Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wp-ultimate-recipe domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/maryzahc/public_html/adultfoodallergies.com/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121 Main Dishes/Entrées – surviving the food allergy apocalypse (archive)
Main Dishes/Entrée [ahn-trey] noun: a dish served as the main course of a meal. These recipes will not contain dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat or hazelnuts. If we use a top 8 allergen, we will use a tag warning of its use.
I got this great 1966 cookbook at an estate sale that is just ground beef recipes.
Growing up in the 1980s in the midwest, I ate a lot of different preparations of ground beef. We never had hamburger helper out of a box, not that I remember, but there were definitely a few different preparations involving condensed soups. This cookbook just felt like childhood home. It was also the perfect way to follow up Denise’s last post about her meat grinder. As mine was my grandmother’s, I bought my meat for this recipe pre-ground.
Now, this meatloaf omits the eggs and breadcrumbs that are common in so many recipes. I’ve used flax seed as an egg replacer and just skipped the breadcrumbs (my mom’s version was saltine crackers), and I’ve skipped the majority of seasoning in favor of a brilliant idea from this cookbook — dill pickle juice! I love pickles, but whether you make your own or buy them, you’re often left with juice. If you don’t want to drink it (and I don’t), do you just waste it? No. Make meatloaf. It’s better than using it as a marinade (I tried that, too.)
I make my meatloaf into two smaller loaves for quicker cooking times. Arrange the potatoes around the meat — they will cook in the fat. Yum.
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Dill Pickle Meatloaf
Print Recipe
Servings
Prep Time
4servings
10minutes
Cook Time
Passive Time
40 minutes
40 minutes
Servings
Prep Time
4servings
10minutes
Cook Time
Passive Time
40 minutes
40 minutes
Dill Pickle Meatloaf
Print Recipe
Servings
Prep Time
4servings
10minutes
Cook Time
Passive Time
40 minutes
40 minutes
Servings
Prep Time
4servings
10minutes
Cook Time
Passive Time
40 minutes
40 minutes
Ingredients
1/2lb. ground pork
1/2cupscallion topschopped
1/3cupdill pickle juice
1/2Tgarlic olive oil
1Tground flaxseed
2Tketchup or barbeque sauce
1/2lb. small potatoeswashed
Servings: servings
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350F
Add all ingredients except sauce and potaoes to a bowl and mix well. It seems to work best to use your hands, gently mixing until the mixture comes together.
To reduce baking time and get more of the nice exterior of the meatloaf (my favorite part), I make two small meatloaves, which also leaves more space around them for the potatoes. Don’t grease the sheet — the meats have enough fat to cook the potatoes. I just use a half sheet pan, sturdy with sides to keep the grease contained.
Bake for 30 minutes, uncovered. Then add 1 tablespoon of ketchup or barbque sauce to the top of each loaf and bake a final 10 minutes.
Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting. 1/2 a meatloaf is now about 1/4 lb, so about one serving.
Recipe Notes
Note: I think chia seed, ground, would likely work in this recipe, but I haven’t tested it. You can also skip the sauce on top if you wish.
So this post needs to be quick, as I’ve spent the past two weeks moving and I’m exhausted. But this dinner was also quick — and hot and comforting. Well, the prep work is quick. It does take about an hour to bake. Keep that in mind. This is the first thing I made in the oven of our new apartment, in the midst of trying to figure out where everything goes.
This casserole is based on a vegan corn casserole I made for Thanksgiving this year. Jack’s family makes some interesting corn dish for Thanksgiving based on ingredients that we don’t get out here on the west coast, but frozen corn is easy enough to find. I tweaked the original recipe only to use almond milk instead of soy. For a non-holiday, I’m too lazy to make a fancy side dish (by “fancy,” I mean something that takes an hour to bake and still requires a main course). But I thought it might be easy enough to turn this into a main dish with a few tweaks. Corn goes well with black beans, and that combination sort of screams chili powder to me, so that’s what I’ve added, along with a black bean, lime juice, and vegan cheese shred “topping” added at the end.
