The Humble Jacket.

Usually the weekend for me is an opportunity to create something I don't usually make; it's time for experimenting and exploring new dishes, when I have all week to think about what I am going to cook and then all day to prepare if necessary.  More often than not though, I do need all day... one thing I am particularly poor at in the kitchen is my timing.  If I plan to serve at 7, you'll be lucky if you get it by 8.  Things always seem to take much longer, though I blame it on the shoebox of a kitchen I have in my flat and the fact that we do not have one of those miracle machines that is a dishwasher; thus I have to constantly break off to rewash a pan or clear more room in order to create ....I have been told on more than one occasion by my boyfriend that I am the world's messiest cook, but be that as it may, I am not deterred.  Weekends are a time for relaxing and I do that through food.

However, today I find myself at a loss, not because I have nowhere to look for inspiration, (my flat is stacked full of foodie magazines,) but because sometimes you just don't want to.  After spending the majority of the day cleaning (post Christmas undecorating) and trying to get to those hard to reach places to pull random receipts out from under things, crawling around on the floor and dusting only to just envelope yourself in a cloud of the stuff I want a hot shower and something that will warm the cockles.

And so I turn to the humble jacket. When I am in on my own or I want a quick meal but nothing too fancy, even when I am going vegetarian for the night jacket potato is the option I choose.  I absolutely love them, you can have all sorts of toppings on them and I always feel satisfied after eating them.

I think my love of jacket potatoes actually comes from literature believe it or not.  When I was younger I had a Milly Molly Mandy book and I remember she spent her day doing things like small errands for her mother and knitting a tea cosy and going round the village and at the very end of the day her mother makes her and her friend jacket potatoes for supper, with their tops chopped off with butter and a little spoon in front of the fire (I may now be straying from the storyline slightly but this is how I remember it).  Now at the time I thought this a very odd thing to have for supper, because where I come from, supper has always been to me the biscuit and glass of milk you have just before bed, but having grown up and moved further afield from my home town I realise that this is what others refer to as their tea or evening meal.  Despite all that the very thought of this seemed so cosy to me on a winters evening and ever since then I try to recreate that imagined feeling in some way.

So here's how I do my jackets:

• Take your potatoes and give them a wash under the tap then prick them all over with a fork.
• Put them in the microwave for 4 -5 mins on medium power.  (If particularly big though, you may want them in for longer, likewise if you have quite a few potatoes in at the same time, say 7 mins)
• Next simply put them on a baking tray, in the oven at 180 degrees for 40 mins, until the skin is nice and crisp and the inside soft and fluffy.

That is it; no more faff than that.  I microwave them at first purely to speed up the cooking process; it just starts them off, you can of course stick them straight in the oven but they will probably take twice as long.  My Mum used to just do them in the oven; she would wrap them all in tin foil that had been previously buttered with a pastry brush and had a sprinkle of coarse sea salt on, before baking in the oven for what seemed like hours, perhaps this is why I am so impatient for them nowadays.

But what to fill them with? Here are some of my favourites:

1. Onion, bacon and cream cheese. (cooked separately to the potato and added)
2.Cheese & beans (or just either on their own)
3. Tuna & mayo
4. Chilli
After baking just scoop out the potato from the skins, mix with the filling and pop back in the skins, then into the oven until they begin to brown.

The onion, bacon and cream cheese one is my absolute favourite, I love it, something we always had as a family and something I will continue through my own family.  Simply delicious.  Tonight though, we are having chilli.  We had chilli earlier in the week, and not just any chilli, this is Heston's Chilli.  Anyone see "How to cook like Heston" the other night? I missed it, so caught up on demand and it just so happened I was actually going to make chilli that night, so I thought I would make his, and it was delicious, although my spiced butter didn't exactly go to plan and I ended up not paying attention and burning the spices causing a lot of smoke and alarm from my boyfriend, but the main event was delicious, we had it with fajitas, (well deli wraps from the supermarket).  It is my usual alternative to getting the fajita kits, which sadly have garlic in them, so I do mine from scratch slightly differently.

So we are using up the leftovers tonight and finishing off with a dollop of soured cream on top and then for pudding....more comfort....apple pie.  Normally I would have custard with it for ultimate  comfort factor, but tonight, to counteract the chilli, I think we will go for ice cream.  Roll on tea time... need I say more?