Creative Toppings for Fast Food: Ideas Needed

[turbo]

I followed Turbos advice, the result? tasty pity about the thin skin though, i like the crunch.
The micro wave idea is good, but i do not like them, not since i found out they can make people infertile.

Microwaving potatoes cooks them, but it does not allow the skins to become crispy and flavorful. You can do a lot of real tasty experiments with baked potatoes, but the best ones involve baking/broiling. Potatoes are a fundamental food, and if you have a bit of left-over pork, beef, fish, or chicken, you can make a nice meal, especially if you have some fresh garlic, onion, and herbs kicking around. If 20 people showed up up at our house unannounced, I guarantee you that my wife and I could not only feed them, but let them leave REAL happy. I could have been a restaurant owner in an alternate life, but I would not want to deal with constant food-quality problems and the long hours needed to make sure every customer was properly served. A restaurant is a labor of love. I love food and I love cooking. I do not love serving the retail crowd.

 

[wolram]

I would like to call this the potato thread, a 1000001 things to cook with potaoes
I still have not perfected the roast potato, crunchy outside, soft inside,
potatoes seem to very so much, so one day you get good results other days not.

 

[hypatia]

I use a bit of peanut oil on the outside of my bakers, then just prick the skins and bake. Lately I've been useing the Yukon Gold spuds, which have a great taste, almost sweet. My favorit is to top it with rich beef tips and gravy that's a bit spicy.

 

[wolram]

I use a bit of peanut oil on the outside of my bakers, then just prick the skins and bake. Lately I've been useing the Yukon Gold spuds, which have a great taste, almost sweet. My favorit is to top it with rich beef tips and gravy that's a bit spicy.

Now my belly is growling and it is three hours befor i can eat
But what are (beef tips)

 

[hypatia]

{beef tips}Bite sized peices of lean sirloin, cooked very slowly. They are so tender and flavorful.
My son reminded me of his favorit Bakers, that we called Eggs in the Belly. Its how we used leftover potatos when we went camping. Much like a twiced baked, except eggs and ham were added to the mix. wrapped in foil and set to cook by the campfire.

 

[Moonbear]

I think I'm going to have to bake up a potato for lunch today! I'm snowed in once again...the plows have come through twice on the main road, and within minutes, you already can't tell they've been through and cars are stuck again. Nobody has touched the roads in our development and everyone called off everything (except, for some stupid reason, the university is STILL open despite one entire campus not even having power )...so I'm working from home. I have a big experiment on baked potatoes to commence momentarily.

 

[hypatia]

What a great way to spend a snow day. I'm going to have a snowBQ today, with some babyback ribs, and now of course baked potatos! I'm thinking cream cheese and red pepper flakes on mine.

 

[turbo]

I have a big experiment on baked potatoes to commence momentarily.

The great thing about baked potatoes is that you can top them with almost anything you have kicking around (limited of course by your capacity for adventure). I wouldn't dream of using bananas in a baked potato recipe , for instance, but filling the partially scooped-out halves with black beans, sauteed garlic and onion, and topped with a little Monterey Jack and maybe some crumbled bacon or shreds of left-over pork ribs...broil and serve with our homemade habanero sauce, or maybe some horseradish or brown mustard. MMMM!

 

[Moonbear]

They turned out just right! I put them in the oven, went out and shoveled the driveway for about 40 min, came in, turned them over, and another 30 min later, I had perfect potatoes. I'm a bit low on topping options though (hadn't gotten out grocery shopping since being out of town over the weekend), so it was just butter and sour cream and salt, but still very yummy. Just the right thing to enjoy after coming in from shoveling snow.

 

[dontdisturbmycircles]

I want to have a potato, but I went upstairs and we have none.

 

[turbo]

They are good about any way you top them. I just had an idea (Duh! I don't get those much!) for people with kids to feed/entertain on a snow day. Bake up a bunch of potatoes, scoop them out, leaving some potato in the skins, and set out a variety of fillings/topping so the ankle-biters can make their own creations for re-baking or broiling. Who knows? You might inspire some of your kids to pick up some cooking skills and not just look around for a can of Spaghetti-Os.

When my cousin's daughters were young, I used to cook treats for them at family get-togethers, and I insisted that they help, so they would learn something about how to prepare food. The oldest emails me from Florida from time to time asking me how to make stuff like my marinade for BBQ shrimp, or my home-made pizza sauce. Her fiance is in restaurant management and is a pretty good cook, so I'm flattered when she is homesick for my food. Now my home-made simmer-for-hours pizza sauce is "their" pizza sauce.

 

[Ouabache]

I like mine with a nice knob of butter.. Here are a few more suggestions I found on your side of the pond.. I haven't tried these yet, but plan too, Yumm

1) tuna, grated cheese, Branston pickle & mayonnaise. (Clitheroe)
2) brie and cranberry sauce (Clitheroe)
3) corned beef with cheese (Burnley)
4) hot peperoni, sliced onions & mushrooms & piri piri sauce. (Preston)
5) cottage cheese and fresh pineapple (Blackburn)
6) cheese and onion (Morecambe)
7) bacon, onion, salsa, sour cream & chives (Helmshore)
8) spam and ketchup (Blackpool)
9) baked beans, chili powder & cheese (Rossendale)
10) prawns, avocado, seafood sauce (Chorley)
11) lamb kidney, bacon & mustard (Egerton)
12) cheese, curry & sweetcorn (Blackpool)
13) tuna and slaw (Baxenden)

 

[Evo]

A little creamed smoked salmon poured over a baked potato. :!)

Ouabache, I was afraid you were going to suggest sprinkling bugs on them.

 

[turbo]

Sometimes we have baked potato with crab cakes, and I like to put crab cake in the potato skin with a mix of hot salsa and mayo, salt and pepper. Very tasty.

 

[Moonbear]

Sometimes we have baked potato with crab cakes, and I like to put crab cake in the potato skin with a mix of hot salsa and mayo, salt and pepper. Very tasty.

Hmm...how would wasabi taste in sour cream? I know about wasabi in mayonaisse (which I'm not too fond of), and wasabi in mashed potatoes (which are very yummy), and if it went well in sour cream, that might be just the perfect topping for crab (or salmon if Evo prefers) in a potato skin. Hmm...my fridge has sour cream, and the spice cabinet has wasabi...I think another culinary experiment will be required this evening.

 

[turbo]

Hmm...how would wasabi taste in sour cream? I know about wasabi in mayonaisse (which I'm not too fond of), and wasabi in mashed potatoes (which are very yummy), and if it went well in sour cream, that might be just the perfect topping for crab (or salmon if Evo prefers) in a potato skin. Hmm...my fridge has sour cream, and the spice cabinet has wasabi...I think another culinary experiment will be required this evening.

Be sure to report back! My favorite dressing for crab cakes is a 50:50 mix of our hot jalapeno/habanero salsa and mayo with some salt and lots of cracked black pepper, but I'm always ready to experiment with food.

 

[Ouabache]

I was afraid you were going to suggest sprinkling bugs on them.

No bugs in my potatoes please

Your creamed smoked salmon reminds me of "lox & cream cheese spread" (great on bagels). I bet both would be quite tastey on baked spuds.

lox - salty smoked salmon

 

[Moonbear]

Be sure to report back! My favorite dressing for crab cakes is a 50:50 mix of our hot jalapeno/habanero salsa and mayo with some salt and lots of cracked black pepper, but I'm always ready to experiment with food.

Well, last night's wasabi and sour cream experiment failed. I need to get fresh reagents. In other words, the wasabi tasted like dust...I think it got too old. No heat and little flavor. So, I need to try it again sometime. A regular horseradish sauce might work too, maybe even with a dollop of that salsa.

It's too bad you can't be around fragrances...everything you describe sounds so tasty that you could easily come up with an interesting menu for a little bistro type place. With the right location, you'd have no problem finding a steady stream of customers interested in unique, spicy foods (you could even have a couple mild dishes under the title "for the wusses" on the menu for people who accompany the spice lovers but can't take the heat).

 

[quantumdude]

My favorite potato condiment is Frank's Red Hot. I'd soak that spud till it was orange all the way through.

 

[turbo]

Well, last night's wasabi and sour cream experiment failed. I need to get fresh reagents. In other words, the wasabi tasted like dust...I think it got too old. No heat and little flavor. So, I need to try it again sometime. A regular horseradish sauce might work too, maybe even with a dollop of that salsa.

It's too bad you can't be around fragrances...everything you describe sounds so tasty that you could easily come up with an interesting menu for a little bistro type place. With the right location, you'd have no problem finding a steady stream of customers interested in unique, spicy foods (you could even have a couple mild dishes under the title "for the wusses" on the menu for people who accompany the spice lovers but can't take the heat).

Sorry to hear about the failure. Wasabi is probably like horseradish in that if it's not fresh, it's not too good. I've got to put up a big batch of ground horseradish this summer - the store-bought stuff is blah! My first experience with wasabi was at a outdoor sushi bar at the Maine Festival about 20 years ago. Fresh Atlantic salmon painted with wasabi on the inside and rolled around a cylinder-shaped mass of rice. Heaven!

I wouldn't mind running a lunch-only diner if I could tolerate being amongst "the fragranced" (almost everybody, these days). Instead of a menu, I think that I would simply run a couple of specials a day and people could have their choice of whatever I made that day. Not everything would be spicy, though. One of my recipes that my family loves is hickory-smoked Atlantic salmon filets, brined, dusted with cracked pepper and smoked in a maple-syrup glaze. If I take that up to my Dad's place on Christmas Eve, the family goes into "devour mode" and a big filet disappears in a couple of minutes along with the requisite crackers, sharp cheese, and hot mustards. Anyway, my diner would be along the lines of a daily surprise (good name!), since people wouldn't know what's for lunch unless they showed up.

 

[Math Is Hard]

My favorite potato condiment is Frank's Red Hot. I'd soak that spud till it was orange all the way through.

I need to try that. Last night I had no food in the house, so I had Frank's Red Hot on saltines for dinner.

 

[turbo]

I need to try that. Last night I had no food in the house, so I had Frank's Red Hot on saltines for dinner.

Holy cow! I was never THAT desperate for food when I was in school. I'd always have some leftover lentil soup, baked beans, pea soup, spaghetti, French soup (onions, leeks, rice, potato, with canned tomatoes) - something. I would cook every weekend so there was plenty of stuff to choose from during the week, and if friends dropped by and ate up some of my prepared stuff, at least I could make fried-egg sandwiches with cheese and hot sauce, or BLTs. There were a couple of young ladies who lived in an apartment across the street and neither of them could cook to save their souls. It's no wonder they both stayed so trim. I would have wasted away eating the stuff they called meals. I invited them for supper one night shortly after I moved into the neighborhood, and they were a bit skeptical at first, though they lost that attitude when they came in and smelled the spaghetti sauce and garlic bread.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I want to try making some of that French soup, turbo. I often make veggie soups with a canned tomato base.

 

[turbo]

I want to try making some of that French soup, turbo. I often make veggie soups with a canned tomato base.

Just throw it together and adjust to taste as you go. I like to use lots of leeks and onions, and tend to cut them and the potatoes fairly small. Use decent canned tomatoes, and add water, too, because the rice will soak up water as its cooking. Use real rice, like a nice Basmati. The extra cooking time required by Basmati will give the flavors a chance to get into the rice and potatoes. Serve with buttered saltines on the side. That's real comfort food. It was cheap enough so that my mother could make it pretty frequently all winter and we all loved it. You'll have to judge on the salt and pepper. She never put in additional salt because she made the soup from leeks that we had salted down the previous fall. Good luck.

 

[scorpa]

I need to try that. Last night I had no food in the house, so I had Frank's Red Hot on saltines for dinner.

Haha I hear yah MIH. I haven't been grocery shopping in about a month so I finally went today and I have food again. I may make a chicken stew or something now :D

 

[turbo]

Haha I hear yah MIH. I haven't been grocery shopping in about a month so I finally went today and I have food again. I may make a chicken stew or something now :D

No matter what you do with that chicken, DO NOT toss the carcass! If you don't already have a decent cleaver/ or a set of poultry shears, go get some (preferably the shears) tomorrow. When you have stripped the meat off the carcass, chop up the bones with your shears and boil the living heck out of it. You can either freeze this stock, or use it immediately to make casseroles or soups later. Please do this. It is the Pons Asinorum of cooking and you will be able to extend this to other concepts, like NEVER throwing away the juice from boiled vegetables!

 

[turbo]

Sorry, Scorpa. I didn't mean to holler (using caps on you) but it is incredibly important to use vegetable juices (what you boiled your potatoes or carrots in for instance) and meat stock to make healthy meals for yourself. Take care.

 

[end3r7]

We have this place near my campus (Texas A&M) called Potato Shack. Let's say I've had every type of Potato you can think of. I love the Teriaky one that they have though, yummy.

 

[scorpa]

Sorry, Scorpa. I didn't mean to holler (using caps on you) but it is incredibly important to use vegetable juices (what you boiled your potatoes or carrots in for instance) and meat stock to make healthy meals for yourself. Take care.

Lol no worries Turbo, I never even noticed I won't throw away the carcass if I ever make a chicken but this time I just bought a chicken breast to use in the stew (cheating i know haha!), but I didn't know about keeping the water you boil vegetables in. What are you supposed to do with that? Or is that what you meant by the juice from boiled veggies ??

I changed my mind for tomorrow though I think I am going to bake some salmon, and have rice and broccoli. I like to add some chicken stock into the broccoli when I boil it...tastes real good.

 

[Moonbear]

We have this place near my campus (Texas A&M) called Potato Shack. Let's say I've had every type of Potato you can think of. I love the Teriaky one that they have though, yummy.

Mmmm...that's always a fun thing about living near college campuses. There's often one place that you just wouldn't find anywhere but near a college campus that has really good food, but just different and great for snacking. Well, except here. I can't think of anything here that you can't find everywhere else in the country.

 

[turbo]

Lol no worries Turbo, I never even noticed I won't throw away the carcass if I ever make a chicken but this time I just bought a chicken breast to use in the stew (cheating i know haha!), but I didn't know about keeping the water you boil vegetables in. What are you supposed to do with that? Or is that what you meant by the juice from boiled veggies ??

I changed my mind for tomorrow though I think I am going to bake some salmon, and have rice and broccoli. I like to add some chicken stock into the broccoli when I boil it...tastes real good.

Use a heavy plastic bucket (or two, if you want to segregate them) to store in your freezer, and every time you have juices from steamed or boiled vegetables, add the juices to the (selected) bucket. These juices are prime carriers of nutrients from the vegetables that were cooked in them, and they are very flavorful. Don't ever use canned or dried "soup stock" to cook with. They are guaranteed to be mostly food-processing by-products laced with MSG and salt, with no regard for your health.

For your salmon: I like to bake salmon by dusting it with cracked black pepper and salt and coating it with a thin layer of mayo (to prevent drying). Enclose a sprig or two of fresh dill and seal the filet in a wrap of aluminum foil for about 20 min in a pre-heated oven at 375-400 deg F. Bon appetit, Scorpa!

 

[scorpa]

Use a heavy plastic bucket (or two, if you want to segregate them) to store in your freezer, and every time you have juices from steamed or boiled vegetables, add the juices to the (selected) bucket. These juices are prime carriers of nutrients from the vegetables that were cooked in them, and they are very flavorful. Don't ever use canned or dried "soup stock" to cook with. They are guaranteed to be mostly food-processing by-products laced with MSG and salt, with no regard for your health.

For your salmon: I like to bake salmon by dusting it with cracked black pepper and salt and coating it with a thin layer of mayo (to prevent drying). Enclose a sprig or two of fresh dill and seal the filet in a wrap of aluminum foil for about 20 min in a pre-heated oven at 375-400 deg F. Bon appetit, Scorpa!

Cool that is how I usually cook my salmon but I never would have thought of the cracked black pepper and mayo, I usually do it with butter, onions and dill. I'll have to give that a try!

 

[turbo]

Cool that is how I usually cook my salmon but I never would have thought of the cracked black pepper and mayo, I usually do it with butter, onions and dill. I'll have to give that a try!

I've tried baking salmon with onions, but to my taste, the onions overpower the salmon's flavor, so I cook them separately. Of course, since you're operating your oven anyway, you can bake your onions in tin foil, too, with salt, pepper and butter, and bake a potato or two. Sometimes instead of baking potatoes whole, we cut them into slices and bake them in tin foil in butter, salt and pepper along with the sliced onions. It's an easy meal, with easy clean-up, and we often cook potatoes on the grill that way, too. Sometimes we add sliced peppers (hot and/or sweet ones) to the foil packet.

 

[J77]

Did anyone already mention... when cooking them, have as metal sweker stuck through them -- cooks the middle faster.

 

[chaoseverlasting]

Man... does a good appetite come with studying all the stuff that we do? Heck, I love baking bread with mozzeralla on top and eating with this Hienz chutney sauce that you get.