So this is a casserole approved for weeknight making, but not for nights you get home late or starving. Plan on maybe 15 minutes prep and an hour ten minutes baking. But your whole meal is done (feel free to add a salad on the side, of course).
(I hope I don’t need to say it, but this one is obviously not appropriate for the corn-allergic.)
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3cupsfrozen corn(I will divide this below into 2 cups defrosted, one cup left frozen)
1Tablespoonchili powder
1Tablespoonneutral oil(I use safflower — just not olive or coconut here)
2teaspoonsbaking powder
2Tablespoons corn meal
2-3Tablespoonsnon-dairy milk(yes, this will be used separately later)
1canblack beansdrained and rinsed
1-2teaspoonslime juice
1/4-1/3cupshredded vegan cheese(I used Daiya brand cheddar style shreds)
Servings: people
Instructions
First, PREPARE:
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Grease a 1.5 quart baking dish (you do not need a lid for this recipe).
Get out your blender.
Defrost 2 cups of your corn. I do this by rinsing it with hot water for a minute in a colander — I’m going to use the colander to drain black beans as well, and this is quicker than the microwave.
Add to the blender the arrowroot and non-dairy milk. Pulse this until mixed. I find adding the arrowroot first keeps it IN the milk.
Add the chili powder and 2 cups of defrosted corn. Pulse this down into a rough puree.
Then add the oil, baking powder, and corn meal. Blend well. Add the extra few tablespoons of non-dairy milk to get a pourable consistency. I want to say “like pudding,” but that’s wrong, as you want pudding to be smooth and you want this to be “sandy,” which sounds unappetizing until it’s baked.
Pour this into your prepared dish.
Take 1/2 cup of the black beans and set them aside. Add the rest of them, along with the last cup of corn, and mix that into your corn mush. Now into the oven, uncovered.
Bake 60 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix that last half cup of black beans with the lime juice. Let it sit, but you will pour out any extra lime juice before adding.
At 60 minutes, you should have a nicely baked top (and probably still need a few minutes in the center, which is fine). Drain the lime juice (the beans needn’t be dry, just don’t pour lime juice on your casserole) and spread the beans out on top. Then add a good sprinkle of the vegan cheese shreds — the range is because you want cheese everywhere, but not too thick, and the size of the casserole makes a difference here. Back into the oven for another 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is nice and melted. Then serve and enjoy!
So, for me, the key to quick weeknight meals lies in advance prep, whether it be making basic ingredients ahead of time (like soup stocks) or finding staples that are safe for me. Because my allergies are pretty basic and don’t include corn (and soy is something I’m mildly reactive to), I can use most canned ingredients. Not canned foods, but ingredients like beans and tomatoes and pumpkin are safe for me. This makes weeknight meals a little easier for me. Denise has to can everything from scratch.
For this quick meal, I used 5 ingredients I almost always have on hand: onion (often pre-chopped and frozen for quick use later), olive oil, sausage from a local market that makes a great flavorful one (I try to keep one pound in the freezer), canned pumpkin, and chicken or veggie stock — I always have one of these on hand.
I’ve sauteed the onion and sausage, left the bit of fat in the pan (it is about a tablespoon or so for this brand — if it’s really greasy, maybe drain it — and then used the pumpkin and stock to make thick creamy sauce with no cream. This would be great on pasta, grains, or over veggie noodles of whatever sort tickle your fancy. Plus, it’s 5 ingredients and only 15-20 minutes to cook. I really like the pumpkin in this because it gives the sauce a rich texture, creamy and filling.
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1-2teaspoonsolive oil(or whatever your favorite oil is)
1/2cup chopped onion
1lb sausageWe use a local pork sausage that is safe for me, but choose your favorite safe brand or your own recipe
1canpumpkin pureeNOT pie filling. This should just be pumpkin, 15 oz of it.
