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Thursday, November 01, 2007

Twice Baked Potatoes

Folks have been emailing asking for menu suggestions. Unfortunately, unless it is a special occasion I simply don't do menus and never have. Most people are quite surprised to hear I don't do menus. There a few reasons why. With a well stocked pantry and freezers menu planning isn't a real must. I can walk into the pantry and something will strike my fancy so that night's dinner will be based on that. Other times the inspiration will come from the Food channel or a find from the farmer's market. Sometimes my husband will call with "I'm in the mood for for dinner tonight". Then there are times like this past week when my husband and son were down with nasty colds that homemade chicken noodle soup was a must have. So by not doing menu planning I have a greater opportunity for creativity (aka mussing) in the kitchen.

Twice Baked Potatoes

Yesterday was a mussing day as I looked for a couple of different things to try. We eat a lot of potatoes most often baked, steamed or grilled and they usually are undressed with the exception of a little butter and salt or chili sauce in the winter. So yesterday I decided to fancy up the potatoes a bit. The end result was twice baked potatoes served with glazed country cut pork ribs and home canned carrots. The potatoes were a big hit!


Twice Baked Potatoes

6 medium sized potatoes
¼ c cream cheese
¼ c plain yogurt
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp milk
3 strips bacon
1 c shredded cheddar cheese
½ c steamed broccoli

Bake the potatoes at 350ºF until they give when pinched. Cut across the strips of bacon to form small pieces. Fry the bacon and drain on paper towel. Steam the broccoli until tender. Cut across the flowerettes to form small pieces. Cut potatoes in half. Scoop out the centres of the potatoes leaving about ¼ - inch of flesh on the skins. Place the scooped out portion of the potatoes in the KitchenAid® stand mixer bowl. Add cream cheese, yogurt, butter and milk. Mix on speed 3 until well blended. Scoop or pipe mixture into potato skins. Top with cheddar cheese, bacon and broccoli. Bake at 350ºF until cheddar cheese is bubbly.
Yield: 12 halves
at

4 comments:

  1. jayedee1:55 PM

    gg, can you think of any reason your stuffed bakers couldn't be flash frozen and stored in the freezer? this seems like it would lend itself to big batch cooking, but i'd hate to ruin any spuds!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Garden Gnome2:32 PM

    Jayedee, I can't think of any good reason they couldn't be flash frozen and then frozen. We have an M&M's here that sells them so I figure if they sell them I should be able to make them. What I would do is make them for dinner then scoop one and freeze. Reheat (not sure what to recommend here) and see if you like the results. I had 3 left-over figuring they would be good for lunch but apparently they disappeared out of the fridge, all by themselves, overnight. I'm telling you Aunt Tilly sure gets into things. She's our resident ghost who does things like this. Anyway, if you like the result then go ahead and freeze. Once froze I would likely vacuum seal as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. jayedee11:50 AM

    that's pretty much the scenario i had picked out gg! thank you!

    and in my house, we have ida.
    as in ida know!
    who painted the dog purple? ida know!
    who flushed the blue jeans down the toilet? ida know!

    you get the idea! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  4. Garden Gnome11:56 PM

    Hmm, ida know must be a cousin of Aunt Tilly's :)

    ReplyDelete

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