Ham and Cheese Potato Skins

Begin by preheating your oven to 400 F. Poke the top of each potato with a fork and place on a baking sheet. Cook in the oven for 1 hour. Once cooked, remove them from the baking sheet, and place on a plate to let cool for about 15 minutes.

Once your potatoes are cooled, use a sharp bread knife and cut each potato lengthwise into three segments for each potato. So each potato will yield two skins, right? You can discard the middle slice and reuse for breakfast the following morning, or heck for that matter, add some butter, salt and cream, and make some rustic mashed potatoes. When done you should have 10 skins.

With a small spoon, being careful not to poke through the skin, scoop out about 70 percent of the potato, as you still want some potato in your boat.

Next, melt your butter in the microwave. This should take 30-60 seconds or so.

Get your broiler heated to high.

Brush the butter on the inside and outside of each potato skin and place them back onto the baking sheet. Season the inside of each skin with salt and pepper.

Place them under the broiler for 8-10 minutes until the insides get a bit crispy from the melted butter. Once the edges and interior are a bit crisp and golden, remove them from the oven. Turn off the broiler, and set the oven to 425 F.

Add a generous amount of cheese into each potato boat. Top with a generous amount of ham. Simply divide the ham into six sections so each potato gets enough of it. Top with a bit more cheese.

Place the tray back into the oven, and cook for about 5 more minutes or until the cheese is nice and bubbly.

The end result is nothing short of amazing with these ham and potato skins. These are a perfect bite any time of the day, and as a matter of fact I thought they would be even more amazing with a bit of scrambled egg mixed in before baking. That would be a great breakfast bite! Regardless, these are really simple to make and made everyone happy. Next time I will simply need to make more of them as they went too fast. Hope you enjoy.