My eldest daughter has been going through a stage of not wanting potatoes. She will of course eat wedges and chips but not actual potato as in mash or boiled potatoes. It’s a bit of a pain as we are already making huge adjustments to the food we eat due to my youngest daughters allergies and potatoes are one of our basic diet staples.

So I need to make potatoes interesting again. Think potato dauphinoise, pizza pies ( jacket potatoes sliced in half and topped with tomatoes and cheese ) and I’m starting to convince her that yes she does like them really. This has led to me making more potato based dishes than normal and eventually got me to these loaded skins.

They were pretty easy to make and tasted incredible.

You will need:

4 large potatoes
1 spring onion ( diced )
1 handful of chives ( diced)
3 slices of cooked ham diced
100g of grated cheese
25g of butter
1/4 tsp of crushed black peppercorns
1/4 tsp of sea salt
1 tbsp of olive oil

Firstly bake your potatoes or zap them in they microwave – I put all four in together for 20 minutes. Once out slice in half and scoop out the flesh ( be careful here as you want the skin to remain intact)

Place the hollowed out skins in a baking tray and sprinkle with the salt, pepper and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Bake in a hot oven for approximately 15-20 minutes until they are crispy.

Mix together your scooped out potato with butter, chives, spring onion and diced ham in a bowl then fill each potato skin. Top with grated cheddar.

Place under a hot grill until golden brown.

Serve with a large leafy salad and some sour cream and sweet chilli dips. These are incredibly moreish I warn you!

These could be easily adapted to be vegetarian by removing the ham.