My Own Personal Food Sustainability Series: Episode 3

Life rule # 233956: EVERYTHING, tastes good on a baked potato with cheese; as is true when eating more "sustainably".

Potatoes are something I tend to just.... have around. May not be true for everyone, I'm not sure, but it tends to be true for me. Potatoes, yea, they're fairly starchy, but they are a really great source of potassium, which is good for most people (as long as your kidneys are in fine working condition), and eating the skin too provides a lot of fiber which will slow the absorption of some of that starch (which is tolerable... with cheese!). The other thing about eating a potato, which automatically helps account for all that starch, is to listen to your own body. For instance, sometimes I am ravenous and can eat an entire baking potato, and in those cases that is fine. But sometimes, I am stuffed when I have only eaten half of it, and that is fine too! I don't force myself to eat the rest, I try and be mindful; listen to the natural signals my body sends as I go, and I will have the other half for breakfast the next morning (I'm not that into actual "breakfast foods", I just eat at breakfast), or dinner the next night. The latter scenario is almost better because I get two meals out of one potato!

Potatoes are great carriers for left-overs, or whatever you have lying around (although... I would advise you not to put pasta on a potato). You have barbecue potatoes, classic potatoes, pizza potatoes, the list goes on! How do I like my potatoes?... BROCCOLI AND CHEESE POTATOES!

Ingredients:

-Broccoli

-Cheese

-Potato

1. Bake potato - I typically do mine in the microwave because it's so much faster, but some people think oven tastes better

2. If using frozen broccoli, just  microwave it a couple minutes - it will taste steamed, and the nutrients will actually be preserved quite well, if using fresh, sautee it a minute, or put it in the oven for a minute or two once the potato is done

3. However you go about your broccoli, in the end, once the potato is done you should open it up and put the broccoli and cheese inside it, and heat it for another couple of minutes until the cheese is melt-ey

FYI, if you keep potato flakes around, this will also work with that! just cook the flakes the way you normally would, and put the broccoli and cheese on them at the end. You can also add onion; that goes very well with this. Peppers would be good. Use what YOU have, and make it your own!