Billy Ashley’s Twice-Baked Potatoes

Ingredients: (makes 2 potatoes)
- 2 large size baking potatoes
- 1 onion (I prefer yellow onions)
- Philadelphia Onion & Chive Cream Cheese (8 oz tub)
- A few tablespoons of half & half
-Stick of butter
- 4-6 slices of bacon
- Salt/Pepper   
* For a lower fat version, substitute olive oil for bacon grease and skim or lower fat milk for half & half

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 450 degrees
• Wrap potatoes in tin foil.
• Put potatoes in oven for approximately an hour until the potatoes are just about done. To test this, stick a fork in the potato and if you can get the fork all the way in easily, that’s where you want them.
• Unwrap the potatoes from the tinfoil. Keeping the oven at 450 degrees, put the potatoes back in oven and keep an eye on them until the skin is crispy/crunchy. To test this, poke the potato with your finger and if the skin feels crispy, it’s done.
• Take the potatoes out of the oven and cut them open down the middle so you can scoop out the filling. Keep potato skins on a plate nearby.
• Scoop out the both potatoes’ filling with a large spoon and put in a large bowl. Mix a “splash” of half and half (more or less depending on what texture you like), tub of cream cheese and a pinch of salt and pepper until potatoes are a creamy, mashed-potato-like texture.
• Put filling back into potato skins and set them to the side to cool a bit. Now it’s time to make the bacon and onions!
• Fry bacon in a large pan and leave the bacon grease to fry the onions in. Once bacon cools, crush them into bacon bits and set aside.
• Dice onion and caramelize in bacon grease so the onions are golden brown with a crispy texture. You can use a strainer or paper towel to get rid of some of the bacon grease from the onions.  Set onions aside to use right before serving.
• Sprinkle bacon bits on top of potatoes.
• Cube butter into quarter inch squares and stick 2 cubes into potatoes (while doing so you might push the bacon bits into the potato, which is intentional).
• Put the potatoes back into the oven at 450 degrees (or at broil if you need them done more quickly.)  At this point, be sure to keep an eye on the potatoes, so they don’t burn! When the top of the potato filling starts to brown on top, take them out.
• Let the potatoes cool for a few minutes then put a tablespoon or so of the caramelized onions on top right before serving.