Too Many Baked Potatoes?

During this virus pandemic, I forgot about a 10-pound bag of red potatoes I bought and stored under the sink.  By the time I remembered them, mold had struck, and there was a puddle of ick at the bottom of the storage basket.

Whenever Possible Make Baked Stuffed Potatoes

Like eating Chicken Soup when you’re feeling under the weather, Baked Stuffed Potatoes are a cure-all.  A little butter, some cheese, a large dollop of sour cream, garlic and spices—what more can a potato ask for to become the center of attention?

I recently realized that making these potatoes needn’t be a huge drain on my energy just before dinner.  Why not prepare them early in the day and keep refrigerated until the final baking? 

Here’s the plan:

How Much Does a Home-Cooked Meal Really Cost?

Crunchy Baked Fish Sandwich

It depends on the menu, how many people you’re feeding and how well stocked your pantry is.  If you’re a minimalist cook, you might have to add into your budget as much as $50 for basics that a long-time cook already has on hand—oil, vinegar, flour, sugar, rice, canned tomatoes, spices, soy sauce.  Also, you might need a frying pan or a big pot or a set of measuring spoons and cups.

And you haven’t even bought the main ingredients yet.

Let’s take the pantry issue out of the equation and concentrate on an easy meal for 4 people:

How to Use Up Leftover Potatoes

Baked Stuffed Potatoes

It’s so easy to cook more potatoes than you need—whether you meant to do it in order to have leftovers or you made a mistake.  How you cooked them in the first place will determine what you can do with them next.  Here’s a guide to using up leftover potatoes in recipes on this blog;

Potatoes Are Not All the Same

I grew up eating Idaho potatoes (aka russet potatoes) and loving them, whether they be mashed, baked or fried.  Only later when I began to do my own shopping did I notice other potatoes on sale that were red, white and yellow.  I especially liked the yellow potatoes, known as Yukon Gold.  They make excellent baked potatoes as well as French fries and mashed.

Question for Mom

If I want to make Baked Potatoes, which call for a 400-degree oven for 1 hour, and Chicken Strips, which need to be baked at 475 degrees for 10 minutes, what can I do so they’re both ready to eat at the same time?  George J.

Baked potatoes are flexible.  About 55 minutes before you plan to serve dinner, start baking the potatoes at 400 degrees.  Forty minutes later, turn up the oven temperature to 475 degrees.  When the oven reaches this higher temperature, start baking the Chicken Strips.  After 10 minutes, remove both foods.  The extra heat at the end will finish cooking the potatoes.

See all Questions for Mom

Goat Cheese – How to Use It

 Occasionally my bargain-hunting outruns my common sense, and I buy way too much of an ingredient because it’s on sale.  About a week ago an irresistible double package of goat cheese landed in my shopping cart.

Once I got it home I began to wonder what I was going to do with 20 ounces of this soft white cheese.  I took one package to a dinner party.  The other sat forlornly in the cheese drawer for a week until I remembered a quiche recipe an English friend sent me.  Conveniently it called for goat cheese.

The directions said

“Smashing” Is Not a Usual Recipe Direction

Seldom does a recipe instruct me to smash something.  But then my friend Dorothy invited us for dinner with the promise of serving Smashed Potatoes.

I was intrigued.  Was she planning to use a baseball bat?  How edible would a smashed potato be?  Is this a dish you make only when you’re angry?

Foolproof Recipes…or Do Only Fools Believe That?

I would like to be able to tell someone, “This recipe is foolproof,” and know I’m being honest.  But I know better.  No matter how simple a recipe seems, something can always go wrong.

What could be easier than baking a potato?  Turn on the oven.  Set the temperature.  Scrub the potato.  Place it on the oven rack.  Set the timer.  Come back in 1 or 1 1/4 hours.  Remove and eat.

Sour Cream: What Is It and How Do I Use It?

I grew up with tubs of sour cream in the fridge.  My mother sometimes served individual bowls of it for lunch.  She’d cut up a cucumber, some radishes and a few tomatoes, mix it all together and Voila!  I guess it was a forerunner to today’s vegetable yogurts.

Out of habit, I too keep a tub of sour cream in the fridge.  But I don’t eat it with cut-up vegetables.  I use it to make Baked Stuffed Potatoes, Chocolate Icing and Chocolate Cheesecake.  I put dollops of it in Salmon Chowder, Hungarian Goulash, Ground Turkey Stroganoff and Shrimp Florentine.   

