Recipe Experiment - Hash Brown Cups

I've always been fascinated by the muffin-tin recipes I've seen out there on the web, but most of them employ things that I don't or won't eat (eggs). Last weekend, though, I decided to go looking to see what I could find. I happened upon a recipe that just sounded too good and simple not to try: Parmesan Hash Brown Cups. It turned out to be a little more labor intensive than I anticipated, but overall, it was well worth the effort.

Now I love Parmesan, and I'm so so with onions now, though they used to be on my least-favorite list, but I wanted to make this in a way that I loved, so I decided to switch out the green onions for bacon bits (I'm sure you could do this with fresh bacon, but I generally don't keep that in my fridge, while I always have bacon bits if I can help it. I use Hormel, so it's real bacon, just diced and crumbled). Since I was going with bacon, I also changed the cheese to cheddar instead, because they go better together than Parmesan would. I changed the measurement for the bacon to half a cup, because when I opened the package of Simply Potatoes, I was shocked at how much was in there. I wanted to make sure I had enough bacon scattered throughout the potatoes. It did seem the right amount when I ate them. I also added another tablespoon of oil, because it really didn't feel like enough to coat everything I had in the bowl. Now I'm less sure, because you do spray the cups with oil as well, so if you only want to go with the two, go for it.

My oven runs a little hot, but I went with her temperature, and put it in for an hour. By the end, even the tops were nice and golden, if still soft. I let it sit a little, then went in with a knife around the edges until they turned with the knife. I put a paper towel over the top and a regular baking tray over that, then flipped the lot, and voila, perfect little cups. Some were definitely smaller than others, but overall delicious. As she said, they are a bit chewy as opposed to crispy, but they're so good, it's well worth trying.