The pure comfort of a well-prepared potato is guaranteed to double whenever you take a little extra time make them “twice” baked!
The cooler days have a way of drawing us closer to comfort foods we’ve known and loved since childhood. Not surprising, potatoes top most comfort food lists which, in my childhood were served simply baked – right in its own skin! What’s nice is that I now have some very happy memories of me and my sister, Nancy baking potatoes as kids which, we did so often that our father actually bought us these super long and thick nails to pound through the length of our potatoes to help speed up roasting. After all, it was the 1960s!
Looking into this method of cooking potatoes for this piece, I discovered an interesting story about how the baked potato may have come to be.
A Little History On Baked Potatoes
In the early 1900s a Northern Pacific Railway dining car superintendent, Hazen Titus, had heard from some potato farmers that they were having trouble selling larger potatoes because people thought they would be too difficult to cook. Titus took some time to tinker with them and soon discovered that baking these big boys in a slow oven made the larger potatoes both tender and delicious, causing Titus to contract with the farmers for all the large potatoes he could cook!
First offered to diners on the North Coast Limited in 1909, word of the big bakers traveled rather quick, creating such a buzz that the railway started using “the Great Big Baked Potato” as their advertising gimic!
Growing from advertising to, postcards, letter openers, spoons and even a song for potato promotion, the frenzy these big baked potatoes whipped up lasted nearly half a century -– no small potatoes in anyone’s book!
As a child, I loved being served my own personal potato. It made me fee special and honestly, still does to this day. Perhaps it is because unlike most other things a potato’s incredible creamy goodness is just as good and comforting today as it was the first time my sister and I experimented with them – thank you, God!
A potato is also just as nutritious and still contains only around 220 calories per serving. Containing virtually no fat or cholesterol and providing a healthy 5 grams of fiber, 5 grams of protein and healthy amounts of vitamin D, C and B-6 – as well as thiamin, niacin, magnesium and iron – its nice to have a comfort food that has remained unchanged.
Incredibly affordable and convenient too, potatoes are quite nutritious as well, even more if you bake them with their skins on like my mom used to do.
Serving double duty as both nutrition and a bowl, here now is a delightful recipe that makes it easy for you to make yours a double, too – ENJOY!
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