Recipe: Veggie stuffed twice baked potatoes

My kids go to a great daycare centre. One of the things I like is that they have a full time cook, and since my kids apparently eat everything they are offered at daycare, she must be doing something right!

Last week the bigger kiddo told me I just HAD to make 'the yummy potatoes we had for lunch today'. After some consultation with the cook, I came up with these, which I guess were close enough to be eaten today at lunch with great enthusiasm.

Twice Baked Vegetable Stuffed Potatoes

Bake however many potatoes you want until they are done (it's handy to start them in the microwave and then finish them in the oven if that will take too long). Let them cool off a bit, then slice in half and scoop out the interiors of the potatoes, reserving the insides in a large bowl. Put the skins back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the filling. I didn't really measure, but for 5 potatoes I used about a tablespoon of butter, about a half cup of grated cheddar cheese, a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan, a half cup of thawed frozen corn, and a half a cup of thawed frozen peas. Mix all that together with the potato interiors.

Dump the veggie mixture into the potato skins and bake another ten minutes or so. Serve with some grated Parmesan on top. Kid friendly! Carrots or spinach or broccoli would work nicely for the filling as well.

The Seasonal Table. Shelf. Whatever.

Our little seasonal shelf, assembled from various things around the house and some of the kid's Christmas presents. The snowflake garland was made from a tutorial at Wee Folk Art.

The gnomes have a house made of Lincoln log type things, with the wooden cat cutout from Clickety Clack on Etsy. The trees and the rainbow stacker are also from Clickey Clack.

Closeup on the snowflakes. Plus a few pine cones, of course!

Now I need to track down my red felt to start on a Valentine's gnome and appropriate Valentine's decorations...

The Winter Gnomes

When I cleaned up the Christmas stuff, I was looking at the two empty shelves that in the past have always been major junk magnets. They were the home of the Christmas village until yesterday. And it occurred to me, I've always wanted to do a sort of nature table type thing, and here I had two empty shelves that would be perfect!

I don't have good photos of the whole thing yet, but here's a closeup of the two gnomes I made last night, Mr. and Mrs. Winter. They're drinking hot chocolate out of some acorn cups.

From behind:



The idea is to add and subtract items based on the seasons, so they'll be here for a while. Probably a heart gnome or two will join them in time for Valentine's day...

(not calling this a nature table - there's a lot of synthetic up there, because I don't particularly like working with wool and I'm putting things together based on what's in the house. Pretty sure the silver 'snow' fabric is about as removed from nature as you can get! Call it a seasonal table instead. Seasonal shelf. Whatever.)

Why hello there!

Wait, I have a blog?

So life got really, really busy there, and blogging went out the window for a while. And I've got such a backlog of things to write about, not the least of which is the new baby that took the above photo, my Canon Rebel XS that is making me completely obsess about photography.

So, more posts to come! Most likely with a lot of pictures! I did some epic Christmas crafting this year that I am very very pleased with, and decided to get all Waldorf and set up a seasonal table, with associated crafting for that, along with lots of cooking and zhu zhu pet clothing making (never thought I'd be making hamster clothes...).

Here's to 2011!