Health for life

Last week, we asked readers what traditional Super Bowl recipe you would most like to see lightened up. There were a bunch of wonderful suggestions, but I was most intrigued by the Potato Skin challenge. Because I love them very, very hard.

Historically (historically?) mid-scale dining joints like TGIFriday’s and Charley O’s have served potato skins packed with cheese, bacon, and sour cream. While undeniably delicious, they’re not the most nutritious foods in the world, and a plateful can surpass your entire caloric intake for the day. Could we create a lighter version, but still maintain the rich flavor? ‘Twas a challenge.

I began with research. And as it turns out, most loaded potato skins are fried. By baking them, I could chop a ton of fat without compromising too much taste. Epicurious, All Recipes, and Simply Recipes each had recipes for baked skins, and by taking elements from all three, I had an excellent base. All Recipes suggested coating the skins with spices, too, which added flavor without fat. Sweet.

Next up was the skin size. How could I make the skins appear substantial, without being overwhelmingly huge? The solution: cut large russet potatoes into thirds instead of halves or quarters. That way, they weren’t too big, weren’t too small. It looked like I would be serving a lot of food, and the skins didn’t dwarf the fillings.

About that filling. Cheese wasn’t an issue: 2% shredded cheddar is the frommage of champions. Bacon-wise, I stuck with the real thing, as turkey bacon seemed like cheating here. I skipped the sour cream (not a fan), but a topping of scallions provided a sharp, fresh finish. Voila. The skins were good to go.

And? Victory! The results were crisp, flavorful, and felt like an indulgence. The Husband-Elect and our friend J. loved ‘em, and H-E even requested I make them again. Whats more, he made that request in the middle of Losts season premiere. This meant he liked them so much, he stopped thinking about the Smoke Monster for a while. Whoa.

So, here’s the recipe. Just to clarify: this is not a healthy dish. Much like our Macaroni and Cheese, it’s a somewhat lighter version of a pretty unhealthy one. In that sense, we’re all winners here.

Happy Super Bowling, folks.

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If you like this recipe, you might also dig:

• Chili-spiced Potatoes
• Dijon Roasted Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows

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Baked Loaded Potato Skins
Makes 9 skins.
Inspired by Epicurious, All Recipes, and Simply Recipes.


3 large russet potatoes (about 11 ounces each), washed, scrubbed, and dried
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
A few shakes paprika
A few shakes garlic powder
A few shakes Kosher salt
A few shakes freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup 2% cheddar, Colby, or Jack cheese, shredded
3 slices bacon
A few scallions
Low-fat or fat-free sour cream (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 400°F.

2) Pierce potatoes a few times with a fork. Place 1 teaspoon vegetable oil in a small bowl. Brush potatoes with the oil. Bake 50 to 60 minutes, until they can be pierced with a knife with no resistance. Remove from oven and let cool a bit.

3) Turn oven up to 475°F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.

4) In a small bowl, whisk 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil with paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Set aside. (Now would be a good time to slice the scallions, too, if you haven’t done it already.)

5) When potatoes are cool enough to handle, caully cut each one lengthwise into thirds. The cuts will look like this (along the pink lines):

Using a teaspoon, gently scoop out the potato flesh, leaving a 1/4-to-1/2 inch shell for each skin. As you’re finished with each one, place it on the baking sheet. Save all the leftover scooped-out potato flesh (I had exactly 1 lb.) for another purpose.

6) Brush both sides of each skin with the vegetable oil mixture. Bake skin side down for 7 to 9 minutes. Remove from oven. Using tongs, flip skins over. Bake for another 7 to 9 minutes.

7) While skins are baking, cook bacon in a pan on the stove top. Drain on a paper towel. Crumble or cut up into little pieces using kitchen shears. Set aside.

8) Remove skins from oven. Distribute cheese evenly among the skins (about 1 scant tablespoon per skin). Sprinkle evenly with bacon crumbles. Bake for another 2 minutes, or just long enough for the cheese to melt.

9) Remove to a plate. Add a little salt and pepper. Sprinkle with scallions and serve with sour cream, if you like. Dance!

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, and Price Per Serving
113 calories, 5.5 g fat, 1.3 g fiber, $0.40
(Compare to 1 O’Charleys skin: 188 calories, 13.3 g fat, 1 g fiber)

Calculations
Skins from 3 large russet potatoes (about 17 ounces after carving): 467 calories, 0.5, 11.1 g fiber, $2.04
1 teaspoon vegetable oil: 44 calories, 5 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.02
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil: 185 calories, 21 g fat, 0 g fiber: $0.06
A few shakes paprika: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $0.02
A few shakes garlic powder: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $0.02
A few shakes Kosher salt: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $0.01
A few shakes freshly ground black pepper: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $0.01
1/2 cup 2% cheddar, Colby, or Jack cheese, shredded: 180 calories, 12 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.62
3 slices bacon: 138 calories, 10.7 g fat, 0 g fiber: $0.60
A few scallions: 5 calories, 0 g fat, 0.4 g fiber, $0.22
TOTAL: 1019 calories, 49.2 g fat, 11.5 g fiber, $3.62
PER SERVING (TOTAL/9): 113 calories, 5.5 g fat, 1.3 g fat, $0.40

There are recipes that are beautiful, suitable for serving to guests. There are recipes that are fast, in your mouth 30 minutes after your first slice of the knife. There are recipes that serve more than one person, or dont heat up your kitchen in the middle of summer, or are full meals all at once.

