I made loaded baked potatoes for dinner tonight. To prep the potatoes, I brushed them with melted butter- I was out of EVOO, but that would have worked, - and then rubbed them with a mixture of just a pinch of crushed Hawaiian sea salt, garlic powder, cracked black pepper, and dried rosemary, then poked them with a fork.
I loaded them with spreadable sharp cheddar cheese, fat free sour cream, caramelized diced onions, & a few oz of chopped brisket I bought @ the grocery store deli counter. I re-heated the brisket in the remains left in the skillet from caramelizing the onion. I only used about a tablespoon of the caramelized onion tonight, but they freeze really well so I went ahead and diced & caramelized the whole onion (i prefer the yellow onions, but if you're caramelizing there's hardly a difference) & froze the extra in a Ziploc baggie.
I took a $1 French bread loaf & sliced it in half, then halved it lengthwise. I put butter & garlic powder on one half & wrapped it up to toast in the oven, & i put butter, ground cinnamon, a pinch of sugar, & rainbow jimmy sprinkles (cuz apparently your girl is EXTRA & I didn't realize I'd decide to take a photo later) on the other half & wrapped it up to toast for breakfast later in the week.
After dinner, I took the extra potatoes I'd baked & removed most of the innards and set them aside.
I stacked the skins in a Tupperware & put them in the fridge to make crunchy loaded potato skins later in the week with shredded cheese, bacon bits, & sour cream. Keep in mind that cooked potatoes only have a shelf life of 3 days. A deadly mold is particularly fond of cooked potato starch, so plan carefully when using leftover potatoes!
I melted a small pat of butter in my wok skillet while I chopped up a leek, then sauteed the leeks in the buttered pan until they just started to sear & caramelize, then I added a quart of salt-free chicken broth to the leeks & simmered them for 25 minutes while I took a load off.
Next, I ladled the leek broth into my blender & pureed it. While it pureed, i dumped those leftover potato innards into the wok & broke them up a bit with a whisk. I added the leek puree back to the wok & simmered just a bit, seasoning with cracked black pepper & rosemary.
Finally, I let the soup cool & ladled it into red solo cups (2-8 oz portions per cup! Convenient) And froze them. Tomorrow I'll wrap up the portions so they're easy to grab & thaw into whatever I intend to serve them in. I'll serve them with shredded cheese & bacon bits, probably, maybe even crispy onion strings, though the soup by itself has a ton of body & layers of flavor between the butter, leeks, broth, potatoes, & seasoning & could stand on its own.
Then I went ahead and prepped my favorite super healthy Tomatillo Tortilla soup, which literally took <20 minutes (recipe is posted in a previous blog) into my crock pot & put it in the fridge to cook tomorrow, then I'll serve it for dinner tomorrow & portion the rest of it into cups & freeze them alongside the potato leek soup.
I got 10 servings of the Potato Leek Soup & will probably get at least a dozen portions out of the Tomatillo Soup, so if I serve them intermittently with taco night + leftovers & beef burgundy + leftovers that covers my next 3 weeks of dinners at least!
Sure it was a bit of prep tonight, but I've saved myself a TON of work in the next few weeks.
I'll also point out that all meals listed here are low sodium & could easily be altered for a vegetarian diet. & if you believe a bit of butter is ok in moderation, they're all pretty healthy as well.
