Corned Beef and Cabbage Twice-Baked Potatoes

I LOVE it when I can make a dinner work double-duty for me. Admittedly it doesn't happen all that often in my house though. With a meat-and-potatoes husband and 2 growing boys under my roof, leftovers tend to go go quick around here. I made corned beef and cabbage over St. Paddy's day weekend and knew ahead of time I wanted to make these twice-baked potatoes with some of the leftovers. So I had to move with a quickness and call out dibs on the leftovers before anyone else could get their hands on them.

My inspiration for these potatoes came in part from the Irish dish colcannon, which is basically mashed potatoes with cabbage, a little ham or bacon and often times an obscene amount of butter. (Yum!) And who doesn't love twice-baked potatoes? Marry those two dishes together along with super flavorful and tender chunks of corned-beef, the results were delicious!

Corned Beef and Cabbage Twice-Baked Potatoes

~serves 4 as a main dish, 8 as a side dish~

Ingredients:

4 large russet potatoes, 8-10 oz. each, scrubbed clean

oil for rubbing on potatoes

2 T. unsalted butter, melted

1/2 t. salt 

1/4 t pepper 

1/2 c. sour cream
2 T. milk
1 T. whole-grain mustard

1 1/4 c. rough chopped corned beef

2 c. leftover cooked cabbage

2 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Instructions:

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place potatoes on a large rimmed baking sheet lined with foil. Rub each potato lightly with oil. Bake the potatoes until completely tender, about an hour. Remove potatoes from the oven but don't turn the oven off. Let the potatoes cool for 10 minutes.

2. Halve each potato lengthwise and scoop out the potato flesh into a large bowl using a soup spoon, being careful to leave about a 3/8 inch layer of potato flesh in the skin (this keeps the potato skin stable). Return the hollowed-out potato skins to the oven to dry out and crisp up slightly, about 10 min. Remove from the oven and set aside.

3. Mash the potato flesh until mostly smooth using a fork or a potato masher. Add the melted butter, salt and pepper, mix to combine. Add the sour cream, milk and mustard, mix to combine again. Add the corned beef, cabbage and 1 c. of the cheese, mix thoroughly.

4. Mound the filing into the potato skins on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with the remaining cup of cheese. Return to the 400 degree oven, bake 10 min. Keeping the oven rack in the middle position, turn on the broiler and broil until the cheese turns spotty brown, 3-5minutes.