Tabby-Baked Potato
This classic dish is filling, low in fat, and very easy to prepare. It's chock-full of carbohydrates though, so Atkins-people beware! Perfect for the light late lunch on saturday afternoon after washing your car but before going to the pool. Also a decent after-work dinner if you had a big lunch.
Directions:
1. Get a potato at the store. Just a potato. Get a big one though--don't get those little red-skinned potatos. Get a big brown Idaho Baking Potato. Pick a big one that doesn't have any visibly rotten spots, and doesn't have too much dirt on it, or things growing on it. That'll do. Just get one. You don't want to be eating potatos more than one consecutive meal. They're cool once in a while but they get boring fast. And you don't want to keep them around, either. Whatever you do, don't get a big bag of potatoes thinking that you're going to eat them all eventually. Before you get to the third one there will be nasty stuff growing out of them and at that point they become unbearable to even look at let alone eat. If you do have to learn the hard way by getting more than one potato, store the "future-use" potatos in a dark dry cabinet. Not your refridgerator. Somebody told me they'll keep longer that way, and now I'm telling it to you. You're welcome. That's it. Got your potato? Now go home. That's all you need today. Towards the end we'll discuss some other optional ingredients that you can add, but you probably already have them anyway, so I won't mention them here. Besides, if you don't have any of them, then it will be your chance to get creative and come up with your own variation of this versatile recipe. And if you can't do that, then you should probably just eat the potato plain, anyway. It will teach you a lesson.
2. When you get home, take the potato out of the plastic produce bag. You can throw the bag away now, unless you got more than one potato, in which case you can twist it up and toss it in the pantry, where it's dark and dry. Keeping it in the bag means you won't have to touch it when you find it several days later and disgusting things are growing out of it.
3. Clean the potato thoroughly by holding it under running water for a full 3 seconds. Turn it over as necessary to get the entire surface of the potato wet. Don't dry the potato. Get a paper towel and wrap it around the potato, and then hold the paper-towel-wrapped potato under the running water until the towel is thoroughly wet as well.
4. Put the potato, still wrapped in the wet paper towel, in the microwave. Close the door and push the "Potato" button. If your microwave does not have a "Potato" button, go to Brandsmart and get one that does. Otherwise, just forget it. If your microwave doesn't have a "Potato" button, it probably doesn't have a "Popcorn" button either, does it? What were you thinking when you bought it? Pour yourself a beer. If you live next door to an attractive member of the opposite sex, you can TRY knocking on their door and asking them if their microwave has a "potato" button on it, and if so, can you use it? Good luck, if you try that, because they probably aren't going to be impressed with you if you don't have a microwave with a "potato" button on it: they'll probably think you're a total loser. But on the bright side, if they do let you in, then you've got it made, 'cause they must really think you're cute...or else they're really desperate. Same difference.
5. After the microwave beeps and shuts itself off, open the door, and carefully roll the potato out of the microwave and onto a plate. It's hot, so don't put your fingers on it for too long. Carefully find the edge of the paper towel, and pull it off of the potato. Use it to wipe up any drops of water on the counter and then throw it away, keeping the potato on the plate. Give the potato a few seconds to cool a little bit. Turn on the tv.
6. Get a steak knife. Approach the potato. It is probably currently lying on its flattest side now. Roll it 90 degrees so that it is now kind of "on edge" and cut it as cleanly as possible, all the way through, from one end to the other. The idea is to have two potato-halves that are as flat and wide as possible. If you don't do a good job of cutting it, don't feel bad. It's gonna taste the same anyway, and cooking takes practice. You'll do better next time. Besides, you're cooking for yourself, right? You don't need to impress anybody.
7. Now that we have two potato-halves, we can test to see how thoroughly cooked the potato is. Unless you got a small potato--and shame on you if you did--it probably did not cook all the way through to the center. Poke each half of the potato right in the center with the tip of your steak knife. If it slides in easily, and feels kind of mushy, then congratulations: the potato is thoroughly cooked. If it offers some puncture-resistance, however, or makes a kind of crunching sound like a ski pole being thrust into snow, then it hasn't quite cooked all the way through, which is normal.
8. Wrap one of the potato halves in plastic wrap, or put it in some tupperware, and put it in the fridge. If one half is cooked more than the other, put the less-cooked one in the fridge. We're not going to eat both halves right now. We have to lose weight so that when the ex sees us we will be totally buff and she will eat her heart out. Remember, looking good is the best revenge. That, and finding an even better-looking replacement--but the two just go hand in hand, don't they? Of course they do. Now if the side that is not in the fridge is thoroughly cooked already, you can skip the next step and go to step 10. Otherwise...
9. Put the potato-half we're going to eat back in the microwave, and push the "instant minute" button. If your microwave doesn't have an "instant minute" button, see step 4. I can't be coddling you techno-phobes. If you can't buy a decent microwave, then just go back to rubbing sticks together and hunting and gathering. If you are still with me, though, when the microwave beeps, open the door and test the center of the potato with the tip of your steak knife again. If it's still not done, repeat this step until it is. The skin of the potato might start to look a little leathery. That's ok. The important thing is that we don't want a potato with a raw center. Besides it shouldn't too leathery because we wrapped it in a wet paper towel earlier, remember? Congratulate yourself on your wisdom and forethought. Imagine right now that your ex is trying to chew some shoe-leather stuff that was once a potato that she didn't know to wrap in a paper towel. Mmmm.
10. Potato's done? Ok, put it on a plate and take your steak knife in hand one more time. Use the blade of the knife to cut slits into the face of the potato. Don't use a slicing motion. Just press the blade into the potato about a third of an inch deep (more or less, depending on how thick your potato-half is). We don't want to cut all the way through the potato. Make a slit about every half-inch across the entire face of the potato, and then do the same lengthwise, so that you end up with a checkerboard pattern of slits on the face of the potato. The potato might start to flatten out a little bit. That's ok.
11. Now comes the creative part where we add optional ingredients. I usually start with oleo before anything else. Spread some oleo on the face of the potato, and notice how it melts on the hot potato surface, and the melted oleo runs into the slits we just made. It's as though we have injected our potato with buttery goodness. Any girl would love to have us. After that, what I do depends on my mood and what I have in the fridge. Either a little sour cream and chives, or a little melted velveeta, or even ranch dressing (try it sometime, trust me!). Or sometimes just a little Tony Chachere's if I want to keep it light, or just don't have anything else (I Always have some Tony Chachere's!). While the other ingredients are blended into the potato by the heat of the potato as it cools, get a root beer out of the fridge. Bring them both over to the coffee table with your steak knife and a fork.
12. Cut the potato and eat it all. Don't try to dig the potato out of the skin. The skin is the best part! It's where all the nutrients and the potato-flavor are. Why do you think potato-skins are such a sports-bar delicacy? There, are you done? You've just had Tabby-baked Potato. Good, wasn't it? Are you still hungry? Think of all the weight you're losing. Your ex is going to kick herself the next time she sees you. Tomorrow, you can take the potato-half that you stored in the fridge and prepare it, starting with step 9. That's two meals for less than a buck! The more money you save now, the more you'll have to spend on your next girlfriend.
If you have any questions about any of the steps of this recipe, please keep them to yourselves. I have been as thorough as I know how to be. If you just don't get it, or you try it and your potato doesn't come out as good as mine, just give up. Not everybody is meant to be a cook. There must be something else that you're good at. Try to find out what it is. I wish you luck.
If you wish to express praise or gratitude, or offer your own success stories and personal touches that you have achieved through this invaluable resource, please feel free to email me.
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