A quick meal

There are plenty of times in family life when you want a quick, inexpensive, but healthy, meal or snack. I especially appreciate food that my kids can heat up and serve themselves. This recipe fits all the way around.

Twice Baked Potatoes

Bake a lot of potatoes. (Specifics? Really? Sigh. Fine.)

Bake 5 lbs of potatoes at 350 for 1 hr. (Satisfied?)

Eat any you want with some grilled meat and a salad, or make a potato bar and call it dinner.

Let cool. You can even stick the potatoes in the fridge and get to them tomorrow or the day after.

Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, so that it easily lays with cut side up.

Scoop out potato with a spoon leaving skins and a thin layer of potato behind for structural support.

Put potato guts in a large mixing bowl, mash with milk/cream and large amount of butter (as if for dry mashed potatoes). Now add cheese, eggs, veggies, garlic, spices, salt, pepper, and/or meat to the mix. How much is up to you, as a minimum I would add 1 cup cheese and 2 eggs to 5 cups potato, with veggies and meat being optional. Taste as you go to get something you like. (Yes, I know about not eating raw eggs, but it hasn't killed me yet, and I'm not going to worry about it!)

Now you just scoop the mashed potato mix back into the shells, lay face up on a baking sheet, sprinkle with cheese and bake the stuffed potatoes again. (usually just enough to heat, ~ 20 min @350)

If any survive you can freeze the extras on the baking sheets, transferring to a freezer bag when they're hard. They only take a couple of minutes in the microwave to be toasty and yummy again.

If all the twice backed potatoes got eaten then next time try starting with 10 lbs of potatoes.

Notes and modifications:

I usually start with at least 7 lbs of potatoes.

My kids favorite twice baked potato is cheddar cheese, cream cheese, garlic, salt and pepper.
I like to add broccoli to this, and it's pretty good with ham and broccoli.

We've also made pizza potatoes using dried tomatoes, pepperoni, and mozzerella.
I'd like to try spinach and feta.

The sky is the limit when filling these, change the cheese type and the extras to make your favorite flavor.


A link to this post is also at Food Renegade "Fight Back Friday" for April 30 2010