Twice Baked Potatoes

One of my husband's FAVORITE things to eat is Twice Baked Potatoes....so I called my mother-in-law and this is her "famous" recipe!  I'm totally into freezing things to make dinner easier with my busy schedule and this totally fits the bill!  Did I mention how INEXPENSIVE this is?  I just bought a 10 lb. bag of baking potatoes at the grocery and I got 5 meals out of them: mashed potatoes at Easter, baked potatoes last night and I made 14 twice baked potatoes for sides!

Clean and dry the potatoes and bake them at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 - 2 hours on a baking sheet.  Don't speed up the cooking process by trying to microwave them as you want the skins to get a little crispy from the oven.  I turned them once through out the cooking process. Simply insert a knife into the center of one to find out if they are done.  They should be soft.

Cut the potatoes in half "hotdog" style for you elementary teachers or lengthwise.  Using a big spoon, hallow out the potato, reserving it in a bowl for later.  I left some of the potato around the skin just to get it a little more stability to use it as a bowl.

 Using a hand mixer, combine milk, butter, salt and pepper and potatoe in a bowl until whipped up to a soft mash consistency.

Next fill your potato skin boats with your mashed potato mixture.

Lastly top the potatoes with shredded cheese, gently pressing down to embed the cheese into the mashed potato mixture.

I put 4-6 potato boats in a freezer bag.  Put the freezer bags flat on a cooking tray into the freezer.  After they have frozen (1 day) I can then stack them in the deep freezer.

To serve, simply thaw overnight in the refrigerator.  Place on a baking sheet and bake for 30-45 minutes at 350 degrees.