So last week, I’m thinking Wednesday but maybe Thursday, Mary got a hankerin’ for a twice-baked potatoes. But there was a problem. I’d never made the darned things before, and ended up wingin’ it.
For some reason, they didn’t turn out bad at all. In fact, they were good. I think Mary actually liked ’em. It was a good wingin’ of it.
Here’s all I did …
First I set the oven for 400°F. Then I took some decent-sized potatoes, scrubbed all the dirt off ’em under cold water, then patted ’em dry with some paper towel. I then wrapped each tater in a piece’a aluminum foil (’bout 12 x 12), and poked the top of each one deep with a fork in ’bout four places. I shoved ’em in the oven and let ’em cook, ’bout 30 minutes.
After the 30 minutes, I started checkin’ ’em with a fork again. See, with bakin’ taters, ya’ can’t just set a time for ’em to be done. Ya’ gotta know they’re fok tender, that when the fork don’t meet no resistance, they’s ready.
When they was done, I took ’em out but left the oven on. I took each one with a potholder ‘cuz they’s hot, and with a real sharp knife, cut a slit along the top of the tater lengthywise from end-to-end … but not really all the way to the ends. I squeezed from the ends through the potholder till it spread out sideways, then scooped out the insides with a spoon, right into a bowl.
I did ’em all like that, yes I did.
Once I had the tater meat in the bowl, I mashed ’em up good with a fork, nice ‘n fluffy-like. I threw in some of that butter, the “unsalted” stuff, and mashed it all up again. Then I threw in some sour cream (the real stuff, none of that lowfat nonsense), and some milk (2%, no skim, it ain’t good for this), and mashed it all up till it was good and creamy, addin’ a little more of the milk when it wasn’t creamy enough.
Then I added some of that Alden Mill House Miracle Blend stuff, which I just love. Not to worry, y’all, it’s just salt, pepper, garlic and some other stuff. Just spice it up till it tastes real good with whatever ya’ got.
With the spoon, I put the redone tater meat back in the tater skins. I also made a little valley in the top of each one and laid on a little pile of that fancy shredded cheese. Grabbin’ a casserole dish, I put the restuffed taters in it, put the lid on, and shoved ’em back in the oven for ten more minutes.
Oh, they was good!
Yeah, you could add bits of bacon, chopped green onion, maybe some good parsley, little pieces of sautéed shrimp, sun-dried maters …
That’s what ‘maginations is for. Go ahead. You’ll like it.
Author’s Note: One of my favorite autobiographies is Finger Lickin’ Good, published many years ago by Zondervan. In writing this book, Col. Harlan Sanders described much more than just the origins of KFC … he was a prolific midwife, a railroad engineer, and brilliant cook. But the book itself is unique. To preserve the Col’s very soul in the pages, they let him record what he had to say. These tapes were then transcribed in such a way that the book reads much like the blog entry you’ve just read. I’ve written this, this morning, out of respect for that great entrepeneur and his wonderful life story.