Tonight, it was going to be just Kylie and me sitting at the dinner table enjoying a meal. Dennis was going to be joining us later in the evening, but would miss sharing dinner with us. Knowing he’d be gone Monday night, I asked Kylie before doing my grocery shopping over the weekend, what she’d want for dinner. I mentioned that I had been thinking of making stuffed, baked potatoes, and she eagerly agreed to this for dinner tonight.

I started by scrubbing my potatoes clean with a vegetable brush and then drying them with a kitchen towel. I poked several slits into my potato with a paring knife and rubbed each potato with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and sprinkled each one with 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt. Then, I placed my potatoes into a preheated 400 degree oven, directly on the rack, for 60 minutes. I place the potatoes directly on the rack so the heat can circulate around the entire potato, ensuring that the skin becomes crusty all around.

While the potatoes were baking, I sautéed shishito peppers in a medium sized skillet on the stove top. Knowing Kylie would not eat the peppers, I only sautéed enough for one potato. Once they were blistered, I removed them from the skillet and sprinkled a pinch of kosher salt onto the hot peppers and set them aside.

When the potatoes were ready, I cut the stems off of the peppers and cut them into small, bite size pieces.

I also cooked two slices of applewood smoked bacon per potato in the microwave and cut them into bite size pieces for our potatoes as well. For my potato, I actually used turkey bacon. I prefer eating a lower fat diet, so turkey bacon it was for me :).

I picked up some greek yogurt to use on our potatoes, in place of light sour cream. I thought this added a wonderful flavor to the potato, but you should feel free to use sour cream if you prefer – that’s what Kylie did!

I cut the potatoes open and added several grinds of the pepper mill and a couple tablespoons of the low-fat Greek yogurt to the potato. I then added the chopped bacon, topped with the shishito peppers and some shredded cheddar cheese. This made for a filling dinner, however, we didn’t feel overstuffed. Kylie and I decided we should have stuffed, baked potatoes every couple of weeks for dinner – we’ll think of different things to stuff them with each time. Kylie thought meatballs and marinara sauce may be good the next time … sounds good to me, too!

Ingredients (per potato)

large russet potato

1/2 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus a pinch

fresh ground pepper

7-10 shishito peppers

2 slices bacon (your choice)

2 tablespoons low-fat Greek yogurt

shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Wash and scrub potatoes, drying with a dish towel. Pierce potato several times with a fork or paring knife.
3. Rub potato with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt.
4. Place potato in oven, directly on rack and bake for 1 hour, checking after 50 minutes.
5. Cook bacon.
6. Heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil in skillet. Sauté peppers until they are blistered, 3-4 minutes per side. Remove from skillet and place on a paper towel. Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher salt. Set aside.
7. Build potato. Cut potato in half (not all the way through) and sprinkle with pepper. Add Greek yogurt, chopped peppers and chopped bacon. Top with shredded cheese.

Enjoy!

Until next time, Kris