These tasty Tuna Stuffed Potatoes are the full meal deal. With a filling of potato, tuna, egg, and cheese, all encased in potato shells, these twice-baked potatoes make a great lunch all on their own. Continue reading Tuna Stuffed Potatoes Recipe
Here is my suggested meal plan for the upcoming week. This is the Week 2 menu. You can access the meal plans for Week 1 by clicking here, Week 3 here, Week 4 here, Week 5 here, and Week 6 here.
I am a big fan of meal planning – it takes some coordination and effort upfront but the payoff is great. Find tested and reliable recipes with ingredients you know your family will like, read through the recipes to see what’s involved in their preparation and how long it will take to prepare them, make the shopping list, shop for the ingredients, and set aside the time to make the recipes. If you have helpers in the household, assign them tasks to help with the preparation.
Rather than spend time aimlessly perusing recipes in books or magazines or searching through the internet for a recipe that might pique your interest, I recommend first thinking about what main ingredient might appeal to you – is it ham, beef, poultry, fish, pasta, vegetables, etc. Are you looking for a casserole, a pot pie, or a main entrée, a one-time meal recipe or one that leftovers could be frozen for another meal or transformed into another dish altogether? Once you narrow down what you are aiming for, your search for the recipe will be more focused and concentrated and you will spend less time on the recipe search and more time productively spent actually making the dish.
To help you with that search, I hope you find some, or all, of the following recipes of interest and ones you will add to your weekly meal plan.
I’ve provided a list of the main ingredients that, for the most part, would probably involve a shopping trip to the supermarket for most. However, as always, read each recipe thoroughly and carefully to create your own personalized list as I have not listed what I consider to be “staple” items like regular milk, butter, eggs, flour, sugar, butter/shortening, oil, spices, etc.
Make sure you read through the menu suggestions for the entire week as some require some leftover meat or gravy, etc., from a previous day’s dinner so you will need to know what amounts of ingredients need to be set aside for a subsequent day’s meal.
Click on the green hotlinks to access the recipes.
MONDAY
Granola – My recipe for granola is nut free. So tasty, it’s actually yummy eaten as a trail mix treat, too!
Best Zucchini Granola Muffins – These are great breakfast or coffee break muffins and they freeze very well. Great treat to start off the week!
Shopping List: Granola (click here for my recipe), zucchini, applesauce
Dinner: Roast Beef, Potato Patties, Turnip Puff Casserole
A roast beef dinner is so tasty (and the house smells so great when the beef is roasting). Be sure to save some of the beef and make some gravy for the beef pot pies for Tuesday night’s dinner!
The potato patties are a change from traditional mashed or boiled potatoes and these are super tasty. Turnip goes particularly well with beef and is transformed into a lovely flavorful casserole to serve as a side dish. Jazzes up a roast beef dinner for sure!
Shopping List: Roast of beef, cut of choice. For Potato Patties – Potatoes, sour cream chicken bouillon, breadcrumbs. For Turnip Puff Casserole – Rutabaga, applesauce, onion, parmesan and cheddar cheeses.
Turnip Puff Casserole
Dessert: Rustic Apple Pie
Who can say no to a homemade apple pie! Add a scoop of your favorite vanilla ice cream to make this an even more special treat!
Shopping List: Apples, pie pastry for double-crust pie + enough for a single crust pie (needed for tomorrow’s Beef Pot Pie)
TUESDAY
Dinner: Beef Pot Pie – This is a great way to use up leftover roast beef and gravy from Monday night’s dinner.
Sometimes, depending on the size of roast, after a couple of days of leftover sliced cold roast beef, it can be a little boring, shall we say. That’s why it’s important to find other uses for the leftover roast beef, like this Beef Pot Pie, so it seems like a brand new idea for dinner!
Shopping List: Rutabaga, carrots, potatoes, onion, mushrooms, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, red wine summer savory, frozen peas and corn, fresh parsley, pastry for single crust pie
Dessert: Leftover Apple Pie
WEDNESDAY
Dinner: Potato Leek Soup with Whole Wheat Biscuits
Sometimes you just need a plain old-fashioned silky smooth cream soup and this Potato Leek Soup fits that bill nicely. Serve it with some warm homemade whole wheat biscuits, with a slather of butter, of course!
