Can you rightfully call a potato cooked in a crockpot a “baked” potato? Should you call it a roasted potato? Or maybe a crocked potato? I know that baking is a different science from crockpotting, but I am no Alton Brown…
Anyway, we had a baked potato bar for dinner recently and it was a hit with my family! The topping choices I set up for my baked potato bar were: butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, salsa, avocado, bacon, and reheated leftover broccoli & cheese soup (pulled from the freezer). My daughter and I cut our baked potatoes in half and topped one half with broccoli & cheese and bacon and the other with shredded cheese, salsa, and avocado (and of course, lots of butter and sour cream on both halves!) I crocked enough potatoes for each of us to have a second if we wanted, but I think only my husband went for a second one. The rest of us were fully satisfied with one potato and toppings. It was handy to have extra cooked potatoes for the rest of the week for lunches or even a snack!
Since our only protein was the bacon, I baked an entire package. That’s right, I put the potatos in the crockpot and the bacon on the oven! Here’s what you do to bake your bacon:
• set the oven at 425 degrees
• use a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with a lip on it and line it with parchment paper for easy clean up (foil works too, but I like parchment paper better because my tongs or spatula tend to snag on the foil)
• spread the bacon out on the pan or cookie sheet (it’s ok if the bacon strips overlap)
• use tongs or a spatula to turn the bacon strips over once after about 8 minutes (if you had overlapping pieces, you can usually space them out better after they’ve cooked off some of the fat)
• check it every 5 minutes or so until it’s done to your preferred level of crispness (very crispy, for my family!)
We loved the baked potato dinner idea so much that we are planning other ways to eat them – as brinner, topped with eggs and bacon, or with eggs baked into them. It turns out that is a real thing – here is a link to make “Idaho Sunrise” or as tacos, topped with taco meat, cheese, lettuce, sour cream, and salsa. That’s a real thing too – here is a link to make taco potatoes.