1cupchicken or vegetable stock
4servingscooked grains or pasta
Servings: servings
Instructions
In a cast iron skillet over medium-low heat, add the onions and 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Stir. If the onions are not all coated with olive oil, add up to another teaspoon. Because the sausage will have its own fat, you want to use the minimum amount of oil here.
Add the sausage and stir as it cooks until it breaks up. Cook until there is no more pink to it.
Add the pumpkin and smash it in a little. Then start adding the chicken or vegetable stock and stirring until you have a good consistency. If you need to add more or less than called for, do it. Get a good thick sauce, and then simmer it for about five minutes. Taste and add seasoning if needed.
Serve over cooked pasta or grains. Or spaghetti squash, zucchini noodles, whatever floats your boat.
Since this week’s theme is quick work-night dinners, I thought it might be time to introduce my use of the Instant Pot since I’ve had it for about a year and half now. I know that I’m a kitchen gadget junkie, but I love this thing and I’m considering getting a second one as they just came out with a 8 quart version (mine is the Instant Pot DUO60 6 Quart 7-in-1). I love my crock pots too, but they take advance planning and being around to babysit them. And despite all my food prep during harvest season, advance planning is not something that I’m good at when it comes to work night dinners. I come home from work, read my mail, change out of my work clothes, dub around with some other task, and then I decide somewhere between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. that I ought to think about what I might want for dinner. I basically decide what to eat about 5 minutes before I start making it. What I love about the Instant Pot is that I can make things that would normally take a lot longer and a lot of babysitting on the stove by throwing things in the Instant Pot, sealing it up, setting a timer, and walking away to go do something else while it cooks. There’s a lot less spilling and a lot less potential for me to burn myself or my potholders. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can do this in a rice cooker just saute the onions, garlic and peppers in a skillet instead and then add them to the cooker. Or you can do the whole thing on the stove top, as you would normally cook rice but you’ll have to watch it carefully and you may need more water as it cooks.
You can use this as a main dish, adding some tomatoes, avocados, and cucumbers on top with some cashew cream if you want. If you have some safe tortillas, you could also wrap in it in a tortilla with whatever fixings you’d like. Or you can use it as a side dish and the leftovers as a quick lunch.
The only warning I will impart is that if you’re cooking for friends who may not have the spice tolerance you do, watch your salsa choice. I used a home canned Roasted Tomatillo Chipotle Salsa which had a good bite, but was a bit much for some of my friends who attended a pot luck I recently hosted.
Instant Pot Black Beans and Rice
I did a slide show of my “mise en place” just for fun, and to take up less space:
Onions and Garlic
Frozen orange bell peppers
Canned black beans, rinsed and drained
Brown Rice, rinsed and drained
Home canned salsa
Cumin and salt
Chopped cilantro
Instant Pot DUO60 6 Quart 7-in-1 buttons
Onions and garlic sauteing in Instant Pot
Onions, garlic and orange bell pepper sauteing in Instant Pot
Mixture after adding all other ingredients but before cooking
Instant Pot Black Beans and Rice after cooking in the Instant Pot
Instant Pot Black Beans and Rice
Instant Pot Black Beans and Rice
Print Recipe
An easy weeknight meal on its own or wrap in safe for you tortillas with lettuce and tomatoes.
2Tablespoonsgrape seed oil(or other safe for you oil)
1largeonion, peeled and chopped
4clovesgarlic, minced
1cupbell pepper, seeded and chopped(optional – I often have chopped bell peppers in my freezer as I chop up the extras from recipes and freeze them so they don’t go to waste.)
2cups brown rice(rinsed well)
2cupswater
2cups salsa(I used my home canned salsa)
1canblack beans, drained and rinsed(I used my home canned beans)
1teaspooncumin
1/2teaspoon sea salt
1/4cupcilantro, chopped
Instant Pot
Servings: people
Instructions
Place oil in Instant Pot. Press the “Saute” button and wait until it says hot. Add onion and garlic and saute until onions begin to become translucent. Stir often being careful not to burn garlic. Add bell pepper and saute for a minute or so. (If frozen, saute until it softens a bit).