Shopping List: For Soup – Potatoes, leek, celery, onion, garlic, chicken/turkey stock, milk, white cheese blend (e.g., mozzarella, provolone, parmesan) For Biscuits – All purpose and whole wheat flours, buttermilk
Dessert: Chocolate Drop Cookies
These are a great chocolate cookie and sure to find their way into the heart of any chocolate lover.
Shopping List: General baking supplies + cocoa
Chocolate Drop Cookies
THURSDAY
Dinner: Chili Con Carne served with Pan Rolls
This chili is packed full of flavorful ingredients. While I think it’s perfect any time of the year, it’s especially inviting on cold winter days! Make a batch of homemade pan rolls to accompany this chili.
Shopping List: For Chili – Ground beef, onion, green pepper, celery, garlic, 1 – 28oz can diced tomatoes, 2 – 14oz cans red kidney beans, 1 – 10oz can tomato soup, 1 – 5.5oz can tomato paste, chili powder, balsamic vinegar, liquid beef bouillon, mushrooms. For Pan Rolls – Yeast + standard baking supplies
Dessert: Creamy Coconut Rice Pudding
Baked rice pudding is a comfort food and many will remember their mothers and grandmothers making this treat. I’ve jazzed up my recipe with coconut milk and raisins that have had a little “nip” of amaretto!
Shopping List: Arborio rice, amaretto, raisins, coconut milk, maple syrup, shredded coconut
FRIDAY
Dinner: Honey Garlic Spare Ribs, Twice-baked Potatoes, favorite side vegetable
Nothing beats honey and garlic to add some life to spare ribs! These ribs can be served with rice or choice of potato but my favorite is to add a twice-baked potato to the plate. Super yummy.
Shopping List: For Spare Ribs – Ribs, apple juice, honey, soya sauce, garlic, onion. For Twice-baked Potatoes – Baking potatoes such as Russet variety, sour cream, whole milk or cream, liquid chicken bouillon, garlic, cheddar and parmesan cheeses
Dessert: Jelly Roll
Lovely sponge cake rolled with red jam or jelly. Yes, this is indeed an old favorite with many.
Shopping List: Cake and pastry flour, favorite red jam or jelly
SATURDAY
Dinner: Moussaka with green salad
While I have made Moussaka for years, recent visits to Greek islands reignited my love for this dish. As a nod to my Prince Edward Island heritage, my version uses potatoes instead of the traditional eggplant. A little time-consuming to make but the end result is so worth it!
Shopping List: For Moussaka – Ground beef, onion, celery, garlic, 14-oz can crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine, beef broth, russet potatoes, milk, Gouda cheese, breadcrumbs. For green salad – favorite lettuce and salad fixings of choice, dressing.
Dessert: Vintage Tomato Soup Cake
I grew up with this cake being frequently made. Bet you can’t tell there is a can of tomato soup in it!
Shopping List: Tomato soup, molasses
SUNDAY
Sunday Breakfast: Special Treat – Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes
Sunday mornings call for something just a little more special than you might make on busy weekday mornings. Try these Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes with maple syrup or a rich blueberry sauce for double the blueberry flavor.
Shopping List: Buttermilk, blueberries (fresh or frozen)
Dinner: Leftover Moussaka
Dessert: Leftover Vintage Tomato Soup Cake
So, there you have it – the Week 2 Meal Planning Menu from My Island Bistro Kitchen.
For other meal plans from My Island Bistro Kitchen, click on the links below:
When you live in Prince Edward Island, Canada, where potatoes are one of the main agricultural crops, you find lots of ways to serve potatoes. Twice-baked potatoes, or stuffed baked potatoes, are one of my all-time favorites. I make up big batches of these and freeze them so they are always on hand, ready to be popped in the oven for dinner.
These potatoes are a little bit time-consuming to make because the potatoes have to first be baked then split in half and the pulp from each half scooped out and mashed, or riced, really well and combined with other flavorful ingredients. That’s why I make them up in quantity as part of my repertoire of batch-cooking for the freezer. These are a standard staple, year-round, in my freezer.
Now, for these twice-baked potatoes, you’ll want to use oval-shaped, elongated “baking” potatoes such as the high-starch Russet variety. A good average size of potato to use would be about 8 oz like the ones marked in the photo below. All of the potatoes in the photo are the Russet variety but most of them are too small to use for this purpose.
