For the Super Bowl party we went to, I decided to make twice baked potatoes. Except all the recipes called for full size potatoes. Who would eat a half a potato as an appetizer?? Craziness.. anyways, I made my potato bites with red potatoes because they were much smaller than Russets. A good tip that I read recently when cooking food for guests was: don't skimp on the calories. This usually makes for a much tastier dish. For this appetizer, I seasoned all layers of the potato bite starting from the potato shell, through the mashed potatoes, and even after the dish was cooked. Made it much tastier!!
Although the prep time on this recipe is not long at all (I'm thinking around 45 minutes) I spent all day on these. I only have limited time to play with my son so he takes priority over cooking. So when I have to cook, I usually distract him. This week's distraction was baked apple slices with cinnamon and powdered sugar. So during his nap times and during feeding distractions, I prepped this week's dish for nearly 5 hours.
To start the appetizer, I cooked the bacon (there's nothing like butcher shop thick sliced seasoned bacon.. MMMMM....), boiled the potatoes with some rosemary, and chopped up some garlic, parsley, and chives.
After the potatoes were cooked, I sliced them in half, scooped out the centers, and blended that with sharp cheddar cheese, sour cream, and the bacon/garlic/parsley/chives. Put that mix into the potato shells, top with more cheese and then bake until the cheese is a few minutes from burning. That way everything inside the dense appetizer gets cooked. Then just top with some freshly chopped parsley. A tip from the famous Giada... rub olive oil around the skin of the potato shell before baking. This way they kind of get "fried" and crispy.