Add rice, water, salsa, black beans, cumin, and salt and stir well.
Make sure your silicon ring is in the lid properly, and place lid on Instant Pot and turn the steam release handle to sealing. Press the Manual button and press the plus button for high pressure, and set the time to 28 minutes.
Once the clock has run down, you can either use natural cool down release or you can turn the steam release handle to venting to release the pressure. Once the pressure has been released, remove the lid and stir in the cilantro. At this point, you’re all set to serve!
December’s theme is “food for all those days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s that aren’t holidays.” Or, to be less wordy (never my strong suit): quick work-night meals. Meals that you can prepare after a long day at work or doing whatever it is you do that makes you tired. You still have to eat, right?
Today’s recipe is more of a “recipe.” This is salad for people who want to eat more vegetables, maybe even specifically more greens, but also really want hot food. Who has time to make food AND a salad? Well, honestly, with salad boxes, I guess anyone, but I don’t actually really like salad. So in this dish, I have topped some mixed greens (spinach and baby chard mixed with some arugula) with a hot rice skillet using leftover rice mixed with black beans, earthy mushrooms, crunchy veg (either water chestnuts or jicama — you pick) just a touch of onion, olive oil, vinegar, and cilantro — and topped all of that with oranges.
What you get is a simple one skillet (assuming you have rice already — if not, it’s two pots. Sorry.) meal heavy on the vegetables, low on the salt, with straightforward flavors. It’s hearty and satisfying but not heavy. Perfect for between food-heavy holidays, right?
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1-2Tablespoon vinegarI liked white wine vinegar for this
1cupwater chestnuts or jicamachopped
1cupcilantroroughly chopped
1canmandarin orangesor 2 segmented oranges
5cupsmixed greens of your choice
Servings: servings
Instructions
If you don’t have cooked rice, make some. You don’t really need leftover rice for this. I just like to cook a large pot and use it during the week.
In a skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. You’ll use the other in a few minutes. When the oil is hot, add the onions. Cook until translucent.
Add the chopped mushrooms, and stir well to coat with oil. Cook until they shrink and give up their moisture.
Add the black beans. Stir well. Then add the rice. Add the second tablespoon of oil and mix until the rice and beans are well incorporated. Add the vinegar.
Stir in the water chestnuts/jicama and cilantro. Remove from heat and let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes, until the crunchy vegetables are warmed.
Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning if necessary — salt, pepper, more oil and vinegar, whatever appeals.
Serve the rice mixture over your mixed greens with the oranges on top. If needed, you can add an oil and vinegar dressing or a bit of orange juice, but I don’t find this needs it.
It’s Elements Month! Yeah, you read right. Elements. Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. Four Mondays in November, four elements to be inspired by. Why not?
This year, we made a plan via Skype — monthly themes to inspire us. We used to get together more often to plan our editorial calendar, but now we do it via Skype, bi-coastally. It is distinctly possible that we were a little loopy by the time we got to November, so here you have ELEMENTS MONTH.
I’m kicking it off with water. After all, Cancer is a water sign, right? Plus it’s November and it snowed all weekend and we are ready for soup. I was inspired by a broth my friend Ann told me about which basically used time to extract maximum flavor from ox tails, an excellent flavoring bone that has some good tender meat on it as a bonus, and a few simple vegetables. This broth is easy, but it takes time. You should definitely make it ahead of when you want to use it. Ox tails should be available from most butchers and many grocery stores can get them or have them in the back. Ask.
Oxtails
The only other “special” ingredient would be the thinly sliced beef, something I’ve gotten used to being able to get — raw meat sliced as thinly as cold cuts wasn’t something I’d seen on the east coast, but it means that the broth’s heat will cook it as part of your soup and it adds a whole other dimension to the soup. If you can’t get it, skip it, but it is worth trying to find or cut on your own.
