Preheat your oven to 400°.
Clean and chop vegetables of your choosing. Cover and refrigerate.
Fully clean and fully dry your Idaho #1 grade potatoes.
With a sharp knife - peirce your spuds three times at both ends and once in the middle. Or, you can use a fork to peirce them.
Place your spuds on a large piece of tinfoil. Shiney side up.
Smear your potatoes generously with cold bacon grease. Place back on tinfoil. You can use olive oil but, bacon grease definitely makes these better!
Sprinkle fresh cracked black pepper, sea salt, garlic powder and onion powder to taste on both sides of your bacon greased potatoes. I tend to go heavy on the sea salt! These are big spuds!
Wrap your potatoes up tightly.
Double wrap your potatoes tightly in another sheet of tinfoil. Again, shiney side up. A double wrap is more steak house style and steams your spuds more evenly.
Place potatoes seam side up on the center rack and place a cookie sheet on the rack underneath it to catch any potential drippings.
● Bake for 1 1/2 hours. After that, gently peirce potatoes with a sharp knife in the center where you'll eventually slice your potatoes open. If the knife enters with ease - you'll know they're fully baked. If not, bake a bit longer until soft. ● Know that if you're baking more than 2 large potatoes - you'll need to increase your baking time by approximately 15 minutes.
● Once fully baked - you'll have two options. You can either serve by slitting the tinfoil and potato - then squeezing both ends together to force the moist insides up and out. Fluff with fork. Serve immediately with toppers of your guests choosing. ● Or, you can do the exact same thing but, gently scoop out the insides with a large spoon leaving your shells fully in tact. Place all insides quickly in a bowl, mix in all of your toppers in and, gently place back into your potato shells. You may need to re-heat mixture [not tinfoil] in the microwave before plating. Garnish with fresh chives and parsley. Enjoy!
