Twice-Baked Potatoes

For another cooking assignment Jessica made twice-baked potatoes using a recipe from www.recipezaar.com. She chose Best Twice-Baked Potatoes from Loren Lou (thank you!) and you can find the recipe by clicking on this sentence.

We like our potatoes baked in the oven. Above Jessica slices off a thin piece from the top which we just discarded.

Next she uses a spoon to carefully scoop out the inside, starting in the middle and working out to the edges, being careful to try and leave the shell intact with some potato still giving the skin support. Click on a picture to see more detail on the shelled out potatoes in the pan.

Moving on, she beat together the ingredients for the filling and the above picture shows the addition of some of the cheese.

Once the filling is fairly smooth she put a generous dollop in each potato before filling them up completely. This helps to ensure equal amounts in each potato without overfilling some and underfilling others. (At least this is how we fill the potatoes at our house.)

And here we have the stuffed to overflowing potatoes topped with more cheese since we didn't have the cooked and crumbled bacon suggested by the recipe.

The finished potatoes-golden and delicious from the oven. The filling puffed and settled some during the baking so I am glad that she used all the filling even though it looked like it would be too much. These were really yummy and we enjoyed them.


Trivia question: What potato dishes do you make at your house? Mashed? Scalloped? Potato salad? Fries? Hash Browns? Funeral Potatoes? Soup? etc.....

April Food Co-op and Unbaked Oatmeal Fudge

Unbaked Oatmeal Fudge is what Jessica made for a recent cooking assignment. The recipe is cocoa, sugar, milk, butter, vanilla and quick oats. There are variations with peanut butter or coconut but this variation is the one that we like the best.

Info on the food co-op can be found at www.foodco-op.net. Here's the Standard Food Co-op order for April at a cost of $23 : 1 4-lb. whole roasting chicken, 1 pkg. lean ground beef, 1 pkg. lean pork cubes, 1 pkg. lean Salisbury steaks, 1 1-lb. box strawberries, 7 bananas, 5 oranges, 1 5-lb bag red potatoes, 1 loaf Stone Ground's Artisan Wheat Loaf, 1 16-oz pkg. rice, 1 head broccoli, 3 cucumbers, 1 head of red leaf lettuce and 4 tomatoes. They ran out of tomatoes since we barely squeaked in to get our order this month-I was moving books and got distracted. (Those of you who like reading will relate and know what I mean as one just starts thumbing through the books. I can't just replace them on the new shelf-I feel like I must get reacquainted with each book first before it can go in the new spot. )

Here's the tamales we bought for $5.

The half share was $14 and consisted of: 1 pkg. lean Salisbury steaks, 1 pkg. lean pork cubes, 1 5-lb. bag red potatoes, 4 oranges, 1 head broccoli, 1 head red leaf lettuce, 6 bananas, 4 tomatoes, 1 l-lb box strawberries, 1 loaf Stone Ground's Artisan Wheat Loaf, and 1 pkg. 16-oz rice.

The harvest share was $14 and consisted of: 1 5-lb. bag red potatoes, 8 oranges, 1 head of broccoli, 4 cucumbers, 1 head red leaf lettuce, 1 head cauliflower, 10 bananas, 6 tomatoes, 2 l-lb boxes strawberries, 1 loaf Stone Ground's Artisan Wheat Loaf and 1 16-oz bag rice.

Adding another puzzle maker

Love this Peanuts puzzle of reading. All the puzzles in this post are 63 piece puzzles that were each completed in less than an hour (usually a lot less.) Eva has now joined us in completing puzzles. She did the reading puzzle and the baseball puzzle on her own.


Sarah completed the camp puzzle and the Snoopy "Joe Cool" puzzles below but the 63 piece puzzles were just too easy so she let Eva do two puzzles above. My parents had these in storage and we were looking for some easy puzzles to complete after the 750 piece lighthouse. These fit the bill well. Cute, easy and full of confidence building all in the short time frame of an afternoon.


It seems strange somehow that puzzles are really logical art. One takes the pieces and puts together a beautiful picture from what was just a concept in the artist's mind in the beginning. Making puzzles helps me to feel creative and I hope the girls sometimes feel that way also.

Sweet Potato Bread

The latest cooking assignment has involved Vitamin C. Jessica was assigned this nutrient and has already presented her report. The only thing left was to prepare a recipe that contained a fair amount of Vitamin C. Most people are aware that sweet potatoes contain lots of vitamin A. What people might not be aware of is the high vitamin C content. A 2/3 cup serving of canned yams contains 30% of the daily requirement of vitamin C. These yams (sweet potatoes) contain fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, some iron and some calcium. (At least according to the nutrient list on the can.)

So this last week she made these beautiful loaves of Sweet Potato Bread. The batter was really thick and I wasn't too sure about how much the bread would rise but they turned out beautifully and tasted like moist pumpkin bread even though it was canned sweet potatoes in place of the pumpkin. The pecans added a nice bit of crunch as well as a visually attractive addition.

On a side note, Jessica made this cute little turtle with green sugar on a cake for Sarah to share with her friends when they came over to play. They all made the cake together and Jessica did the turtle design on a whim.

Snow Excavation

Shoveling. Lots of shoveling. Need I say more?

(Oh, yes, April Fool's!)