Twice Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

potatoes (one for each person, big or small works)

1 package of sour cream (small/medium/large depending on the amount of potatoes)

1-2 packages of shredded cheddar cheese (depending on # potatoes)

green onions (1-3 bunches depending on how many potatoes you're making)

salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano for seasoning

Time:  approximately 2-2.5 hours prep and cook time combined

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The kids do not like baked potatoes, but twice baked potatoes, they will literally cheer for!

 This dish is a bit tricky for kids to make.  I had to help Becca with this in a few spots.

 So first, you will wash your potatoes.  Then wrap them.

 Put all the wrapped potatoes on a pan and throw them in the oven at 400 degrees.  These were small potatoes, so they took about an hour to get soft.  But larger potatoes could take up to 2 hours.

 Then you will need to make your mixture to go in your potatoes.  You start with some sour cream.  We used a pint.  But I have gone heavy on the sour cream, and light at other times.  It really is preference of taste here.  I am guessing a median amount would be about 1/8-1/4 cup per potato.

 Then we throw in an entire bag of shredded cheddar cheese.  Same here on the amount.  Go as light or as heavy as you like.  We are making 12 small potatoes in this batch.  So that works out to not be much cheese per potato.

 Next, chop up some green onions.  We used three bunches today.  Go as heavy or light as you'd like.

So our potatoes are out now, and we have them unwrapped on the counter so that they can cool off enough for us to handle them in a minute.

 Now that you've got these ingredients in your bowl, you can stop there, or you can add some more seasoning as we like to do.  We threw in some garlic powder, salt, pepper, and oregano.

 Now this is the hardest part!   You need to cut off the top of each potato.  Cut with a sharp knife, flat across to leave a nice opening to scoop out the insides.  Then with a small metal spoon, you need to scoop out the insides.  This is hard for a mom to do, much less a kid.  It takes a little practice.  It's hard not to totally break up the potatoes.  But if they are cooked to be pretty soft, it'll be easier.

 Throw all those insides in the bowl with your mixture.  And use your knife to cut up the larger potato pieces a bit.

 Use an electric hand mixer to mix this all up to a yummy mashed potato type blend.

 Spoon your mixture back into each potato.  You will have enough mixture to really stuff those potatoes to overflowing.

 Lay all your potatoes on a pan.  Notice, we saved our potato skins to make some cheesy skins.

 Sprinkle cheddar cheese over the top of it all.

 And you are ready to throw it all in the oven!  You have lots of options here.  You could:

*put it in the fridge until later to heat up.  We did this.  We're eating these for tomorrow's dinner.  We'll just need to throw them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

*put them immediately in the oven.  If they are still pretty warm and soft, then you can bake them for just about 12 minutes at 425 degrees.

*for slower baking time, you can turn the heat super low and let them heat over a long period, crock pot style.  Or anywhere in-between those options.

*One tip to make these tastier, but not necessarily yummier, you could smear some butter on the potato skins before baking them.  Sometimes I even sprinkle salt and pepper on them after they've been greased.  You could have also added butter into your mashed potato mixture as well.