Recipe Advent Calendar - Day 10 - Potatoes Romanoff & Twice Baked Potatoes

My birthday is in the summer and my mom's birthday is four days later, so every year on my birthday my grandparents would have a BBQ in their "BBQ Room" which was in their backyard.  Our family would be there and usually my Uncle Earle and Aunt Gerda would be there, too.  We would have brisket or beefalo steaks, a big fruit salad inside of a watermelon, served with YumYum Sauce (which is vanilla pudding and Cool Whip), plus we would have Potatoes Romanoff.  We would always finish off with my special birthday cake, Angel Food with a tunnel carved out of the middle and filled with strawberries and Cool Whip.

Many years later on, when my sister Sandy had gotten married, she had us all over to her apartment for dinner and she made Twice Baked Potatoes. They were wonderful!  Then to my surprise, I realized that they were pretty much just Potatoes Romanoff in potato skins, with bacon.  No wonder I loved them!  Twice Baked Potatoes are probably the recipe most requested by missionaries who come to dinner.  Not the recipe itself, just that we have them for dinner.  It's also our son Mark's favorite food.   I hope you enjoy them as well as we do.

Potatoes Romanoff 
Recipe from Varee Bland, my grandma, who got it from her friend Betty Dyke.

6 medium potatoes (about 2 lbs.), fork tender, baked in jackets
Shred them in a large bowl with the cheese shredder (wear protective clothing, this is messy)

Add:
1 pt. dairy sour cream
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Combine all ingredients in a greased 9x13 pan or large casserole dish.  Top with additional grated cheddar cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until bubbly and heated through.

Twice Baked Potatoes 
Recipe from Sandy Bland Harms

Same ingredients as above but also add :
1/2 lb. bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 Tbsp butter, if desired (I generally leave it out)

Bake potatoes in their skins until fork tender. Cut potatoes in half and scoop out most of the flesh inside into a large bowl, leaving the skins intact.  Place the skins on a cookie sheet.  Combine potato with sour cream, cheddar cheese, green onions, salt, pepper and bacon.  Add more sour cream if not moist enough.  Add butter to make it more creamy, if desired.  Fill potato skins with filling, each should be heaped up a little bit.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until browned on top and cheese is melted.

Recipe Advent Calendar - December 3rd - Black Hills Golden Egg Bake

Eeek!  Three days in and I almost forgot to do this! LOL  Having a great time working on my daughter-in-law's genealogy today and getting ready to spend tomorrow at the Temple for our Temple Jubilee day, plus with teaching and planning for Seminary and helping with Tommy's Cub Scout outing, my mind was elsewhere.

I decided to stick with breakfast for today.  Mainly because of this quote from Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne:
" 'When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,' said Piglet at last, 'what's the first thing you say to yourself?'
" 'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?'
" 'I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?' said Piglet. 
"Pooh nodded thoughtfully. 'It's the same thing,' he said." 

The other breakfast recipe that is requested a lot is one that I found online a few years ago on Taste of Home.  It's called Black Hills Golden Egg Bake.  I don't make it exactly like the recipe, as normal, but it's really yummy just as the author posted it. It is one of our typical Christmas morning recipes along with Aebelskiver. I've never had anyone say that they disliked it. Here's the link: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/black-hills-golden-egg-bake


Black Hills Golden Egg Bake
1/2 c. sliced fresh mushrooms
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/4 c. butter, cubed
10 eggs
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt, optional
2 c. (16 oz.) 4% cottage cheese
2 c. (8 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese
2 c. (8 oz.) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
(I just use the shredded Mexican blend instead of these two and like it better.)
1/2 lb. bulk pork sausage, cooked and drained
6 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
1 can (2 1/4 oz.) sliced ripe olives, drained (seriously, my family would disown me if I put olives in anything, so these are never, ever added.)

Grease a 9x13 pan with butter and set aside. In a small skillet, sauté the mushrooms and peppers in butter until tender.  I've also thrown in Thrive Foods reconstituted freeze-dried spinach and other peppers and they're also good.
In a large bowl, combine eggs, flour, baking powder and salt.  Blend together then add mushroom mixture.  Add remaining ingredients and pour into greased pan.
Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for an additional 25-35 minutes or until a pick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Serves 10-12 servings.

I heard of someone lining the baking pan with crescent rolls and then pouring in the ingredients to make a flaky crust, but I haven't tried that yet.   If it worked, it would be very much like Panera's soufflés. I suppose you could also make these into individual servings pretty easily by pouring into cupcake or tart tins.

Enjoy!

According to Taste of Home, this was originally published as Black Hills Golden Egg Bake in Country Extra March 1999, p51