Ramen, Thinly-sliced Beef, Toppings
Oh! The noodles! I’ve found gluten-free ramen noodles at a few places in Seattle, including Whole Foods, the Capitol Co-op, and a few natural food stores. The ones in this dish are forbidden rice noodles. If you can’t find gluten-free ramen, I’d suggest using rice noodles of some sort, but not gluten-free spaghetti. Most grocery stores carry pad thai rice noodles in their “Asian foods” section, and those will work okay.
This recipe is two parts — first, you make the broth, which should be done at least the day before. Then you use the broth to make soup. The broth is incredibly simple, but takes about 4 hours to make just because you simmer everything forever. The soup is actually kind of complicated, as I spent a lot of last month learning about ramen, and I’ve used that knowledge here. For traditional ramen, the broth, noodles, and soup toppings are all cooked separately. I’ve used that here to make a soup with a great variety of textures — but know that this is a soup that you might want to just take your time and enjoy making as well as eating. Don’t try it on a work night or when you’re rushed.
As I’ve said in the recipe, this soup will be made in two pots and a skillet, all at once, and I’ve tried to give you good instructions to get through that if you’re not used to 3 things going at once. The soup comes together in layers, as shown below, and that gives you a variety of textures.
Soup steps: first, noodles. Second, raw beef and scallions. Third, broth. Fourth, skillet of toppings.
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Ox Tail Noodle Soup
Print Recipe
Broth recipe probably makes about 5 servings, but this soup less than half. Use the rest for drinking, cooking grains, or more soup.
4scallionsthinly sliced, whites and greens separated
2carrotssliced as thinly as possible
5shitake mushroomschopped
pinchsalt
1/2cupox tail meatpulled from bone, excess fat and cartilege removed
3slicessteakthinly sliced for hot pot – optional but awesome.
1lemoncut into quarters
Servings: bowlsn
Instructions
Ox Tail Broth
Put the ox tails in a large stock pot and cover with cold water by about 1 inch. Add a generous pinch of salt. Put over low heat, about 2 on my electric stove. NOTE — it will take more than half an hour for the water to simmer. Low and slow is how the flavor comes out.
Meanwhile, prep the vegetables. Wash the tomato, carrot, and celery. Chop the carrot and celery really roughly — about 2 inch segments. Leave the tomato whole. Pull all the parsley leaves off the stalks and discard the stems. Peel and quarter the onion.
When the water has reached a steady simmer, add all the veg. Simmer for three hours. If it gets foamy, skim it.
Cool and remove the ox tails to store separately. Remove the vegetables and discard. Store the broth in the fridge overnight.
Ox Tail Noodle Soup
You will need three cooking pots for this. One for boiling enough water to cook the noodles. One for heating your broth. One skillet for cooking your soup toppings. Figure out which burners will work best for this setup before you start, as you’ll be using all of them at once.
Get the broth started. You want to reheat this on low until it’s about boiling, so it will take a while.
First, do all your veggie prep. Chop the scallions and separate the green and white parts (light green goes with the white). Chop the mushrooms, slice the carrots as thinly as possible. Remove the meat from the ox tails — you will likely need to cut the fat off the outside, and watch out for the cartilage on the inside — remove that.
Add about half of the green parts of the scallions to the broth. Measuring here is really not important. Eyeball it.
You can either skim the fat off the soup and use that to fry up the veg, or use a fat of your choice. Put this in your skillet over medium heat.
Next, start the noodle water. Use however much water your package directions show.
When you skillet and fat are hot, add the onions and stir for several minutes until translucent.
Next add the carrots and mushrooms and stir well. Add a generous pinch of salt. Wait until the mushrooms have wilted and given off their liquid before you start the noodles.
Cook your noodles according to the package directions.
Right before the noodles are done, add the ox tail meat to the skillet and stir well.
Drain your noodles and set up your bowls.
Here’s how your bowls go:
Add noodles at the bottom.
Add a thin layer of your raw beef. This will be cooked by the broth.
Add your broth.
Add the toppings from the skillet.
Add a squeeze of lemon over everything.
