Bring back the baked potato! High fibre? True. High GI? Also true. But it's the low GI of a whole meal that matters. This can be sorted in several ways, by serving half a grapefruit or F2 pulse-based soup as a starter, for instance, or serving your potato with plenty of relatively low-GI veg like peas, beans, carrots, chickpeas. It's the usual big dollop of butter that does the real damage when people eat baked potatoes. There are two ways to avoid this without too much pain.
1. Serve your baked potato with something moist (see ideas below).
2. Halve the baked potato lengthwise, scoop out some of the flesh and mi." with one of the moist sandwich fillings on article. Count the same number of fat units for this meal and serve with an F2 pulse-based salad.
But don't go berserk and bake yourself a boulder-sized spud. The potato is among the higher calorie veg. We'd suggest 200g/7oz maximum weight, which supplies you with 7g dietary fibre.
If you prefer to microwave your potato, wash, dry and prick it all over, sit it on kitchen paper, then cook on full power for 4-5 minutes until tender. Allow to stand in the microwave for 2-3 minutes more to ensure it cooks right through. For a crisper skin pop it in a really hot oven for 10 minutes after microwaving an opportunity to cook other appropriate veg such as halved tomatoes at the same time.
Baked potato, baked beans and bangers: This will help if you feel the urge (it can happen to the best of us!) to abandon all and speed off to a lorry-driver's caf. Partner your baked potato with a can of baked beans and two Quam sausages tomato ketchup? By all means slosh them on. Quorn sausages, available in every supermarket, are very low in fat. Try them.
Baked potato and ratatouille: Ideally serve with homemade ratatouille, but if you use a chilled or canned ready-made variety check with the Fat and Calorie Controller and adjust fat units if necessary. Serve with sugarsnap peas, green beans or butter beans. If you bake your potato in the oven you can also bake small halved onions or large shallots and large mushrooms. One teaspoon oil (2 extra fat units) would be enough to oil all additional veg.
Baked potato, mushy peas and fish: Lay a 175g/60z cod or haddock fillet in a lightly oiled dish, sprinkle with lemon juice and seasoning, then cover with foil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes (or 20-25 minutes from frozen) while you are baking your potato. Serve with a can of mushy peas (or ordinary peas if you prefer). Not quite the chip shop, but the best we can do.
Baked potato with spicy chickpeas and crisp salad: Make a little cooking go a long way by making Spicy Chickpeas with Rich Tomato Dressing from the recipe on article. Serve one portion hot with a baked potato and green salad as a main meal. Allow the remainder to cool, mix in celery and sweetcorn and keep in the fridge as an Essential Stand-By Salad.
