I Never Would Have Dreamed Up This One

Sometimes, it just takes the outlandishness in a child to spark some creativity.  Last night, as I was baking potatoes for the  next day's breakfast, Cool Guy asked, as usual, if we could have oatmeal for breakfast.  (I think I mentioned that he's on an oatmeal jag right now and asks for oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  He gets it about 50 % of the time for breakfast and lunch.)  Anyway......

Cool Guy: "Mom, can we have oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow?"

Me: "No, I'm baking potatoes right now for fried potatoes in the morning."

CG: "How about potato skins?" 

Well, how about potato skins?  Never had em for breakfast, never heard of em for breakfast, but so what?  They have potatoes, bacon, cheese, and they make boys happy.

Except I've never made them before.  I woke fairly early and already had the potatoes baked.  "This will be easy," I thought, anticipating extra time to do a little early morning web surfing.  One hour later, I'm just about ready to get the skins in the oven for cheese melting and muttering that this is the LAST TIME I'll ever make potato skins.

Until Cool Guy takes his first bite.  He is almost doing cartwheels, he likes it so much.  I am, too.  Who knew they could be this good?

Will I make them again?  Definitely.  Will I do it on a regular basis?  Probably not.  Way too time-consuming for daily fare, but for a weekend, holiday, birthday, snow day, how about potato skins?

(Note: I used the recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.  I didn't have any green onions on hand, which I'm sure was fine with the boys, and I had baked the potatoes the night before.  I baked one potato per person, plus one, making 5, and I cooked only three strips of bacon, which was plenty.  A tiny dollop of sour cream (reduced fat) was perfect.)