Enjoy.
Can I admit I punted on this one? My big plan for Comfort Food month was set back in August. I was going to do MY best comfort food, potatoes, and then one from my neighborhood — I was going to learn to make ramen. There is a line of gluten-free ramen noodles that I quite like, made from different types of rice. I got a book on the history of ramen, and a cookbook. I can highly recommend both. But what I learned is that those lines outside restaurants making authentic ramen are well-deserved. Ramen is a complicated (if worthwhile) process, with a soup base that must be made before preparing a broth that then becomes soup to which you add noodles and toppings. Definitely try it — with all the variations, it’s likely you’ll find some that suit your allergies. But it was not my next recipe.
So ANYWAY, that’s why Jack made this recipe. And from here on out, it’s all him. As a note, this is why we use #allergyfriendly instead of “allergy-free” on the blog — this recipe uses boxed gluten-free penne pasta and commercial vegan cheese (and we tend to use a jarred sauce), so it is likely not suitable for some allergies (corn). But if it works for you, it’s a great Sunday meal that also makes Monday’s lunch. We probably eat this recipe at least once a month, and while pasta is Jack’s comfort food, I definitely see the appeal. –MaryKate
Pasta Bake — gluten-free and allergy-friendly
Hi there! I’m Jack, and I live with MaryKate, so I feed her from time to time. This pasta bake has emerged as one of her favorite comfort foods – which is lucky for me, because it’s one of the few dishes I can make without checking every step of a recipe twelve times. (According to her, I declared on our first date that “I don’t cook”, which I don’t really remember but would have been reasonably accurate at the time as a statement of bare fact, if not general philosophy or intent.) (He said that. I was there. — MK)
The pasta bake began as a gluten- and lactose-filled attempt at baked ziti. It has made the transition to allergy-friendly status quite well, thanks mostly to the pasta and cheese alternatives on the market, and also thanks to MaryKate’s suggestions of what else to add. Feel free to omit veggies and/or meat, and use the sauce, pasta, and cheese brands of your choice. We’ve even mixed in some almond ricotta from Artisan Vegan Cheese by Miyoko Schinner for a creamier, lasagna-like texture.
For me, pasta is comfort food. We had it at least once a week when I was a kid, and it’s quick and easy to make while also being warm and filling. I’ve even come to like the vegan cheese. The easiest version of this is pasta, sauce, and cheese, but adding zucchini and mushrooms gives it great texture, and the sausage adds more flavor and protein.
Pile o’ pasta bake
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1mediumzucchiniquartered lengthwise and sliced every 1/4 inch
8ozmushroomssliced, we like baby Bellas
8ozground sausage or beefoptional — leave out or use vegan sub for a vegan casserole
36ozgarlic pasta sauce
12ozvegan mozzarella cheese substitutewe love Miyoko’s Kitchen vegan moz
oregano to taste
Servings: large servings
Instructions
Brown and drain meat.
Boil penne until it’s just barely soft, about 4 minutes.
Drain and rinse pasta.
Put half the penne in a 9″ x 12″ baking pan. Layer on 1/2 of the zucchini and mushrooms, then 1/2 of the sausage or beef, sauce, and mozzarella. Sprinkle generously with oregano.
Back in January when Denise and I outlined our year, I knew that “comfort food month” would include potatoes. My absolute go-to whenever I want comfort food is some form of potato. For me, the fries at 5 Guys are safe, so on a road trip, I’m likely to hit them up. I have made meals out of mashed potatoes, potato patties, tater tots, and any other form of potato you can think of. We have a lot of potato recipes! And they aren’t even all mine.
But what I eventually landed on were baked potatoes. So this isn’t really a recipe. You’ve probably baked a potato — you have, right? Maybe you loved it, maybe it was just okay. But if you bake a perfect baked potato and top it with enough stuff, you have a great dinner — warm and hearty and satisfying. And then you can eat the skin, like a reverse appetizer.