What I'm Serving at My Oscar Party

Chocolate Cheesecake

I grew up watching the Oscars, even though I never saw any of the nominated movies in my Pennsylvania coal-mining town.  The show seemed so glamorous.  Then I moved to California and went to hundreds of movies every year as part of my job as an entertainment journalist.

So far, no one has assigned me to cover the Oscars, and I’m glad.  I hear it’s agony for the reporters, who have to dress up and write their stories super-fast while missing most of the action.  Seldom do they eat until late evening.  Meanwhile, I sit around in front of the TV in sweats and slippers and see it all.

Question for Mom

Do oven temperatures really matter? –Jesse R.

It depends on what you’re cooking, but usually the answer is yes—especially if you’re baking.  When making a cake, pie, cookies or bread, it’s smart to give your full attention to the recipe and do exactly what it says, including oven time and temperature.  This is an especially good idea if you’re trying out a new recipe.

Injuries in the Kitchen

Spicy Baked Chicken Legs

I haven’t hurt myself lately in the kitchen, but I still have a cooking scar on my right hand.  It came from boiling blueberry juice that overflowed the pie pan when I was taking it out of the oven.  That’s when I learned to bake a fruit pie on a cookie sheet.

The skin on my knuckles finally healed after I removed some of it while grating mozzarella cheese.  Now I pay more attention to what I’m doing.

Cooking Fast Often Means Cooking Small

Early in my kitchen days I figured out that the quickest way to get cooked meat, potatoes and vegetables on the table was to cut them up into small pieces before cooking them.  It takes more than 1 hour to roast a chicken, 20 minutes to poach a boneless chicken breast in water, 8 minutes to grill or broil a skewer of chicken kebabs and 2 minutes to stir-fry 1/2-thick strips of chicken.  If I were truly in a hurry, stir-fry was my cooking method of choice.

Similar timetables hold true for beef, lamb and pork.

Turning Leftovers into New Dishes

Chinese Fried Rice

I feel guilty if I throw away leftovers—unless they have a suspicious green tinge.  Luckily I don’t mind eating the same thing a few nights in a row.  I feel like I’m on kitchen vacation.

Unfortunately, Bart doesn’t share this view.  If he liked what I made originally, he will drum up some enthusiasm when he sees it on his plate on Day #2.  But there’s no way he will eagerly lap it up on Day #3.

Question for Mom

Onion Quiche

A lot of recipes say to preheat the oven before putting food in to cook.  Are there any dishes you can bake without preheating?  --Amy V.

When you’re baking cakes, pies, cookies, quiches, bagels or anything made with yeast, pre-heating the oven is very important.  Just a few days ago I put my pizza stone in the oven but forgot to turn on the heat.  When I was about to slide my homemade pizza onto the stone, I suddenly realized my mistake. 

So the uncooked pizza sat on the counter on the pizza paddle until

Mom Cooking Tip 147

Shrimp Cocktail

If guests show up unexpectedly at dinnertime and you don't have enough food, here’s what to do:

1) Add garlic bread (keep a loaf of French bread in the freezer; if it’s too big, cut it in half before freezing).

2) Make extra baked potatoes.

3) Serve a soup or a salad before the main course.

4) Keep a bag of shrimp in the freezer and use it to make Shrimp Cocktail as an appetizer. 

                                                   See all my Cooking Tips!

When in Doubt, Make Cornbread

Sometimes dinner needs some extra oomph.  Maybe I didn’t buy enough meat, or the vegetables are a little limp.  Or I forgot to cook the baked potatoes.

Hot cornbread, fresh from the oven, served with a jar of honey or a chunk of butter, will make everyone feel much better. It takes 5 minutes to prepare and just 20 minutes to bake.

Disasters in the Kitchen

Usually they’re my fault—dropping a hot turkey on the floor, miscounting the cups of flour, not realizing my oven was overheating, forgetting to add something important, misreading the directions. 

Once in a while I’m over-hopeful about a new recipe. Pizza baked on a grill sounded delicious to me, but it was my biggest disaster ever.  I stepped away from the grill for 30 seconds and returned to a charcoal crust.

When the Kitchen Explodes!

“Explosion” may be an exaggeration.  But when the dishwasher leaks and mold is discovered, it might as well have been an explosion.  “I hope you’re planning to eat out,” the workman said as he turned off the water and turned on the giant dehumidifier for its five-day stay in our kitchen. 

Then he added, “You can use two of those gas burners.”  Luckily the oven was on the opposite wall and also unaffected.  “We’ll pretend we’re camping,” Bart said, trying to sound enthusiastic.