Twice Baked Potatoes

These potatoes are an old family favorite as well. The original recipe calls for several different types of dairy, but I've veganized it and added my own little touch to make it equally as delicious, but cruelty-free. These are really good with the BBQ Tempeh in the post below. Serves 4-8, depending on the size of your potatoes.

Ingredients:

4 large potatoes, good shape & size for baking
1 small to medium onion, chopped very finely (by hand or in a food processor)
1/2 cup non-hydrogenated vegan margarine
1/2 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp olive oil
freshly ground pepper, to taste
paprika, to sprinkle on top

The potatoes need to be baked before you do anything else. Here are instructions for baking potatoes, for all you noobs:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Scrub the potato well, but don't rub the skin too thin. Just make sure it's clean and pick all the icky rooty things off with your fingernails. Stab the potato a bunch of times with a fork or knife. I like to spray or brush the potato with olive oil so that the skin will get a little crispy, and then I roll it in coarse salt. That part is optional.

Wrap the potato in one layer of foil and bake it for an hour to an hour and a half. Small potatoes take less time than large ones, so decide how big your potato is, make a good guess, and then squeeze it after it's cooked for a while to see how done it is. It's a judgment call. You'll figure it out.

Let your potatoes cool enough to handle. If you can manage to slice them in half without burning yourself, it'll speed up the process.

While the potatoes are cooling, prepare the onion. Heat 1 tsp olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onion for 3-4 minutes, until translucent, then add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Go ahead and put that in whatever bowl you plan to use to mix your potato muck, and set it aside.

When your potatoes are cool enough to handle, start scooping the potato flesh out. This can be a little tricky. You want to leave enough potato inside the skin for it to keep its shape. Depending on how crispy your skin is, you'll want about 1/8 to 1/4 inch or so of potato flesh left. Hold the potato in the palm of your hand, so that you're supporting as much of it as possible. If not, it'll fall apart pretty easily. I suggest cutting around the edge of the potato with a knife, marking the area you plan to scoop out, then making crosshatching cuts to loosen it up. Now scrape as much as possible out without messing up the skin, and put the potato flesh in the bowl with the onions and garlic. Repeat with each potato. If your potatoes stand alone well, you can put them on a cookie sheet, but otherwise, use a casserole dish, so they won't tip over.

Once all the potato flesh is in the bowl, add margarine, non-dairy milk, & nutritional yeast. Mix all that stuff together and mash it up until it's as smooth as possible. Some chunks are okay if you're into smashed potatoes. Add the salt & pepper slowly, to taste. Nutritional yeast adds a bit of salty flavor, so you want to make sure you don't over-salt your potatoes.

Now put all that yummy stuff back into the potato skins. Pack it in there tight.

Bake those suckers for about 45 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, sprinkle some paprika on top. It'll be real pretty.

Enjoy!