What I love about baked potatoes is that they bend to your will, or, more accurately, your fridge. Whatever random semi-expired leftover ingredients you can scrounge in the back of your fridge, there you are. Bacon, capers, parsley, zucchini, fish, onions, all of it can go in! Just as long as you have cheese for melting over the top and sour cream for dolloping, you can\u2019t go wrong with a baked potato.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unless you want your oven on for a billionty hours, boil your potatoes first. I stick mine in a big pot without washing them. I mean, they\u2019ve already been scrubbed free of dirt and now I\u2019m basically sterilising them, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I chop up the bacon and onion and fry them off with garlic. When the potatoes are soft, I scoop out their guts and mash them up in a big bowl with all the other stuff. The mix won\u2019t all fit back into the potato jackets, but the remainder will make excellent patties with a bit of a fry in the pan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I set the oven to 180 degrees. I have no parsley so I rough-chop some spinach. Ignoring all the bacon, dairy and potato carbs, this is a pretty healthy meal. Score one for Ma. And I\u2019m a superhero with a knife, I\u2019m like Black Widow, slicing and dicing with mad skill –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
uh-oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s quite a lot of blood. Deep enough for instant gushy blood, not just the pale whitish dismay of severed surface flesh that blinks at me in shock for a minute before seeping. More uh-oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stagger to the back door and wail \u201cI\u2019ve cut myself!\u201d Just in case, you know. If I bleed to death over the spinach in the next ten minutes, I don\u2019t want to become an unsolved murder mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The boys bound in, dripping mud. My husband is morbidly triumphant. He follows the blood from the kitchen through the living room to the back door and back to the couch. Somehow he\u2019s been expecting this from me for the last sixteen years. He\u2019s never fully trusted my knife block. Unfairly, because they\u2019re German and really quite excellent and were half price in a Myer sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lots of shouting of \u201cElevate it!\u201d and \u201cKeep the pressure on!\u201d The boys are so excited. The eight year old grabs all our tea towels and puts them in the freezer while I lie on the couch, dramatic and dripping. \u201cFirst aid kit!\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t climb on Ma!\u201d \u201cDo we have ambulance cover?\u201d The information has bled out of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My thumb is bifurcated, gaping at me like Pac-Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust need a lie-down,\u201d I wheeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The eight year old takes our tea towels out of the freezer and uses them to wrap up my hand. Sweet holy duckballs, I haven\u2019t washed them in decades. I\u2019m going to die of septicaemia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three year old maintains a respectful distance from the victim, takes aim, and throws a truck directly at my head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s his favourite truck. My boys are doing their absolute best to take care of me. I\u2019m so moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve changed my mind,\u201d I say through tears, battling the agony of a truck-sized dent in my forehead. \u201cI\u2019ll go to the ER.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband will drive me. I won\u2019t let him drive me, he has to wrangle baked potatoes and two small hungry demons in human form. We\u2019ll call an ambulance, isn\u2019t this what they\u2019re for? A cut finger. No, no they\u2019re not. A taxi? A mule? I can\u2019t drive myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I drive myself. Is this illegal? My right hand raised, my left doing the gears and the steering wheel. I\u2019m fine, except flicking the indicator nearly sends me into a ditch. I\u2019m also out of petrol. This shit doesn\u2019t happen to Black Widow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat are you in for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChopped my thumb off,\u201d I wave cheerfully at the taxi driver smoking in the ambulance bay. He gives me a thumbs up. Insensitive arse. I march myself inside the ER.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Add grated zucchini too, stuff mix back inside potatoes, top with cheese and back in the oven. Bake them at 180 degrees.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What about all the blood on the spinach? I can\u2019t use that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re carnivores. We eat blood all the time. Don\u2019t waste the spinach.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n These kids are bouncing off the walls. When are you coming home?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s pandemic hospital Armageddon, I might never come home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n But I\u2019m seen in only two hours, fast-tracked on the \u201cidiots with obvious and preventable injuries\u201d stream. It\u2019s just me, a lady with a sprained ankle and a teen basketballer wearing his little finger backwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAvocado?\u201d says the doctor, studying my thumb with admiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s usually that, or pumpkin. Was it pumpkin?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSpinach,\u201d I say. So disappointing. I\u2019ve been bested by a bunch of leaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She can tape it up without stitches, she thinks. More embarrassment. I could have band-aided it at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI really just needed the break,\u201d I tell her as she kindly cleans and swaddles my thumb with multiple layers of padding and gauze. The last few hours lying unmolested on an ER stretcher have been quite restful. Black Widow never hides from her loving family by taking minor injuries to hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out the door now. Did they eat the baked potatoes?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes. They love my potatoes. I\u2019m the world\u2019s best cook.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the way home, I buy a gluten free cheese and cracker packet at the servo for eight dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBeen in the wars?\u201d says the girl behind the counter, waving at my gigantic white thumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThought I was Black Widow,\u201d I say glumly. I take my dinner and drive home, one-handed. 180 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking for baked potato recipes with a little less carnage? Try this collection from the BBC; https:\/\/www.bbcgoodfood.com\/recipes\/collection\/baked-potato-recipes<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n