Award Winning Cheesy Baked Potatoes

Rinse off the potatoes and quarter them. Then they all get tossed into a big pot, covered with water and boiled lightly. Don’t boil ‘em to death, please. Once the water gets to rollin’ these potatoes will cook a lot quicker than you’d think, so keep a close eye on them. You will know they are done when they are juuust fork tender. Also, if you’re wanting to make this for a big upcoming dinner, then you can boil the potatoes ahead of time to save yourself a little bit of time there.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Use at least a 13×9 inch casserole dish for this, but one that’s a little bigger than that works really well. Lightly grease it with olive oil (we are primitive folks and just use our hands to oil the dish).

While your potatoes are boiling, melt your stick of butter in a small pot. Once it’s melted, remove from heat and set aside. In another pan, fry up the turkey bacon until each piece is nice ‘n crunchy. When it’s done, remove the turkey bacon from the heat and set aside.

You can now start shredded up all of your cheeses. Put them all in the same bowl, but save 1/4 cup of your Parmesan cheese to get sprinkled on the top of your dish before it goes into the oven. Now is also the time to mince your garlic and chop up the green onions and put both into the cheese bowl. Next add in the milk, salt, pepper and paprika. Mix. Try not to eat too much of the cheese.

When your potatoes are just fork tender, drain them and pour in your melted butter. Mix. Next add in the big cheese mixture and mix again. Pour the whole thing into your greased casserole dish and top with the reserved 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. Crumble your cooked bacon pieces and sprinkle over the top of the potatoes. Can you stand it? Of course not! And I’m not gonna judge you for that.

Into the oven goes the dish and it bakes at 350F for about half an hour.

Eat ‘n enjoy!