Saturday Night Country Helping

Sorry I'm behind on posts, so I'm gonna try to catch up tonight and tomorrow! One of my favorite things about the weekend is that my husband and I usually plan on meals we can cook together! And I wanted to tell y'all about these amazing patty melts we made Saturday night! I love a good patty melt and normally, I would go to Steak N Shake to satisfy my craving but due to some "unfortunate events", my husband refuses to eat there anymore. So, I had to come up with a way to make my own. Now, normally when I cook something, I'll look up numerous recipes and then just make up my own! You can never do enough research on food ;).
Now before you freak out, I ended up using frozen beef patties (yes, i know, that is just plain CRAZY!). But for a couple of reasons. One, we had some left over from a party and two, they are surprisingly pretty good! Obviously if these had not been in my freezer, I would have used ground venison seasoned with hamburger seasoning ;). Now to go with these amazing burgers we made homemade potato skins! These are quickly becoming a weekend tradition! You just can't beat making your own skins! So, first up you want to wash and dry your potatoes, put them on a baking sheet an coat all over with oil (you can use veggie, olive, or whichever you prefer!). Throw them in a preheated oven of 400 degrees an bake for 40-45 mins. With about 30 mins. left, slice a whole onion and throw into a skillet and cook on low- medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. You want to cook these until they are nice and soft and brown, set aside and keep warm (see pic!). After the potatoes are done, remove them and let them cool for about 10 mins or until you feel you can withstand the heat enough to slice them in half lengthwise. While those are cooling, grill your hamburgers. We just used a cast iron skillet inside, well, because we ran out of propane for our grill ;). But you can grill your hamburgers however you please! Now, back to those potatoes. You want to scoop out the middle leaving about a 1/8 in rim in the potato half. Rub olive with your fingers on the inside and put back in the oven for about 10 mins more. Then fill with shredded cheese and bacon pieces. Stick back in the oven for another 10 mins or until the cheese is melted!
Now, to assemble your patties: Melt about 2 Tbsp of butter in a skillet. Take one piece of bread and place into the pan. I bought Texas Toast, I was looking for sourdough but couldn't find any at the store I was at. You can also use rye or whatever you prefer. I found that I was pretty happy with the Texas Toast! So, after you lay the bread down, put one slice Swiss cheese, then a patty. Pour on some Thousand Island dressing and then top with another patty. Top with your caramelized onions, another slice of Swiss and your top piece of bread. Now grill like you would a grilled cheese until your bread is nice and toasty and your cheese is melted! Also, don't forget about your potato skins! I hope you enjoy these as much as we did and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!! Also, tomorrow I will have two more posts up about our Super Bowl food lineup we had as well as the pizza and breadsticks I made tonight!!