Oh wonderful Potato, how do I love thee let me count the Ways. And so on and so forth.

Seriously, though. Here on Thee Cheap Eats Channel you might think we’re more likely to talk about Potato CHIPS rather than potatoes. To be sure, those Lays may be way sexier and crunchier. But it’s difficult to beat the simple potato in terms of cooking versatility and longevity in the cupboard.

I had actually planned a big potato extravaganza entry, partly at the urging of several readers who wrote in to complain that their favorite starchy tuber was absent from the Cheap Eats listings. It would have involved a hot potato contest and people dressed up as Mr. Potato Head. But I got sidetracked by all the frozen dinners and free food items winging their way to our house recently.

Actually, very early on I DID mention a booklet I picked up called 250 Ways Of Serving Potatoes. So it’s not like we’re ignoring them completely.

I happen to be a big potato guy, er, no I don’t mean a couch potato. I mean I really like potatoes and will probably choose them over carrots any day (this makes things very easy at our house because my wife likes the carrots. No fights over veggies = a happy meal. No, not the McDonald’s kind!). I like them baked, twice-baked, mashed, smashed, fried, boiled, stuffed, scalloped, as potato salad, and in soup.

By the way, I was seriously considering a wholesale misspelling of the word “potatoe” as in the Dan Quayle lexicon just to see how many schoolkids would write in to correct me.

So, lately I’ve been trying to get away from Fried Potatoes and have discovered that baking them in the microwave is quite relaxing. By relaxing, I mean that you can just wash and scrub up a potato, forkerize it liberally and microwave it on the “potato” setting. No brain cells required, and it’s very quick. And probably better for you.

The first time I did this I was pretty surprised how well it turned out. I expected the potato to be sorta hard on the inside, but forking the hell out of it seems to help quite a bit. I don’t know how you like your baked potato but I subscribe to the “more cheese please” school of potato kung fu.

Of course there are so many other things you can put on it, with butter, chives, green onions, sour cream and bacon bits being favorites.

I also find it quite interesting watching how people at Souplantation eat their baked potato. The way I’ve been taught as a kid to do it is slice down the middle with a knife, and then squeeze on both sides with your fingers. You then put your butter, etc inside. This has its hazards, especially if you just took the molten potato out of the microwave.

But at the restaurants, I’ve seen people do all sorts of things. Like slice them into discs and then put condiments on each slice, eating it like mini-toasts. Or I’ve seen a few cut the potato widthwise in half and take a spoon and scoop out the innards. Like they’re hollowing out an egg. One person actually took the time to skin the entire potato before dipping it in sour cream biting into it like an apple. How do you eat your baked potato?

This voyeuristic potato watching is very entertaining and I think a whole book could be written on it. It will be called “The Songs and Mating Habits of the Baked Potato of the Western Hemisphere.” I’ll leave that to someone else, however. For now, I’ll just have to say that the humble but versatile potato kicks ass in the other two areas of Cheap Eats goodness as well: price and storage longevity. I don’t have to tell you how cheap a 5 lb bag of Russets is. On that last point however, while it seems like they last forever in storage, you don’t want to keep your potatoes around for too long as they can build up toxins which are described here.

Ok, I will leave you with yet more cheddar cheese yumminess: