What, it’s Wednesday? My Baked Potatoes-woes!

Can I just say my dinner this week is somewhat disappointing?  I hope I have not failed to mention that I am not the most talented cook on the block and sometime (lots of times) with four hungry boys, if you count my husband, and a precious but needy infant I get completely behind and dinner sneaks suddenly upon us.  This blog is my way of coping with those crazy gluten free goof ups that happen everyday.  My kids get nutty around meal times and I often feel completely overwhelmed by needing to eat healthy, well rounded, allergen free, yet decent food!

My Darlings try to be helpful but a seven, five and almost 2 yr olds antics around dinner are well, can we say, disastrous?  Thing 2 thought it would be good fun to start off his meal with a nice green – glass of water?!  How did he do it, you ask?  By climbing onto the counter and getting food coloring out of the baking cupboard.  Not too shabby of an idea until he left it all out on the floor and the Bubba (not yet 2) discovered how fun it is to ”decorate” the floor, his belly, his hands….  Now that’s helpful!  Meanwhile Thing 1 (my responsible 7yr old) decides to start out with milk and chocolate sauce, helping himself to a wholesome “dinner” as well.  Little Pee Wee is crying her eyes out and Bubba is covered in food coloring while I am frantically attacking the stain on the floor hoping that the new blue will come off! Is it really dinner time?  Don’t tell me it’s What’s for Dinner Wednesday.

“I can pull this off,” the pep talk begins, “just get Mr Frosted Belly into the tub and start some dinner!” 

Fine and dandy I can do this!  But…I also found out this week that Polident makes a pretty aggressive laxative when ingested in large quantities by busy toddlers who have surprisingly nimble fingers and an equally surprising ability to climb.  Bath time was quite an adventure.  Bubba goes into the tub… then out onto the potty for a false alarm, back in… and out onto the potty…in… but before he is clean he doesn’t make it back onto the potty and I have yet another disaster!  Finally after a SHOWER, Bubba is clean and dinner…. OH NO!  DINNER! 

Don’t even ask WHY I had polident in the house, I seriously do not know and no, neither my husband or I wear dentures but I’m sure getting old fast!

My What’s for Dinner Wednesday, sadly is another Un-Recipe.  But, seriously, one of the most valuable things to remember when on a gluten free diet is there are many, more naturally gluten free foods than we first let ourselves believe.  Potatoe’s are one of those wonderfull, natrually gluten free foods and they are really quite inexpensive.

Baked Potatoes Un-Recipe:

Wash please and poke some holes in a couple large potatoes.  Potatoes are grown underground in fertilizer.  We all know what makes great fertilizer!  Always scrub potatoes, they can be a culprit for icky illnesses if you don’t!  I personally like the Yukon Gold and Large Reds, but Russets work just fine.  You can start by baking your potatoes in the microwave.  NO FOIL!  After the magically appearing Polident incident no one can be too careful!  Bake approx. 10min (for large potatoes) while you preheat the oven to 450 degrees and then finish them in the oven for another 15min.   This gives you the best of both worlds; faster baking but not all dried out and shriveled. 

There are so many things you can top a baked potato with:

Good ol’ stand by’s like sour cream, and chives or butter and cracked pepper

Or get a little more creative with salsa, cottage cheese, chili, ground beef or turkey, white sauce with broccoli….

If you don’t prefer regular potatoes there are delicious recipes for sweet potatoes (which also cook up quick with help from a little microwaving) and I’ve heard from a little birdie that sweet potatoes mixed half and half with regular potatoes make a great mashed version.

Leave me a comment including your favorite baked potato topping!