So I went looking for the “best” baked potato recipe and found that cookbooks and internet writers had SO MANY different ideas on what makes a perfect baked potato. Now almost none of them describe the intended results, so it’s hard to know what they see as perfect. For me, the perfect baked potato is soft and fluffy on the inside, with a tender and crispy skin.
People suggest a lot of different temperatures, but 350ºF and 425ºF come up more often than 375ºF and 400ºF, so I stuck with those two. Most recipes tell you to scrub the potatoes and poke holes in the skin with a fork, though the old Joy of Cooking has you poke holes only halfway through baking. While this makes some sense, the joy of baking potatoes is that, though it takes a long time, you don’t have to DO anything during that time. Try it if you want, but I’ll never remember to do that again. Coating the outside of the potato is also popular — wrapping it in foil, oiling the skin, oil and salting the skin, buttering the outside. My mom never did any of that, so I never did, but I’ve now tried them all.
So here’s my verdict:
First off, I think Alton Brown’s recipe worked the best for me. I think that 350ºF produces the fluffiest potatoes, but it takes 20 minutes longer than 450ºF. I think that lightly coating the skin with olive oil does actually produce a fluffier potato, but with a slightly less crispy skin than no coating. Vegan margarine will produce an even tenderer skin. I do not want to foil wrap my potatoes as it seems wasteful, so I didn’t try that. I think poking holes in the potatoes with a meat fork (long tines) makes a fluffier center than using a dinner fork. Two stabs with the fork seem to be enough; 4 stabs (2 per side) didn’t make a noticeable difference to me.
If you don’t have 85 minutes to wait for dinner (assuming 5 minutes of prep), a good compromise is to microwave the washed and stabbed potatoes for 10 minutes and then bake them at 425ºF for 20-30 minutes. I know this doesn’t save a bunch of time, but it is half. I do not coat the potatoes with anything when I do this, and I use the toaster oven because my big oven won’t heat up in 10 minutes. This is not AS good, but it is good.
Perfect (Uncooked) Potatoes — standard ballpoint pen used for scale
As for topping the potato, here are just a few of my thoughts:
butter, vegan margarine, or a margarine that’s safe for you
cashew sour cream, tofu sour cream, or dairy sour cream
chives, salt, pepper
bacon
broccoli
any form of cheese or cheese substitute that is safe for you
any combination of the above that sounds good to you
anything else in the fridge that seems like it would taste good
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Wash and scrub potatoes, being sure to remove any patches of dirt.
Dry the potatoes. Poke 1-2 times per side with a long-tined fork (as in one for serving meat) or a small paring knife — holes should go at least 1/3 of the way through the potato if possible.
Rub potatoes with the oil of your choice — olive oil will yield a slightly crunchy skin, vegan margarine gives a more tender skin. Alton Brown claims that the oil will help hold in more steam, making the potatoes fluffier, and my skepticism at that is now cured. It seems to work. Add a sprinkle of salt if you want it.
Place potatoes in oven, directly on the rack. Bake for 80 minutes. If you’re impatient, you can check them at 60. Using a pot holder, squeeze the potatoes to see if they give easily. If so, they’re done.
The way my mother taught me to open a potato gives you a good container for stuffing it full of fillings. Cut a slit lengthwise in the top of the potato, but leave 1/2 inch or so from either end. Push in at either end sort of “pop” the potato open. Pop the sides and the ends again if you need to — you should get a solid base and a wide open potato.
Stuff it with everything you love. When you’re finished with that part, add some margarine and salt and pepper to the skin and eat that, too.
Feel the potato joy.
Recipe Notes
I tend to buy potatoes that fit solidly in my hand. I like a nice regular oval shape, same thickness throughout. Buy the appropriate size for the part of the meal — I like them big because they ARE the meal. Potatoes should be firm, with no soft spots, irregular ends, eyes growing out of them, and no green hue to the skin. Use those for something else where you can cut away the questionable bits.
The potatoes in the photos above just have some vegan Earth Balance margarine and chives on them.
