Make Mine a Jacket

I'm one of those. You know, the ones who'd starve if they went on an Atkin's diet. I love my starches and carbohydrates particularly in the form of potatoes, rice and bread. So I was delighted to find out that in the Britain, they adore their jacket potatoes with a chain food joint that caters to us addicts.

What's a jacket potatoe? Quite simply a baked potato with the jacket being the foil wrapping. They don't just throw the standard old fare of sour cream, butter, cheese and what not. They turn it into a MEAL. A wonderfully cheap meal which is very important when you're a poor student. They throw all sorts of goodies on top both hot and cold...all delicious. My particular favourites were curry on top...Brit-style curries of course. It's like when you eat any Americanized food. You know it's "fake" but it's just so good anyway. ;) Anyhow, I also often had it with some sort of tomato-based sauce as well. Just use your imagination. Anything goes. ANYTHING. On the cold side, I often saw tuna salad as an option. I can't remember what else but not my style. I like mine hot hot hot!

Back to the States. I'd been making a lot of mine with spaghetti sauce since it's cheap and easy. Plenty of flavours to choose from as well chock full of chunky veg (or meat/cheese/etc). When I came across a recipe for Jacket Potato with Shrimp and Marie Rose Sauce by Jamie Oliver, I had to make it.

Well, it's not hard to make at all. Unfortunately, I ran out of ketchup and overdosed the brandy as I couldn't quite pour it out properly. Oops. Nevertheless, I found it surprisingly tasty given the list of ingredients. In the end, I would have preferred more ketchup in the sauce, but I found I particularly liked the shrimp in the puddles of butter that had been slathered on the potatoes. ;9 Ah, a simple and quick yet tasty meal. Behold my creation below. The way I tore up the shrimp made it look almost like lobster meat. Next time, maybe I should enhance it a level with lobster and plenty of butter. ;)