Day Nineteen

What I Bought on Day Nineteen

Summary Page

My grandfather (my dad’s father) grew up in Pocatello, Idaho, and his sister, my Aunt Blanche, told me this story.

When my grandfather was living back east in Washington, D.C., his mother came to visit on the train, and packed potatoes in her suitcase to give to him.

He said, “Mother, I can get potatoes here.”

She said, “Yes, but they’re not like these.”

That’s what I always think of when I make this dish.

Like the Sun Over the Mountains

It’s called an Idaho Sunrise and comes courtesy of my favorite cookbook author Marion Cunningham (who I hope to discuss in greater length in a future post) in her book The Supper Book. She says, “This is simply a baked potato with a bright yellow egg sitting on top of it, but when you mash the egg into the buttered potato, it’s like the sun coming up over the mountains.”

Basically you bake a potato, then slice off the top and scoop out the insides. In the actual recipe, you mix the scooped out potato with a little milk and butter and salt and pepper. In my version you mix with a little … salt. Then put the potato back in the shell and break an egg over the top and return to the oven until the egg is cooked to your desired level of doneness—”until the egg is set but the yolk is still soft enough to make a nice sauce for the potato.” About 8 to 10 minutes.

And I think that might have been the best meal I’ve ever had.

Also today did a rerun of the Jiffy biscuits, and glad I didn’t have to take pictures of this round since they did not hold together coming out of the pans nearly as well. They are not photogenic muffins.

For Meal One, I had a soft-boiled egg and and cornmeal muffins and an orange.

For Meal Two, I had a little bit of the millet un-pilaf and the Idaho Sunrise. I’ve actually never cooked millet before this experiment, and I need to make it when I can use some fat (i.e., in an actual pilaf) because the flavor is good and it’s filling, it’s just dry the way I made it. I still have one serving left of that.

That’s it for today.

Thanks for playing.

Receipt Day Nineteen

[Note that I had $2.43 available today and I came in just under the wire. Wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, and it took some doing to find a potato that small.]