Chunky Vegetable Baked Potatoes

Yes, a recipe for a change!

After many months eating tons of vegetables multiple times a day and no longer losing weight, even if I reduced the starches, I decided to drop that way of eating for a while and go back to oatmeal for breakfast, a small lunch, and some simple McDougall recipes for dinner. There are still thousands out there I haven't tried yet from the books and newsletters. We spent one week on all soups, another on all salads (like those I wrote about last July), another of simple meals, like mashed potatoes and broccoli, rice and mixed vegetables. This week I decided to grab a cookbook I rarely used in the past.

This dish comes from the McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook, page 212.


Chunky Vegetable Baked Potato

4 large baking potatoes
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1/3 cup water
1 14.5 ounce can stewed tomatoes
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Scrub the potatoes and pierce them all over with a fork. Place on a paper towel and microwave on high for about 15 minutes, turning once halfway through the cooking time.

Meanwhile, place the onion, bell pepper, and zucchini in a saucepan with the water. Cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook for another 5 minutes.

When the potatoes are done, split the tops and ladle the vegetable mixture over the potatoes.

*To change the flavor of this dish, use Mexican, Cajun, or Italian style stewed tomatoes.


My change:
Instead of a raw red bell pepper I used a pepper from a jar of fire roasted red peppers. I have a strong dislike of raw peppers of any color. Those darn pepper skins always decide to cling like shrink-wrap to my upper palate. I wish all colors of bell peppers came like this!

This was one decent sized baked potato (about 4-5 inch long) with exactly one quarter of the veggies. It's served in the same bowls all my other food pics are taken in. Not much food, is it? We both had 2 potatoes, each with a quarter of the total veggies on top, using up the entire amount of veggies. It could have used twice that amount, to be honest. My husband wound up making a whole other meal to eat about an hour later. I white-knuckled it out and stayed hungry all night, waking up every hour or so when the stomach rumbles got too loud.

Tonight I'm going to make another new-to-me recipe from this cookbook. Looking it over, it says it makes 6 to 8 servings, but to me, it looks like it might make 4, tops, and that's only if I include a pound or more of vegetables with each serving, too, something that's not included with the recipe. And these are main dish recipes, not side dish or appetizers.

Now I remember why I stopped using the Quick and Easy Cookbook.

I have a feeling next week - or sooner - we're going back to those heavy chili and stew meals made in the Instant Pot, along with me having multiple pounds of vegetables throughout the day. I may not have lost any weight eating that way in recent months, even gained a few pounds back, but at least I wasn't starving and scrounging for snacks after dinner.