Baby Red Potato Poppers

I’m one of those people who always thumb through magazines while standing in the grocery store checkout.  Here lately it seems like my waits are longer and longer   And when the waits are longer I have more time to look at magazines.  And of course I end up buying one.

I’m assuming the magazine companies are profiting from corporation cut-backs resulting in longer waits in grocery store lines …..makes sense to me.  The recipe I’m sharing I adapted from the new magazine I just purchased, All You.  I’ve really been enjoying it.

Potatoes are one of my weaknesses, and I can’t believe I’ve never thought of doing this…..stuffing baby red potatoes for appetizers!  They were some kind of good.

First of all I’m going to tell you a couple of things I did wrong (blonde moments) and keep you from making the same mistakes I did with this recipe:

• I bought a little “bag” of baby red potatoes.  They’re all different little sizes.  I SHOULD have went to the “loose” produce and picked out about 15 of the perfect size potatoes (about 2 to 2 1/2 inches wide) that were perfect for stuffing.  Although all of mine turned out really good, the smaller ones were harder to get the potato flesh out of.  Some were REALLY small.  Learning lesson.
• After boiling the potatoes, LET THEM COOL before slicing in half and removing the potato from the skin.  Once they cool they’re not as “fragile” if that makes any sense, and the potato is easier to handle.  I learned that after potato #1. 

To make these little poppers, you start with rinsing and scrubbing the potatoes.  Place them in a sauce pan, cover with cold water, add salt and boil.

See those REALLY TINY potatoes?  Those were the ones that I was talking about being difficult to scoop out.  After the potatoes have finished boiling (15-20 minutes), drain the potatoes in a colander and LET THEM COOL

Then you’ll slice the potatoes in half length-wise.  Using a melon baller, scoop out the potato from the skin and place in a medium sized bowl.   Don’t go too very close to the skin:

Once all the potatoes are “scooped”, you’ll add bacon pieces, sour cream, salt, pepper, and garlic powder and mix well.  I used a fork to mash it up real good.  Oh, and I used ready made bacon pieces.  Why?  Because I just didn’t feel like frying bacon   If you want, you can fry about 6 slices of bacon & crumble.

The mixture doesn’t look to pretty right now but just wait.  Using the melon baller, spoon the mixture back into the potato skins.  Place on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Oh yeah, now they’re pretty!    Once they’re finished in the oven, sprinkle with parsley.  They were perfect little potato bites!  Here’s the printable version: