Cooking with Kids: Give those big potatoes a good roasting
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Big gnarly potatoes are great for baking, you can rub with some oil into their skin so it crips up nicely, while the insides become fluffy and soft.Â
When we were children, my siblings and I loved to scoop out the inside of a baked potato and mix it with grated cheese and ham, we stuffed this mixture back into the skins and then baked them again until the cheese was nicely melted.Â
For reasons I cannot figure out, we called them pizza potatoes.
It takes a while to roast any potato and the time is dependent on the size. Regular potatoes take over an hour in the oven so patience will be required from young chefs.Â
When roasting a potato, ask the children to prick the skin a few times with a fork. This will prevent air building up inside and divert an explosion.
You can add lots of different things to the top of a baked potato, a tin of beans, some mince, and a dollop of cream cheese.Â
Some people like to just gently open up the potatoes and serve them with melting butter.Â
This is in two parts and the children can simply roast the potatoes and enjoy them as is, alternatively, you can complete the next step with them and make the ‘pizza potato’.
A cheesy version of the classic baked potatoes. Servings Preparation Time Cooking Time Total Time Course Ingredients 4 medium-sized potatoes that are good for baking, Roosters, Golden Wonders and Kerr's Pinks all work well 1 tbsp of olive oil 1 tsp of sea salt For the filling: 1 spring onion 4 streaky rashers 150g of cheddar cheese Method Preheat your oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6. Wash the potatoes well. Prick the skin on the potatoes with a fork about six time on each potato. Rub some oil into the skin of each one and sprinkle them with salt. Ask an adult to place the potatoes onto a rack in your oven. They will need over an hour to bake, depending on the size. If you would like to speed things up, you can microwave them for about 5 minutes then bake them for about 40 minutes. You can test if the potatoes are baked through with a skewer. If it goes into the centre of the potato easily it means all of the flesh inside is soft. While your potatoes are baking, carefully slice the spring onion and set it aside. Cut the rashers into little pieces and ask an adult to help you to fry them over a low heat until they begin to look crispy. Set them aside. Carefully grate the cheese. The potatoes are ready to eat when they are roasted, once they cool down. If you wish you can make a cross in the top of one of the potatoes and gently push each side to open up the cross. You can put a knob of butter onto it or some heated baked beans if you like. To make pizza potatoes wait until the baked potatoes have cooled. Ask an adult to help you to cut each one in half along the longest side. Scoop the inside of the potato into a big bowl. Leave a thick enough layer of the cooked potato on the potato skin so you have nice potato skin bowls to put your filling back into. Add the spring onions, rasher pieces and cheese to the potato bowl. Add a little pepper and salt. Stir everything together. Spoon the filling back into your potato skins, packing it in tightly. Bake again for about five minutes until it has heated up and the cheese has melted.Pizza Potatoes
Plant a sweet potato in water, and watch it transform into a houseplant with lovely purple leaves.Â
To make your plant, fill a jam jar three-quarters full of water. Sit a sweet potato into it so that the tip of the potato is just under the water.Â
If it is a bit wobbly or it falls into the jar you can use some toothpicks to make it balance. Stick them into the sweet potato and lean them onto the top of the jar.Â
Sit the jar in a bright cosy spot in your house, a windowsill that gets a lot of light will do.Â
You will need to change the water every three days or so, but soon enough you will see roots stretch down into the water and some tentacles grow out of the sweet potato, these will soon have leaves which are edible and tasty.
