The Baked Potato: Old, but Still Very Much Alive

Baked Potato is a lost art...like letter-writing.  And forget an entire handwritten letter - even writing letters of the alphabet is a lost art.  The fluidity of my handwriting is plummeting. It feels like a robot possesses my arm sometimes.  Tangible greeting cards are still around because it keeps us from showing up somewhere empty-handed, but true penmanship sounds like sea transportation to this new generation.  We were once concerned with folding a paper into perfect thirds to fit into an envelope, and now we are concerned with video buffering on our phones. 

We can't save the endangered vicitims of technological advancements, such as Atari and letter-writing, but food doesn't have to work that way.  We continue to build culinary creations, decade after decade, but we haven't lost touch with making the basics, like bread.  With the help of Cuisinart, maybe, but still, bread is being made from scratch somewhere. 

Another dying food - (that's not to be confused with food which is dead) - is the Baked Potato, but it can be saved!!!  This isn't your mama's baked potato though.  This is MY mama's baked potato!  Mom can ROCK a baked potato...why?  Because it's not all about the potato.  

You can't have a Mavericks team, the oldest team in the NBA, win the Finals with just a Dirk.  The baked potato carries all the key players from the bench:  Broccoli, Carrots, Cauliflower, Melty Gooey Cheese, Cottage Cheese, and Scallions.  And they know how to bring it.

"It's already been broughten." -Not Another Teen Movie

The Miami Heat

 The Dallas Mavericks

Loaded Protein Baked Potato

This is one of my favorites.  My mom used to make this and she always uses lots of broccoli and serves it with cottage cheese instead of sour cream.  Genious!  Even if you're not a fan of cottage cheese, you won't mind how cooling it is in every piping hot potato bite!  You can buy "broccoli medley" in the produce section and steam it right in the bag in the microwave for a minute or two.

Ingredients:

1 Large Potato, pierced 4 or 5 times with a fork

1 Tbsp Butter

salt and pepper to taste

3/4 cup Broccoli "Medley" (Broccoli, Carrots, and Cauliflower), steamed

1 handful Mexican blend cheese

1/4 cup reduced fat cottage cheese

1 Tbsp sliced scallions

Directions:

1. Preheat oven 400 degrees.  Wrap potato in foil and bake for 1 hr 15 mins.

2. Lower heat to 300.  Partially unwrap the potato, exposing the top half.  Make a cut lengthwise across the potato, but not all the way through.

3. Using a fork, gently "fluff" the potato.  Add butter, salt, and pepper and fluff.

4. Top with broccoli medley and mexican cheese blend.

5. Heat in the oven until cheese is melted on the veggies.

6. Remove from the oven.  (Turn off the oven) Top with cottage cheese and scallions.  Serve!