As the temperatures drop and the garden season ends, it seems that you naturally start to crave more substantial foods. Suddenly, baked dishes that involve beans, potatoes, and thick, savory sauces sound better than ever.

You might think vegans would have a tough time when the craving for comfort food strikes, but the possibilities for rich, savory vegan foods abound. Just about any carbohydrate, such as rice, pasta, or potato, can be combined with tempeh or beans to make a satisfying meal that will have you easing back from the table with a smile and patting your tummy gratefully.

One example is our Tempeh Eggplant Florentine (click to see the recipe on our ManyVeggieRecipes.com web site). This dish combines tomato sauce, spinach, tempeh and eggplant into a hearty, tangy, and delicious casserole. It's satisfying even if you are watching your carb intake and choose not to serve it over rice or pasta.

Give this dish a try, even if you aren't much of an eggplant fan. The recipe incorporates the eggplant in a way that eliminates the rubbery texture you may have experienced in the past. Sliced thinly, the eggplant breaks down during baking and absorbs the tomato sauce. The result is remarkably tasty.

Do you have favorite vegan comfort food meals? Please feel free to comment on this post and share your favorite dishes.

One very nice thing about spuds is that they are inexpensive. It isn't uncommon for us to find a ten-pound bag of potatoes on sale for $2 a bag. That's a lot of carbs for $0.20 a pound!

If you are a potato fan as we are, you find it hard to pass up a great deal on a big bag of spuds. But then you get them home, and you find you have a problem. What do you do with them all? Potatoes store for quite a while in a cool, dark place, but they don't last forever, and that cool dark place is often "out of site, out of mind."

If you have a big family, you might be able to chomp through them all pretty quickly, but for a small family or a couple, you may discover rotten, sprouting, and shriveled spuds by the time you reach the bottom of the bag.

Pre-Baked Potatoes

If you have a bit of extra refrigerator space, I have a solution that will let you take advantage of those great prices and conveniently incorporate more potatoes into your cooking: pre-bake them.

I enjoy my potatoes baked more than just about any other form. The problem is that you have to plan ahead, because it takes a good hour to bake those puppies up. And that's not counting prep and pre-heat time. But here's something to consider: it doesn't take any longer to bake 20 potatoes than it does to bake 2.

You can bake an entire 5-pound bag of potatoes and store the ones you don't need right away in the refrigerator. The next time you are trying to figure out what to make for dinner, they will be sitting there, all ready to heat and use. They seem to keep for at least a couple of weeks, although they rarely sit around that long in our house.

Here are some ideas for speedy dishes you can create with your pre-baked potatoes:

• Broiled slices: Our favorite. Slice a few potatoes into 1/4-inch rounds, stir in a bowl with some oil and spices until evenly coated, and broil them until the edges of the smallest pieces start to char. This is a great breakfast companion.
• Stuffed skins: Slice a few potatoes in half and scoop the flesh out of them with a spoon. Leave just enough flesh for the skin shell to retain it's shape. Spread margarine across the inside of the skin and broil them until they get crispy. While the skins are broiling, mix the potato flesh, some sour cream (we use Tofutti's "Better Than Sour Cream"), spices, and some cooked veggies if you like. Mix together and microwave until hot. Fill the skins with the mixture and serve.
• Mashed potatoes: You can either scoop the flesh out of the skins or dice the potatoes and incorporate the skin into the mash. If you choose to scoop, you can broil the potato skins with margarine and garlic salt, and serve them as an appetizer. Either way, heat up the spud flesh and mash with margarine and spices. Add some soy milk or vegan sour cream for an extra creamy and rich experience.
• Plain bakers: You don't have to do anything special with them at all, if you are really in a hurry. Just nuke until hot and serve. You can also broil them briefly to crisp the outside, or stick them into a toaster oven for a few minutes.
• Diced additions: If you want to "beef up" a soup vegan style, spuds are a great way to do it. Just dice them into bite-size pieces and throw them into the soup for the last five minutes to heat them up. You can do the same thing with many dishes that could use an extra "comfort food" dimension, such as stews or curries.

Preparation

When preparing the spuds for baking, you'll want to keep in mind that you'll probably be using the skins as well as the flesh. So, you'll want to scrub them thoroughly with a stiff brush and use the end of a vegetable peeler to scrape off anything that looks unsavory. Basically, remove anything you don't want to eat!

After I clean the spuds, I usually dry them off and coat them with oil. It's a bit messy, but I just put a few drops of canola oil on the potato and rub it on with my hand. To me, oil significantly improves the flavor of the skin.

Watch for Those Deals!

Now you know our secret for taking advantage of great potato prices without ending up with a bag of rotten spuds. Pre-baked potatoes give you a convenient and healthy way to get dinner on the table fast and save money at the same time.