MISSIONARY RECIPE - TWICE BAKED POTATOES (ENOUGH TO LAST 1-2 WEEKS!)

Whether you are a future missionary, a college student, or just an adult, it is a good idea to know how to cook some basic things for yourself. Today my daughter Kendall (who will be submitting her mission papers this year) is trying out a recipe that won't necessarily be appropriate for every mission/missionary, but it will work for a lot of missionaries!

I've asked her to give it a try and rate the recipe based on difficulty and deliciousness.

This recipe is for twice-baked potatoes. This sort of thing might not be what you think of when you think "missionary cooking"... It is a bit work to make them - nothing too difficult, but multiple steps and will take several hours to complete (mostly cooking and freezing time). This recipe wouldn't be great for a missionary who doesn't have any spare time on p-day or who is in area where it is too hot to turn on the oven (or doesn't have an oven). This recipe would be great for a missionary who has some time to spare on a p-day (maybe on a rainy day when there isn't nothing planned with the other nearby missionaries, or if there are no other nearby missionaries). It might seem like a bit of a hassle to go to all of this trouble for one recipe, BUT, the beauty of this recipe (especially for a missionary) is that you prepare it once and you have pre-made food ready to heat up for the rest of the week (or even 2 weeks, depending on how many you eat at once).

Often during my mission I would prepare a meal (like spaghetti) and I would put it in the fridge and eat that same spaghetti for every meal for the next few days. That got old. But it was still much easier than needing to keep cooking new things every meal.

These twice-baked potatoes are freezable, so you make a big batch at once and pull as many as you want out of the freezer when you want them (reheat in the oven or microwave). So, yes, you will need a couple of free hours to get these made, but not all of that is hands-on time (some of it is waiting for the potatoes to bake, waiting for them to cool, etc). So you could make these while you are writing letters or cleaning the apartment.

This recipe will make about 30 half-potatoes (varies depending on the size of potatoes you get in your 5-lb bag). A meal-sized serving is probably 2-3 potatoes (again, depends on the size - and how hungry you are! I know some Elders who could eat 6 or 7 of these without batting an eye). So if you eat these for lunch every day, these could last you a week or two. If you and your companion both eat these every day, or if you eat them for multiple meals per day, they won't last as long of course. But still, that will cover a lot of meals.

Kendall made these potatoes for the first time today, using only the recipe (no help from mom). Here are some photos I took during the process:

And here is the finished product! We had some of these potatoes for dinner and everyone loved them, even picky little sisters.

Kendall rates this recipe a 5 for difficulty (1 being the easiest, 10 being the hardest). She rates this recipe an 8 for "deliciousness" (10 being the most delicious thing she's ever eaten). 

Here is what Kendall (a college student and soon-to-be-missionary) has to say about this recipe: 

"There wasn't any part of the recipe that was hard to do, but there were a lot of steps. While I was making this recipe, I kept thinking 'I will never make this again, it's too much of a hassle'...but when they were done they were delicious and I realized how many meals worth of food I had made at one time. It would have taken just as long to make 1 twice-baked potato as it took to make 30 of them. A missionary could eat for a long time if they made this recipe once"

Here is the recipe, which is printable (either on your home printer or you can print it as a 4x6 photo, which makes a convenient size for putting in a small photo album for recipes). You could also save the photo and email it if you have a missionary in the field! 

Thanks for joining us today, we will be reviewing more recipes soon. In the meantime, please see my other missionary prep blog posts, including tips for purchasing mission clothes and other items, getting your passport, and more information on eating as a missionary!