French Onion Stuffed Baked Potatoes

The theme of this round's recipe swap was Thanksgiving side dishes.  The only side for Thanksgiving that I have ever made was a green bean casserole in college for a get together for students who couldn't go home.  This year will be my first Thanksgiving cooking, so I was excited to participate in this swap to get new ideas.

I received French Onion Stuffed Baked Potatoes from the Redhead Baker, who writes the Does Not Cook Well With Others blog.  I had to chuckle because the last recipe that I received was for French Onion Soup, so I seemed destined to make many French Onion recipes this month.

French Onion Stuffed Baked Potatoes
adapted from FoodNetwork
Ingredients
4 russet potatoes
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 button mushrooms thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon red cooking wine
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup shredded gruyere, plus more for topping

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stab the potatoes with a fork a few times and then wrap in foil and put in the oven for an hour.
2) About half-way through the potatoes' cooking time, heat the olive oil, salt, and garlic in a skillet, and cook the onions and mushrooms until caramelized, about 20 minutes.
3) Add the wine,the beef broth, bay leaf and reduce the liquid into the onions and mushrooms, should take about ten minutes.
4) When the potatoes are done, split them open and scoop out the flesh.
5) Mash the potato flesh, caramelized mushroom and onions, and 1/2 cup of shredded gruyere.
6) Stuff into the potato skins, top with more gruyere, and put back into the oven just until cheese melts.

Mine turned out more like potato skins because when I cut them in half to stuff them, they came all the way apart.   If you love French Onion soup, these baked potatoes are great.  They have the same flavors as the soup, just in a different vessel.  I added mushrooms because I had extra mushrooms from another dish this week, and I think it added to the taste and texture, but could also be left out.  We ate ours with steak, but I think that they'd be the perfect addition to the Thanksgiving table.  The only thing that I did notice was that they didn't retain their heat for a long time, so they can't sit out for awhile before you serve them to guests.  They basically need to go from the oven to the table.