Thursday, January 27, 2011

Christmas Special 1: Jacket Potatoes

AND NOW: for the long awaited Christmas Special!
Ever arranged a christmas dinner? On your OWN? Well, I did this year. Okay, so I DID have a little forest elf in the kitchen to help me, but I still was the one ordering the thing around and having to think of orders it couldn’t screw up. I decided this year I wanted to do a few special things. I never made cranberry sauce, so I that was on the list. And I never stuffed a chicken before, or even ate something other than chicken wings or chicken fillet I think, so that was on the list as well. Last but not least was filled jacket potatoes, because a friend (my guildmaster in WoW to make it complicated) bragged about it and I really want to try this too! Plus I have to make sure that I can cook better than any man! I had a few more things on my list, like making a gingerbread house, but I simply didn’t find time for it. Or had enough of cooking and baking by the time I did. I’m defenitely still making a gingerbread house though, maybe with easter and make some candy chicks and bunneys to go with it. Perhaps make it a gingerbread farm then or shed.
Anyway, let’s start with the first christmas cooking event I prepaired (in short: I made a dinner, helped with a dinner and organised a high tea). The first Christmas dinner I made completely by myself, with help from my forest elf. Preparing this took about a day. I think we started around 3 or 4 and we had to eat a “bit” late. In the end all we ate was stuffed chicken and jacket potatoes, maybe we added some salads or beans. Maybe not the greatest dinner, but it took a lot of time, and it was still delicious!

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As for the recipes, I’ve tried looking for the stuffed chicken recipe again, but I’ve completely lost it. I’ll try looking again, but Im afraid since it was just in a magazine its already burned to ashes in our lovely fireplace that keeps people warm in winter. But the recipe for the jacket potatoes was all in my head, and it didn’t go anywhere, so here goes!
Note: the potatoes used in England are a ‘bit’ different from what we have in Holland. There is no such thing as jacket potatoes here, but basically you’re looking for large potatoes that look like they won’t instantly fall apart.

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Ingredients:
Potatoes
Butter (spoon or two)
Grated cheese (loads, definitely loads)
Parsley or Basilicum (or both or a handful random herbs)


1. Cook the potatoes! Make sure they don’t fall apart or get too soft, they should be just about or almost right. Perhaps putting them in the oven is a better idea, but this is what I did.
2. Cut the jacket potatoes in half and spoon out most of the inside (without letting it fall apart!) and put all the potatoe mash in a bowl. Put the potatoe jackets in an oven pan.
3. Mash the potatoe mash with butter and all your fancy herbs together. Also add some cheese at this point, so it’s cheesy on the inside too!
4. Then put the potatoe mash back into the jackets and sprinkle loads and loads of cheese over it. Then put it in the oven and leave it till it looks about right. I believe I baked it at around 180-160 degrees Celsius or 320-355 degrees Fahrenheit.

Well there you go! I’m telling you: it’s LOVELY! The cheese does it. Next time I’ll be trying this with a can of tuna through it. It doesnt matter if you end up with a mashed potatoe mix with some cheese over it – like what happened in my case, it tasted good and that’s eventually the point! Or perhaps the point is that we don’t die of starvation...

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Don’t you think it’s absolute fail to make a Christmas special at the end of january?

1 comment:

  1. This and the peach thing? Reading about it made me orgasm.

    ReplyDelete