Hell Yeah It's Vegan!

I spent the Superbowl eating an amazing vegan polish spread at the house of a die-hard Pittsburgh fan. I’m not exactly a football fan (at least not for any more than the last 00:02:30 of the Superbowl), though at a certain point in college I did really enjoy playing 10-Yard Fight. But why be ashamed? Does a better snack for munching on while watching football and slugging some brewskies than potato skins exist?

You can use a whole bunch of gnarly russets with skins you’d never use in mashed potatoes; they’re going to fare just fine.

First, poke a whole slew of holes all over your potatoes with a fork, so they don’t explode. Toss them in the oven and bake at 400° for 30 minutes, or until they’re edible and you can stab them easily with a fork.

Remove from the oven and slice them in half lengthwise, being careful not to tear the skins too much.

With a spoon, scoop out the flesh, leaving about ¼” or less around the edges (depending on how potato-ey you like your potato skins to be). Be careful not to perforate the skin while disemboweling your potatoes. If you have a grapefruit spoon at your disposal, this would probably be a great application for it.

Don’t even think of chucking the innards; you can make garlicky mashed potatoes with avocado out of them later, or they’ll be perfect for making gnocchi.

In a small bowl, mix together ¼ c oil, 1 tsp paprika, ½ tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper. With a basting brush, coat the outer skins of the potatoes with this mixture.

In another bowl, grate a block of your favorite vegan cheddar. I used Vegan Gourmet cheddar. Toss with vegan bacon bits (most bacon bits are vegan!).

Generously fill potato skins with cheddar/bacon bit mixture, and bake those suckers at 450° for 10 minutes, and then stick in the broiler for another 2, or until cheese is melted and skins are as crispy as you want them.

You can also deep fry them to get them extra crispy, but as I generally prefer it when the food I’ve just eaten doesn’t lurch up my esophagus, I declined this measure.

Top each one with a dollop of vegan sour cream and plenty of thinly sliced green onions. Mmmm.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 7:20 am and is filed under Holiday, Hors D'oeuvres, Recipes, Snacks, Vegan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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