few times to turn my steak, and then the steak was done and the potato was done and I put some sour cream on the potato and served dinner--next to my lap top on the kitchen table--and here I am typing and eating!
I'm glad I put that all down because tomorrow I might not remember every ingredient, and a week from now all I could tell you is that I cooked a good twice-baked potato and it had bacon and blue cheese.
And best of all, I used a really big Russet and I had both halves big enough to serve two, but my dog didn't want any. (He did want a share but I voted for him, and I'm a plurality around here.
.)
I've found the twice baked potato recipe to be very forgiving. You can bake them the first time and stuff them and put any you don't use in your refrigerator for a few days, then take them out and bake them the second time, or you can just bake them twice and refrigerate them or freeze them, and then nuke them to bring them up to serving. In any case you might want to save the final cheese topping until final cooking and put that under the broiler to finish it off. Cheese is so nice when you hit it with a broiler until it's just short of burning.
Funny thing, with all the cheese I eat--I usually have it with breakfast and as an appetizer before dinner, or often with dinner as in the twice-baked potatoes--you would expect I would gain weight, but in actuality I've lost about 1-2 pounds in the last few months. Worrying is really great for your diet.
If I can worry and eat good it's almost worth it!
Anyway this was a pretty good twice-baked potato. I really like the idea I hit upon--not an original idea--to roast the peppers until they're blackened on all sides, strip off the skin under running water then dry it and chop the rest including the seeds. This is a very typical Mexican cooking treatment of any peppers, and if you don't roast them you smoke them. (I don't know if they get high.) I used this method because my jalapenos were getting old and dry and wrinkled and I worried that they might become unusable. As it turns out this is a very good way to make a nice, spicy, smoky pepper mixture, and good for adding to all kinds of recipes.
I made some poppers last night because some of my jalapenos were getting old and wrinkly, and since I don't want poppers tomorrow--that's easy for me to say with a full stomach--and by the way I've finished dinner now--I'll let the dog clean the dishes--no not really, I don't give hot stuff to my dog--so I think I'll roast my last few jalapenos tonight and make more roasted, chopped jalapenos since I used the last of my mix in the potatoes.
I might have used a bit too much, but it was good!