Cheesy Brunch Baked Potato Skins With Bacon And Runny Egg

Most of us see brunch as a way of pigging out after a long week; usually by gorging on huge dishes of pork and washing it down with gorgeous cocktails.

There doesn't tend to be much of a healthy middle ground, but that's what I've created today.

We'll call it a 50/50 brunch, with mostly healthy ingredients, but the bacon and cheese thrown in give it that luxury brunch feeling. Check these bad boys out.

Instructions

Step 1

Splash out a little and get free range eggs and bacon, if you can find and afford them. They really will make all the difference here.

Step 2

Prick the potato with a fork ever so slightly. To speed things up. I pop it into the microwave. Usually takes about 10 minutes, turning it every couple of minutes. Until it's soft basically.

Step 3

Throw the bacon into a pan. I don't use oil, but you may need a tiny drop.

Step 4

Wash the leaves. I wasn't going to, but spotted a load of muck on them at the last minute.

Step 5

When the bacon's cooked, throw in the leaves (keep about 4/5 big ones back). They won't take more than about 10 seconds to wilt down. Whip them straight off the heat.

Step 6

Grate the carrots after they've been peeled and very finely slice the remainder of the leaves.

Step 7

You now have two mixes.

Step 8

Remove the bacon from the pan and slice it up, leaving it pretty chunky.

Step 9

When the potato is cooked, cut it in half.

Step 10

Scoop out the middle.

Step 11

Pop the potato flesh, cheese, bacon and cooked leaves into a bowl, and mix together well.

Step 12

Pop the mix back into the potatoes, making sure to make little holes in the middle for the eggs. The deeper with the higher edges the better.

Step 13

Crack the eggs into the holes and pop these on an oven proof tray into the oven at 180 degrees. They'll only take about 3 or 4 minutes if the oven's hot.

Step 14

Add a little olive oil and some salt and pepper to the carrots and shredded leaves and toss together.

Step 15

Whip them out when they start glazing over, but you can still see the yolk is a little runny.

Step 16

Serve them up straight away with the salad mix and get ready to see seriously excited faces as you arrive at the table.

If you get seriously good bacon without too much fat, or that isn't loaded with water, then this isn't too bad for you at all.

There's some serious eating in this dish, but it doesn't leave you with the post-brunch feeling you get when you're all bloated and can't move for an hour.

Get to it and try the recipe this weekend... or even better, rope somebody else into making it for you.