Making Your Baked Potatoes
What better on a cold winter’s night, than to return home to a supper of crisp-skinned baked potato, steaming, a knob of butter soaking into the fluffy centre? Excellent for days when you get home in good time but have a million things to do and cooking supper is last on the list. All you have to do is get the stove hot (200C), fling them in, (with a cross scored on the top, so they don't burst and coat your cooker with an irremovable patina of flaked potato) and leave them there for at least an hour, better an hour and a half. You can get on with everything else, secure in the knowledge that supper is cooking without you and then put together one or two fillings at the very last minute.
One of my fave toppings is tuna. Just open the tin, drain, add salt to taste and pepper and some lemon juice (be happy to add mayo if you like it but we do not). Other hassle-free accompaniments are baked beans, scraped cheese, left-over juices from last night’s stew. Any of these makes a tasty, tasty meal with no trouble and better still one that most youngsters will eat…an large plus point for mas everywhere.
A microwave hastens the method but leaves you with thin skinned potatoes that might do as an accompaniment to something else but lose the crisp appeal of the true range baked article. If you are in a hurry, cook pasta instead and save your jacket or baked potatoes for a day when you remember to switch the stove on in time.
A difference to try with smaller potatoes: after washing, drying and scoring the potatoes, rub the skins with a little butter, then add salt to taste and pepper before baking to offer you extra crispy, flavorful skins that everybody will eat.
One other thing to try if you'd like to get fancy: once the potatoes are cooked, split them, scoop out the guts, mix with a whisked egg, rasped cheese, salt and pepper, heap the mix into the skins and return to the oven for another 15 minutes until the tops are golden brown. A meal in itself!
Inexpensive, filling, healthy with the right toppings and requiring the minimum investment of labour, the baked potato is each busy mother’s ideal supper!
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Stefanie York is an author with an abiding interest in a multitude of subjects. Learn about Convection Oven Cooking You may visit her site for useful tips. Discover more about Convection Oven
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