Hasselback Potatoes

This blog is dedicated to Patti, Peggy, Robin and Debbie, my peeps in high school.   The recipe today is Hasselhoff Hasselback potatoes.  When I first read the name of these Swedish-style baked potatoes, my very favorite soap opera star of all times, David Hasselhoff immediately came to mind.  I know I'm not alone in voting him the sexiest of daytime stars from the early years of the 1970's, right girls??

We would race home to watch Dr. Snapper Foster in our fave rave soap opera, The Young and the Restless and swoon.  All of the other TV doctors paled in comparison.  Who needed Dr. Steven Kiley on Marcus Welby or Dr. Joe Gannon on Medical Center when Snapper Foster was curing all that was wrong in Genoa City?   And there was plenty wrong! 

WHAT HAPPENED???  Poor, pitiful David Hasselhoff can't catch a break these days.  It all went down hill after the infamous hamburger eating incident, caught on video by one of his "loving" daughters.  Who amongst us hasn't gotten the munchies after having a cocktail or two and felt the need to shove an entire hamburger into our gaping maw, all at once?  And now his newest TV venture, a "reality" show was cancelled after only one episode.  Oh well, we will always have our memories of Snapper Foster - a teenage girl's fantasy doctor.

Now on to the recipe.  Very simple.  The tricky part is cutting the potatoes into slices without going all through the other side.  I stuck a couple of chopsticks on either side of the potato and cut through until I hit them and didn't slice through once.  The results were lovely, crisp on the outside, creamy on the inside, slices of yummy potatoes.  This is a wonderful alternative to the boring old baked potato that often accompanies our meatloaf dinner.  Enjoy and thanks for indulging me in my walk down memory lane.

Hasselback Potatoes

Medium size baking potatoes.

Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Butter
Garlic slivers, onion slivers, any spices you'd like to sprinkle on your potatoes.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Wash potatoes well. Lay each potato on a cutting board.
With a sharp knife, thinly slice each potato, being careful to not cut all the way through. (Tip: I lay a chopstick on each side of the potato so I don't accidentally cut too far.)

Season each potato.  You could get creative, slide a sliver of garlic between the layers, experiment with different herbs, butter, use whatever might sounds good to you.

Place potatoes in a baking dish that has been drizzled with olive oil. Drizzle potatoes with olive oil.  Bake at 425 degrees for 40 min, or until the inside is tender.