twice baked and stuffed mexican potatoes (and Pearl Jam ear candy)

Welp, this was tonight's dinner experiment. I gotta say, blogging is a good motivator for me to actually cook dinner. Is that like, so sad, or what? No, really, I do love to cook. And I have a lot of stuff that I need to use up... like the bunch of cilantro in my "crisper" (I really don't want that to go bad), and the avocado in my fruit basket. Kind of a no brainer, pairing the two... but anyway, here's the way I used up the rest of my potatoes (which we don't use often), cilantro, avocado, and leftover red beans from the crockpot.

While I am typing this blog post, we're watching a GPB special on Pearl Jam... got chills all over, listening to Eddie Vedder sing 'Release Me', a song I used to listen to on repeat from the Ten album (one of the albums (among many) of my generation). I think I wore out that album. Listen and enjoy.

Twice Baked & Stuffed Mexican Potatoes
Ingredients:
8 medium russet potatoes
2/3 cups sour cream
1 cup grated cheddar or colby jack cheese, plus 3/4 cup for sprinkling on top
1/2 tsp garlic salt
black beans or red beans (I used leftover red beans I'd cooked in the crock pot last week)
We used leftover Mojo Roasted Pork from Publix (on sale this week), you can add chicken, steak, or keep it veggie!
avocado (diced, with lemon or lime juice and salt)
cilantro
sour cream
salsa

Step 1: Bake yer taters. Wash 'em, pop them in a 425 degree oven for 40 minutes. I had one explode in my oven tonight. Don't ask me how that happened!?
Step 2: Take them out of the oven and let them cool. I baked them before I had to leave to pick Dakota up from school. They probably cooled for about 20 - 30 minutes.

Step 3: Gut them. I used a melon baller, but a spoon will be fine. Don't go all the way to the skin, leave a layer of potato or your skins will fall apart. Put the potato guts into a bowl.

Step 4: Combine the sour cream, cheese and garlic salt with the potato innerds.

Step 5: Spoon the mixture into the potato skins. Top with the bean and meat of your choice (or not). Sprinkle cheese on top. Put the potatoes into a preheated oven at 400 degrees.

Step 6: Take them out of the oven... cheese should be melted well. I left them in there about 20 minutes.

Step 7: Serve with sour cream, salsa, avocado, and chopped cilantro. And just because it's so pretty, here's the pic again. Don't you love my paper plates? What can I say, the dishwasher was full.

I'll post more deep thoughts tomorrow. But today is all about food!

Much love and enjoy the Pearl Jam.