Planning for a Baked Potato Bar
Baking Potatoes for Baked Potato Bar. Part two of a series. It sounds simple enough to plan for a baked potato bar. Guess what, it is simple! Calculate how many people will be attending your event. Now, for a baked potato bar, multiply all the adults by two. Then add one more potato for half of the adults. Add one potato for each child. Next, add one more potato for half of those kids. It sounds complicated, but it isn’t. Usually, it works out just right with maybe a couple potatoes left.
Naturally, I love potatoes! Being a home grown Idahoan, I could eat baked potato bar for days! When there are lots of toppings leftover, I consider having a second day of baked potato bar. Otherwise, I save it to create other fabulous potato dinners.
Ironically, Idahoans rarely find Idaho potatoes at the grocery store or food markets. In fact, they are exported all over the world. Including Hong Kong and Honduras. Learn more about the Idaho Potato here.
The Old Way of Prepping for Baked Potato Bar
Look, nobody wants to be tied down to days of prepping food for an event. Spending hours in the kitchen getting it all prepared, cooked and presented. My experiences include days of prep and hours of standing. Scrubbing vegetables, individually wrapping potatoes, cutting broccoli heads down, grating cheese. Yep, by the time dinner was ready for everyone, it was half time and I had missed the first half of the game.
Everyone runs through the bar, eats, comes back for seconds, and then by the time that happens, the third quarter is over. Stragglers are in the kitchen still nibbling, others are glued to the game and the rest are busy drinking and mingling. Almost forgetting the game is on. When one person can relay what is happening with the game, we are good. Plus, when a great play or horrible call is made, we can rewind it. Of course, the games that are close or back and forth, we try to set up the TV to where everyone is gathered – normally, that is outside!
Shortcuts for Baked Potato Bar
Being the person in the kitchen cooking results in the person who misses the game! No fun! This is where I have learned tricks to make this much easier to set up a baked potato bar. Finally, I also get to enjoy the game!
To start, organize your time, just like you do at Thanksgiving when you are planning Turkey Day dinner for everyone. This means plan how you will prep for this event in the days leading up to it so you do not feel pressured on game day.
Secondly, shop for your ingredients. Naturally, fresh is best. However, next to fresh can work wonders to save you time and nobody will be any wiser. For example, rather than buying an onion and chopping it, buy a container of freshly chopped onions. Unless something is wrong with your refrigerator or the onion, that onion appears and tastes fresh when you set it out in a nice serving dish.
Third, use faster preparation and cooking methods based on shortcuts. See for yourself how I implemented these shortcuts for our baked potato bar.
The Old Way of Baking Potatoes
In the past, I have scrubbed my potatoes, stabbed them all with a fork to allow the potato to expand without bursting. Generally, the next thing I do is put all the potatoes in a bowl and drizzle olive oil over them. I roll them all rotating the potatoes so each one is fully covered by the oil. Then, I use scissors to cut squares of aluminum foil for wrapping each potato. Putting one potato in each square and sprinkling with black pepper and kosher salt. I have used table salt, but the kosher salt is better. Himalayan Pink Salt is good too; as long as it isn’t ground too fine. Once wrapped, each potato gets placed on the over rack and I bake them all. Typically, I rotate them once or twice from front to back and turn to other side. I have an old oven.
The New Way of Baking Potatoes
The scrubbing and fork stabbing is the same. This time, I pulled out my 18 qt. roasting pan. I took the inner pan out and filled the bottom with about a ½ gallon to 1 gallon of water. I replaced the inner pan back into the base. Place the potatoes in the roasting inner pan. Drizzle with oil, roll potatoes around and sprinkle with the kosher salt and pepper as before. Then I put the lid on and set it to 350°. The steam started to build; and the potatoes began baking.
No more cutting aluminum foil. Saving me time and money! Eliminated the individual wrapping and placing and removing from the baking racks in the oven. Saving more time, plus a platter for the potatoes. And, with the roaster, when the potatoes were done, I turned the heat to warm. For those wanting more potatoes, they were still warm. Much better than cold and needing a few minutes in the microwave and being overdone.
BAKED POTATO BAR SERIES and RELATED ARTICLES
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