MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - BLUE CHEESE STUFFED POTATOES

Today's recipe was found at Our Best Bites hosted by Sara Wells. The original recipe can be found at this link. I had potatoes and blue cheese, plus a couple of ingredients in the fridge I wanted to use up. I typed the ingredients and a request for a recipe in the Google search engine, and this the first one that popped up. There were dozens of others, but I was more than satisfied with the sound of it. If you find Blue Cheese too strong, you can always use your favorite.  I have made this with Cheddar, Swiss and Parmesan. Mozzarella would be nice also.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Potatoes

4 servings - approximately 272 calories per finished potato.

4 medium baking potatoes

1/2 cup sour cream

1 ounce (1/4 cup) crumbled bleu cheese

1/4 cup buttermilk or milk

4 tablespoons real butter cut into chunks

3/4 teaspoon of salt

A few dashes of pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

8 pieces bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

Grated cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 

Wash and dry potatoes. Rub them lightly with a bit of shortening or vegetable oil (helps crisp the skin so you will be able to scoop them out later without breaking. There is note about this below the recipe). 

Place potatoes directly on oven rack, or a cookie sheet. Bake for one hour or until potatoes are done. (See my note below.)

When you take the potatoes out of the oven after roasting, leave them for a while so that they are cool enough to handle, or use an oven mitt if you want to get on with it. If they are large potatoes you can cut them in half for 8 servings. 

Scoop out the insides and place them in a bowl. Add butter, sour cream, bleu cheese, milk, salt, pepper and garlic powder. 

Beat with a hand mixer until fluffy (we used a potato masher as we like a little more texture in ours). Carefully spoon the mixture back into potato shells. 

Place in a baking dish and return to the hot oven. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes. 

Remove and sprinkle bacon and cheddar cheese over each potato and bake an additional 3 to 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Sarah's notes: 

You can make ahead, though these are best right out of the oven. Cook your bacon and shred your cheese. Bake potatoes and whip up your filling. Fill the potato skins and store them, tightly covered, in the refrigerator, until ready to bake. They may need a few extra minutes when baked straight from the fridge. Just wait until they are nice and hot to top with cheese and bacon as described above. 

Store leftover potatoes in an airtight container in the refrigerator up until 3 to 4 days.

You may have some extra filling, especially if making a large batch. You can either store in the fridge to bake up later, or pop into a small, oven-safe dish, top with cheese and bacon, and heat in the oven with the rest of your potatoes.

Changes we made: we forgot to add the cheddar cheese at the end but this did not detract from the taste. They were very yummy!

I hadn't made twice-stuffed potatoes in a long time. Our potatoes were cooked but it would have been better to leave them in for 10 minutes longer. You might not need this but our oven runs on the cooler side. When we scooped them out the first shell we filled, it broke in half. No problem, we 'glued' it together with extra filling.  It would have been easier if the potatoes had been cooked longer, however.

When mixing the potato, add a little of the buttermilk/milk at a time, to gradually get it to the desired consistency. We did not use all of it and had a small amount of liquid left over.

The taste of bleu cheese was in the background and didn't overpower the dish.

We served it with a cob of sweet corn and sweet peas.

Here is the full address in case you would like to copy and paste instead of using the link at the beginning of the page.

https://ourbestbites.com/stuffed-bleu-cheese-potatoes/

It's definitely a keeper. We both forgot how much we enjoyed eating potatoes prepared this way. It made a very nice change.

I have actually frozen twice-baked potatoes in the past, but I would have to look that up to refresh before putting any instructions for the freezer on here.

As always, if you have any questions or tips of your own, let me know in the comment section and I will be happy to answer if I can.

Thanks for looking, 

have a great week and Bon Appetit!