Potato Salad Bites

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.

2. Hard boil the eggs: Place the eggs in a saucepan and cover with water. Place the saucepan on the stove and turn the burner on medium to medium/high heat. Once the water comes to a full boil, keep the heat on for 2 minutes, then turn the heat off and move the saucepan off the burner. Let the eggs sit in the pan (with the lid on) for about 13 minutes. Then, drain off the water and run cold water over the eggs. The colder the water the better. It even helps if you put some ice in it. I have found this method to produce perfect hard-boiled eggs. The cold water, or ice water, also really helps you get the shell off without a huge mess. Once the eggs are hard-boiled and peeled, you can dice them up into a small dice.

3. Wash potatoes and cut them in half. Take a sharp spoon, melon ball scoop, or measuring spoon and carve out a little bit of the potato insides (pictures on the related blog link). Don’t take too much, but just enough to be able to put a good amount of filling inside. Place potatoes on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil and season with a little bit of salt and pepper. Place in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until brown and tender, flipping once. You can also boil the potatoes until tender if you don’t want to roast them, but I love roasted potatoes, so that is how I did it.

4. In a large bowl add: diced hard-boiled eggs, green pepper, red pepper, shallot, pickle, mustard and mayonnaise. Mix together all ingredients and season with salt and pepper to taste.

5. Scoop about one tablespoon of egg filling into each potato, shake a little bit of paprika on top and sprinkle with green onions, if desired.

6. If you are not one to waste food, you can use the scooped out potato balls by drizzling them with a little olive oil, seasoning them with salt and pepper, and roasting for about 15 minutes in the 400 F oven. I can tell you from experience that they were delicious!

7. Enjoy!