It came up in conversation recently that both Christie and I love twice-baked potatoes so I decided to give them a try for dinner. I’d made them before a few years ago using Earth Balance and soy milk to mash the baked potato filling, but I wanted to try out a cashew creme that Christie whips up with she makes her fabulous mashed potatoes. Since we had fresh parsley on hand I used some of that in the cashew creme.
I used one largish, long even Russet, a quite small Russet and a small yam. All of these were first “baked” in the microwave and set on the counter on a plate to cool enough to handle easily. I then sliced the big Russet carefully in half and scooped out some of the insides into a bowl, being careful to leave enough potato behind to make a stable “boat” to fill.
The cashew cream was made with about 1/2 a cup of raw cashews soaked in hot water and then drained. These were processed with 1/3 cup fine flake nutritional yeast, some sea salt, some garlic pepper, the juice of one lemon, and some fresh parsley. This was pretty pasty so I ended up adding in a few tablespoons of water (I wondered about reserving the soaking water for this).
I mashed the scooped out insides with about 3-4 tablespoons of the cashew creme. This honestly was pretty sticky and I should have went with that initial observation!
The stuffed potatoes were put in a cast iron dish and tossed under low broil until the tops were golden. The all-potato one turned out extra lovely.
Gorgeous Golden Top!
I filled my potato “boat” with a mixture of potato and yam; a combination I like a lot. It needs less time under the broiler since the sugars caramelize faster than on the all-potato one. Still, pretty awesome looking.
Love me some yam!
These were paired with a saute of curly green kale and tempeh that was finished with a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar and fresh parsley.
The verdict: Sadly the potatoes were a little dry and sticky (I knew I should have paid attention to thinking it at first!). That said, they were very tasty. When I talked with Christie about the cashew creme she makes she revealed that hers has a thinner consistency than the thick, rich paste I’d made. I think it would be good to add either a little water (perhaps reserving the soaking water for the cashews to mix back in) or rice or soy milk.