Healthy Potato Recipes

This simple recipe which can accompany a wide variety of meals is simply new potatoes boiled in slightly salted water for twenty-five to thirty minutes before being subsquently drained and swirled in a knob of butter and a pinch of dried or freshly chopped dillweed.

Try these potatoes cold with a summer salad or hot with a juicy steak - they are just as delicious either way.

Potatoes are frequently roasted in animal fat or an excess of oil which naturally does not do much for their healthy properties. Here is an alternative way, however, which I use to roast potatoes and I genuinely believe this way is most delicious of all.

Ingredients (Serves two)

10 Baby New Potatoes
1 tbsp sunflower oil
Pinch of dried sage
Pinch of dried thyme
1 clove of garlic (crushed)
Salt

Method

Put your oven on to pre-heat to 200 degrees celsius/400 degrees fahrenheit. Part cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for ten minutes. Drain them well.

Add the sunflower oil, sage and thyme to a large bowl and mix well. Season with salt. Tip in the potatoes and mix thoroughly but carefully to ensure they are all well and evenly coated in the oil and herbs. Put the potatoes on to a baking tray and in to the oven for twenty-five minutes. Do not wash the bowl!

Put the crushed garlic in to your unwashed bowl and after twenty-five minutes in the oven, remove your potatoes and put them back in the bowl. Again, stir carefully and well. Put them back on the tray and give them five more minutes in the oven.

The first step to making a great baked potato - as in any recipe - is to make sure we have the correct type of ingredients, ie a potato variety suitable for baking. The types will vary depending upon your location but simply asking for advice at your supermarket or the likes should help to alleviate any problem if you are in doubt, or perhaps you could do a Google search on the varieties you have available. This taken care of, we can proceed to cook the potato.

The first step is to put your oven on to pre-heat to 200 degrees celsius/400 degrees fahrenheit/gas mark 6. Wash the potato and dry it thoroughly then take a long metal skewer and insert it straight through the centre of the potato length-wise. This will conduct heat straight in to the centre of the potato and minimise the risk of it coming out of the oven with a hard and unpalatable centre. Pierce the skin of the potato several times with a fork to allow steam to escape during cooking.

Next, wrap the potato in some aluminium foil (shiny side inwards) but not too tightly and place it on to a baking tray and in to the oven for about one and a quarter hours.

When the potato is done, wearing oven-proof gloves, remove it from the oven and carefully remove the skewer. It should come out a lot more easily than it went in! Still with the foil on, massage the potato a little - not too firmly to break the skin - to fluff up the inside then remove the foil and discard.

Laying the potato flat, make two cuts - across the length and the breadth - to about two-thirds of the way down the baked potato. Then lift it from below and gently squeeze the four corners inwards. This will open up the potato and allow you to garnish it as desired - and perhaps even as suggested below!

Although there are of course a great many common and not so common filling recipes for baked potatoes, more indeed than I could ever hope to cover here, there are those who like the simplistic option of having their baked potato with nothing more than a little butter and perhaps some salt. If this is your choice, remember only to go easy on both the butter and the salt - we want our baked potato to remain a healthy option!

This simple baked potato garnish should if possible be prepared at least one hour in advance and refrigerated until required

Crush one clove of garlic per potato and mix it thoroughly with one tablespoonful of low fat mayonnaise. Subsequent to adding it to the potato, place a twist of cucumber (a thin slice all but halved and twisted) and the pieces of a torn basil leaf on top to complete the effect.

To prepare the salsa to go with this recipe, per potato you will require the following:

1 medium sized tomato (de-seeded)
1" of cucumber (de-seeded)
1 clove of garlic (crushed)
2 basil leaves (torn)
Pinch of chilli powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to season

Finely chop the cucumber and tomato and mix with the remainder of the ingredients. It is always better if this can be done in advance and the mixture refrigerated until required, that the different flavours may be given a chance to infuse.

You may wish to add a knob of butter to the potato in this instance prior to adding the salsa.

This delicious offering is served on a bed of shredded lettuce and filled with chopped shrimp, low fat soured cream, one minced or crushed clove of garlic and a pinch of fresh or dried dill weed.

The shrimp is this recipe should eliminate the need for any added salt.