Russets have a light and fluffy texture when mashed and, certainly, when put through a potato ricer. Russets, by nature, are a dry potato which means they are very absorbent when adding other ingredients such as butter, sour cream, or milk. I have found that some Russets will be drier than others which may, in the case of twice-baked potatoes, require the addition of more sour cream or milk than the recipe calls for to make them creamy enough for the filling. Russets have a mild, delicate flavor. This makes them a good choice for twice-baked potatoes because their white-fleshed pulp mixes well with other ingredients such as sour cream, cheese, and garlic and onion flavors.
It’s difficult to give a 100% accurate amount of wet ingredients (e.g., sour cream and milk or cream) to use for the filling in these potatoes because, as mentioned above, some Russets are drier than others. I recommend starting with the amount called for in the recipe and then adding any additional liquid by the tablespoon until the desired consistency is reached. Filling for stuffed baked potatoes should not be “soupy”. It should hold its shape when piped or spooned into the hollowed out potato shells. If you go by the gauge that the filling could be piped, using moderate pressure, through a pastry bag fitted with a large open star tip, that’s the consistency you’re aiming for.
Sometimes, I will spoon some filling in to the shells, then pipe a decorative design on the top but, most times, I just spoon the filling in, mounding it up to look full and bountiful. In fact, I always bake two extra potatoes just for their pulp and don’t intend to stuff their shells. Some pulp is lost from each potato because a narrow rim of potato needs to be left intact in each shell in order for it to hold its shape and allow it to be filled. This is why it’s a good idea to bake a couple of extra potatoes to ensure you have enough pulp to adequately (and abundantly) fill the shells.
The pulp can be mashed (really well) with a potato masher to ensure the lumps are removed. However, if you have a potato ricer, push the potato pulp through the ricer as this will yield even fluffier potatoes.
Once the potatoes are mashed or riced, it’s simply a matter of adding all the other ingredients and blending them really well into the potatoes and adding the right amount of wet ingredients to get the mixture to a piping consistency. I do not recommend using an electric beater to mix the filling as it can result in over-beating thus turning the mixture into a soupy glue.
If freezing these potatoes, freeze the stuffed potatoes, unbaked, in airtight freezer containers. Bake from frozen state in preheated 350F oven for 45-50 minutes, or till heated through.
[Printable recipe follows at end of post]
Ingredients:
9 medium-sized baking potatoes such as the Russet variety
3 – 4 tbsp butter
½ cup sour cream
¼ cup+ whole milk or cream
1½ tsp liquid chicken bouillon
¾ tsp puréed garlic
½ cup finely shredded cheddar cheese
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
½ tsp onion salt
Freshly ground pepper
¼ tsp. fine sea salt
Extra grated cheddar cheese, paprika, chopped chives or parsley, green onions for garnishing tops of each potato (optional)
Method:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Scrub potatoes well. Do not peel. Prick each potato several times with a fork. Place potatoes directly on oven rack positioned in center of oven. Bake until fork easily inserts into center of potato, approximately 1 hour. Reduce oven heat to 350°F.
With a sharp knife, cut each potato in half, lengthwise. Scoop out pulp of potatoes leaving a thin rim around the edges of the potato to allow them to hold their shape.
Mash potatoes well or press pulp through a potato ricer into a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix well to ensure all ingredients are incorporated. Consistency should be such that mixture could be piped through a cake decorating bag using moderate pressure and hold its shape when spooned or piped. If necessary, add more milk or sour cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, to achieve desired consistency. Mixture should not be soupy.
Discard four of the shells (they were just baked for extra potato pulp the two potatoes provided). Lightly brush inside of each remaining potato shell with olive oil and place on parchment-line baking sheet. Spoon, or pipe, potato mixture into shells. Sprinkle with finely grated cheese and/or paprika. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Garnish with green onions or chopped chives or parsley at time of serving, if desired.
To make ahead and freeze: Store unbaked stuffed potatoes in airtight freezer container. Bake from frozen state, at 350°F for 45-50 minutes, until heated through and lighted browned on top.
Yield: 14 servings, 1 stuffed potato shell per serving
Classic twice-baked potato features a creamy and cheesy filling enhanced with onion and garlic flavors. The perfect side dish to any meal.
Ingredients
Instructions
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