Then there are recipes that take an hour in the oven, make enough for a one-person snack, and emerge from their heat-spewing cooking time totally hideous, and completely delicious.

This is one of those recipes.

The hour to cook one persons snack might seem a little un-green, and maybe it is, but lets compare it to the manufacture, packaging, and transport of a commercially-produced and processed snack. When the ingredients are a local veggie, oil, and salt, were not doing too bad.

This is also one of those happy recipes that transforms an iffy vegetable into something delicious. Heidi Swanssons Brussels sprouts is a similar case. This time the vegetable in question is the radish.


Lots of people love radishes, but theyve never done much for me. At once flavorless and with too much of a peppery bite, I leave them untouched in my salads... and dont really encounter them anywhere else. But Id fallen into a greenmarket rut, buying the same vegetables Ive been buying for years, and cooking them the same ways. I wanted to try something new, and still havent worked up the courage for stinging nettles. The radishes were beautiful, though – a fresh, bold, bright magenta – and just one dollar for a hefty bunch. Sold.

(Also, did you know that radishes have, like, no calories in them? Well, not exactly, but we’re talking one or two calories per radish. That’s insane. I did not know this until I did the tally for this recipe. But that is major extra points for this, in my book.)

I hit the internet looking for recipes, hoping some cooking would soften or alter the radishy bite Im none too fond of. My quest came to an abrupt halt when I read these beautiful words: radish chips. Of course! Just like sweet potatoes, kale, and Im sure even more veggies, baking them with a little oil and salt would yield a crunchy, addictive snack. Or so the internet promised.

It took a few tries to get things right – some recipes called for microwaving the sliced radishes before baking, which just added time and hot radish-handling; one time I had to leave way before they were ready, so though tasty the results were definitely not chips – but in the end, the simplest preparation worked. Sliced radishes, a little oil, salt, and plenty of time in a not-too-hot oven.

The result is absolutely delicious – buttery, yet light, with the radishy bite mellowed out into a vegetable richness – but they are not a glamour food. The chips shrink and shrivel, and some end up on the brown side of golden, but even the nearly-burned chips (I could not figure out how to get them all to be perfectly done at the same time) are super tasty. One baking sheets worth of raw radishes yields a small bowlful, a snack you can practically devour on the walk from the oven to the table if youre not caul. I wasnt sure about sharing such a frankly ugly creation, but any time you can turn a difficult veggie into an addictive little snack, something good is going on.

This recipe can also be easily doubled, as long as you have two baking sheets. Keep your oven racks as close to the middle of the oven as possible, and switch the sheets every 20 minutes.

Radish Chips
Serves one.


5-6 radishes
1 t olive oil
Salt to to taste (kosher or sea varieties would be best)

1) Pre-heat oven to 300F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

2) Slice radishes thinly and evenly. Use a mandolin for best results (and saved time & wrist pain).

3) Pour olive oil into a mixing bowl. Add radish slices and mix until they’re evenly coated. Sprinkle with some salt. Mix again.

4) Arrange radish slices in a single layer on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with more salt if that’s your thing. (It is mine.)

5) Bake 60-75 minutes, checking every so often, and more frequently once you get near the one-hour mark. Chips are done when they’re dried and crispy, but will still be delicious if eaten before then.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price Per Serving
51 calories, 5g fat, 1g fiber, .5g protein, $0.58

Calculations
6 radishes: 9 calories, 0g fat, 1g fiber, .5g protein, $0.50
1 t olive oil: 42 calories, 5g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.04
salt: negligible calories, fat, fiber, protein, $0.04
TOTAL: 51 calories, 5g fat, 1g fiber, .5g protein, $0.58
PER SERVING: same!

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutritionist Susan Raatz, physiologist Matthew Picklo, and cooperators have found that farm-raised Atlantic salmon maintains its healthy levels of omega-3 fatty acids when baked.

Two omega-3 fatty acids, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), are abundant in oily fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, and herring. Some data have shown that consuming 250 milligrams daily of EPA and DHA—the amount found in a 3-ounce salmon fillet—is associated with reduced risk of heart-disease.

While eating seafood rich in omega-3 fatty acids is known to reduce risk of heart disease, it has not been known whether baking causes loss of omega-3s in farm-raised Atlantic salmon. The team also examined the extent to which baking Atlantic salmon alters healthful fatty acids through oxidation that leaves unhealthy compounds, such as toxic omega-3 oxidation byproducts.

The researchers demonstrated that baking salmon to the proper temperature does not decrease its content of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. They found that baking actually decreases the presence of fatty acid oxidation byproducts. Preparing the fish based on restaurant and safety guidelines—to a tender-but-safe 145 degrees Fahrenheit rather than overcooking—was a key factor, according to authors.

The research was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.