Twice Baked Potatoes

Alright, people. You're in for a treat. I mean, this recipe is good... really good. Sometimes when you see twice baked potatoes, they're these wimpy, little potato skins with whipped potatoes inside and yellow cheese sprinkled on top. And when the wimpy-twice-bake-creators are feeling a little squirrelly, they add on a dash of paprika. OOOH-WEEE! No. If that's what you think this is, think again. These famous twice baked potatoes call for the works: several different kinds of cheese, pancetta, sour cream, butter & panko bread crumbs. These are my Florida friends' #1 food request whenever we go down for the holidays. To be clear, if I were Kelis, my Twice Bakes would bring all the boys to the yard. Ya'dig?

Ingredients:
- 4 or 5 Large Russet Potatoes
- 8oz pancetta, diced small
- 8oz colby jack cheese, diced
- 8oz gruyere cheese, diced
- 1 yellow onion, diced small
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 stick of butter
- Panko bread crumbs (Optional)
- Parmesan, grated fine (Optional)
- S&P
- Olive oil

Directions:
Wash and pierce your potatoes, then rub them down with salt & olive oil. Bake for an hour at 450 degrees.

While your potatoes are baking, fry the pancetta until most of the fat has rendered. Once it's done, transfer the pancetta into a mixing bowl, then start cooking your onions. You can cook them until translucent, or you can do like me and caramelize them. It's the best way. Once the onions are done, dump them in the bowl with the pancetta followed by your diced cheeses, sour cream & butter!

When your potatoes are finished, remove them from the oven and turn the temp down to 350 degrees. Once they're cool enough to touch, cut the potatoes in half, length-wise. Then, cut around the inside of the halved potato leaving about a centimeter of potato left on the skin. This makes it easier to scoop out the insides. Also, if you don't leave enough potato around the edges, the skins will be too flimsy and probably tear. When you're finished cutting around the potato, scoop out the insides, transfer them to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients, and mix, but do not over mix! You want to keep it chunky!

At this point, I recommend doing some quality control. You have to taste this heavenly concoction once all of the ingredients are combined. It should be very moist with a little pancetta and cheese in every bite! If you think it needs extra moisture, add more sour cream or butter... or a little of both. No shame.

After combining all of the ingredients, mound the mixture into each potato skin until there is none left in the bowl. Top with parmesan cheese and panko bread crumbs, then bake for 30 more minutes. You can also broil them at the very end to give them that nice, golden brown color on top! YUM!

I'm sorry, y'all. You're waistline will not benefit from this, but I swear it will be worth it. Nevertheless, you can surely count on winning over several hearts & stomachs with this gem! And once you've mastered this recipe, you can start substituting in other ingredients. Last summer, I made a batch with chorizo, pepper jack & munster cheese. Needless to say, they were AH-MAZING!