Totally OT: Frozen baked potatoes

[estherhead]

Hello everyone. I was in charge of a wedding last night and we had almost 100 baked potatoes left over. It's a BBQ joint and they are already cut in half and have a smokey, BBQ flavor and the skins are rubbed with sea salt.

I got home late & exhausted and there was no room in my fridge. So I stuck them in the freezer. Now I'm reading that baked potatoes don't freeze well. Oops.

So here are my questions if anyone has any experience:

1) Could I just reheat these in the oven as is and have them be good? Or will the texture be terrible?
2) Could I turn them into twice baked potatoes when I pull them out or is it too late to do that?
3) Would smoke flavored baked potatoes make a good potato soup or would it ruin the subtle flavors of a cream based soup.
4) I'm going camping in 2 weeks with a huge group of people. Anyone have any ideas of how to use these for that? Could I reheat them over an open fire and have them be tasty?

I have so many all in one container, I can't mess around. I need to already have a plan when I pull these out & it has to be a good enough plan that I can take the dish to a party, as clearly my family cannot eat 100 potatoes at once!

 

[kevschickee]

well you can buy twice baked potatos frozen so I bet you can use them to make twice baked potatos. Also you can make home fries for your camping trip or you can heat them in some foil over the fire. You can serve chilli over them

 

[AntePrincess]

I'm pretty sure that the "problem" with frozen baked potatoes is that the freezing action crumbles them up. They should still be great for mashed potatoes, shepherd's pies, potato soup, and anything else you can think of. I personally think the smokey flavor would be great for a potato soup, but my potato soups aren't heavy on the cream base (thin slice the potatoes, saute a little bit with onions, then use your choice of broth). But for a more traditional potato soup, don't you generally throw some nice smokey bacon on top anyway? I don't think it would interfere.

You know, I see frozen "baked potato skins" at the market all the time, so I'm thinking baked potatoes can't be that bad if frozen.

Here's one of the big pots kitchen sites on freezable potatoes: OAMC Freezable Potatoes. Throughout the site they recommend doing twice baked potatoes instead, I'd just try to switch it up later.

 

[seashoreCM]

I think they will keep long enough so you do not have to thaw more than a few at a time for each family supper.

If you modify your family's menu for the next X consecutive days to emphasize finishing up those baked potatoes then you will have done a good turn towards greenification of the world i.e. conserved and recycled.

Other food preparation hints: http://www.cockam.com/food.htm

 

[masvalsqui]

I think this is enough .....
I do agree with you. Those are the most effective way