Baked Potato - Back to Basics 36

Baked potato is one of my all time favourite meals. Today I was making cherry pies in the Cookie House so I grabbed two desiree potatoes, rubbed a bit of oil on them, wrapped them in al foil and tucked them into the corner of the oven. Then, when I was finished work there they were waiting for me, all steaming hot flesh and crusty skin. MMMM! I LOVE BAKED POTATO!

And potatoes are not bad for us, contrary to popular belief, it is what we do to the potato that makes it bad for us, deep frying them in oil, slathering them with butter and sour cream, crusting them with salt, under all of that abuse there is a very healthy vegetable crying its eyeballs out.

I used to be a prime culprit for this sort of potato abuse. I remember when I was enormously pregnant with my first born Cookie House tadpole Jon, going off with Mr T to the Super Bikes at Phillip Island, he to ogle the bikes, me to fill up on baked potatoes. I remember that we were sitting on a little slope in front of the track, in prime position for him to cheer them on as they barrelled down the straight, and for me to waddle up to the baked potato van at the edge of the car park every time I needed a refill. I remember eating three massive baked potatoes, smothered in garlic butter, cheese, sour cream, bacon and dry slaw and then wedging myself back into our Monaro and sleeping like the dead all the way home. Our son Jon was born two days later. I wanted to call him Baked Potato to preserve the golden memory, but sadly I was over-ridden and Jon Stephen he became.

My days of potato abuse are at an end now, so I am going to show you a Michelle-i-fied healthy version that tastes FANTASTIC, and has the added benefit of being a plate full of nutrients.

So to begin we oil our potatoes with a smudge of olive oil, wrap them in al foil and bake them at a high heat, we are talking 200 degrees C here, for about forty minutes, or you can prick them with a fork and put them in the microwave on high for five minutes, then oil, al foil and oven (or BBQ, I often do them on the BBQ, just be sure to turn them over from time to time) if you want them to be a bit quicker.

When they are cooked through and crusty on the outside, pop them onto your plate and cut them into half and then across ways so they lay flat.

Drizzle with some olive oil or avocado oil, crumble on some pesto (see pesto tutorial in Dairy Free) and then top with some strips of smoked salmon.

Now, to replace the lovely sauciness of the sour cream that we can not have, we are going to top this with a soft poached egg, if you are not sure how to do that go have a look at the poached egg tutorial in Back to Basics.

Lovely, now top that with some Sesamesan (go see recipe for Fake Parmesan- Sesamesan in Dairy Free section).

Now top that with a garden salad or a dry slaw (I love dry slaw, but sadly had no cabbage today), I have used baby spinach, coriander, red capsicum, cucumber, spring onion and red onion.

And how did it taste?

MMMMM! Good enough for even a dedicated Baked Potato lover like me.

Right, since we have been talking about nutrition, let’s put our money where our mouth is and have a proper look at this meal. We have plenty of good carbs, fibre and insoluble starch in our potato and our salad, some excellent fats in our egg and our avocado oil and the nuts in our pesto, plenty of protein and omega 3 fatty acids in our fish and our egg, a big calcium boost in our Sesamesan, masses of vitamins and minerals in our salad and all the goodies hidden underneath it....you know what? This one can go into our Round Meal Hall of Fame!