All Too Easy Taters

Directions

1. 1
   Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line the bottom of a broiler pan or other large baking pan with aluminum foil.
2. 2
   Wash all of the potatoes and prick them several times all over with a fork. Either dip a paper towel in the cooking oil or if you are a sloppy cook like me use your hand and rub the potatoes all over with oil and set them in the broiler pan. Crush salt and pepper over tops of the potatoes and then turn the potatoes and do it again to get them nicely coated. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until potatoes are getting very tender. Remove from oven but leave the oven heated.
3. 3
   Pull foil out from under potatoes. You may have to lift potatoes up first as they may be stuck to the foil. In my trial run I tried to be graceful and ended up with a small salted burn from flying potatoes. Once foil is removed and all of the potatoes are back in the pan use a knife or chopper to chop up the potatoes into chunky bits. Think like tator tot size or slightly bigger. Once they are all chopped up (it is okay if some are a little smashed) slice your stick of butter (you can use two if you have been especially good) over the top of the potatoes. Next crumble your cooked bacon over the top. Or if you are using realy thick bacon like I did you might have to use a pair of scissors to cut it into bits and then spread them all over the top.
4. 4
   At this point my mind went dead...probably from the exhaustion of snow removal, laundry and hungry kids...so I just put it in the oven for another 15 minutes and called it done. But as we ate this wonderfully warm and comforting food things began to pop into the minds of my children...things like Mom you could have put cheese on top...Mom you could have drizzled ranch dressing over these...Mom you could have put sour cream on it....and my mind of course wondered to the green things I try to sneak in like parsley, green onion, etc. Hmmm...I wonder if they would notice chopped spinach sprinkled on top??
5. 5
   So I hope this is an easy side for your family meal and that you get to enjoy it with warm..not frozen...toes.