Quick Meal

I love baked potatoes but struck them off my diet years ago because I think it's wasteful to turn on the oven to bake a couple of potatoes and because I like my potatoes drenched in grease and salt. A baked potato was just an excuse to over indulge in sour cream.

Well.

My search for low fat, healthy lunches prompted me to try a recipe for a microwaved baked potato. I rarely think to use the microwave; it's something I've only had now for a few years. To my immense surprise, I discovered that the microwave can bake a potato in 4 to 10 minutes, depending on its size. The result is most satisfactory. The flesh is firm and flavourful, and the skin toughens a bit even though it doesn't turn crispy and chewy the way it would in the oven.

For toppings, the recipe suggested a half cup of low fat cottage cheese, herbs, salt, pepper, and 'something crunchy.'

The cottage cheese replaces the sour cream most satisfactorily and keeps the potato flesh nice and moist.

Since the potatoes cook up so quickly, I even have time to make them up at lunch. They make a nice, filling lunch that isn't heavy.

I suggest undercooking the potato by about a minute. Scoop out the flesh and mash it up with your ingredients, then return the mixture to the potato. Nuke for a minute or two, then enjoy.

Tonight's filling was:

-cottage cheese;
-garlic powder;
-fresh chives;
-0.5oz pecans

Basil is very good, too, in lieu of chives.



One day, I had really nice 'beefeater' tomatoes and wound up making a stuffed baked tomato as a side for a small potato! I divided the cottage cheese between them and made the tomato with pecans and basil while the potato was chives and sunflower seeds. Yuuuuuuum. Just nuke the tomato long enough for the skin to become loose, then add your fillings and nuke again until hot.