Here’s a healthier potato for the holidays. It’s still soooooo tasty!! Even if you can’t bring yourself to forgo mashed potatoes (I can’t) - try these this winter. They’re a cinch!
You’ll need:
INGREDIENTS:
12 small round potatoes
olive oil
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
rosemary (yes, you guessed it – to taste)
These are VERY simple.
Preheat oven to 450.
Set a medium-large pot of water to boil.
Add 2 generous pinches of salt to the water.
Ok, now add the potatoes carefully, carefully so nobody gets hurt. Boil them till the potatoes JUST get tender. You should be able to stick a fork in them without too much trouble. Immediately drain them at that point.
Drizzle olive oil across a cookie sheet (make sure it has sides!) & brush to cover. Place the potatoes down as you would cookie dough – with plenty of spreadin’ space around them. Using a potato masher, gently push down on them, flattening them somewhat.
They need to still be in one piece when you are done. Drizzle or spray olive oil over the tops of them. Sprinkle salt & pepper to taste as well as the rosemary.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until they are browned and slightly crispy at the edges.
Phew! It’s been a while and I have loads of recipes to share with you. And a lot to keep to myself (read: “Coxy’s Kitchen Disasters.”)
I hope ALL my loyal readers (Dad?) enjoyed your holidays and are set for the new year. Or, are at least recovering from overdoing it in every way.
We’ve had a wild month and if it was hectic, we brought it on ourselves. We had a Christmas party over here that was loads of fun. Unfortunately, there are no pix as our hands were literally full the whole time. Luckily Bea had just started walking so every so often I’d see the crowds part and a little 2 footer stagger on through like a tiny drunk looking for her Mama (her nickname for George.)
The party presented me the opportunity to live a lifelong dream of making decorated/frosted sugar cookies for Christmas. Until around 12:45AM the night before the party, as I stood up squeezing Royal Icing onto each of the three dozen cookies when I started hating the cookies. Those cookies were privy to lots of F bombs.
Anyway, I’m a little bummed we didn’t get any pictures as we saw a lot of friends we haven’t seen lately – some in over a year. We sure did appreciate them coming by to see us!
Around the middle of the month, Patsy arrived and we couldn’t have been more thrilled! Having Nana here as another set of ears to listen to the 3 year old soap operas going on between a green alligator finger puppet (named “Toy Store”) and his sister, a golden lab Calico Critter named “Bella” was a HUGE relief for another set of ears. (Mine.)
Maddie finally understood the tree decorating. I still don’t really understand it but I’m glad she does.
And Bea helped too.
Between our party and Christmas, we were invited to a 3 year old “Under the Sea” birthday party. Stay tuned – that will be a separate posting for those of you interested. Amazing work by a talented & extremely pregnant Swedish woman.
Enough about family reminiscing – let me insert this yummy Carmelized Mushroom recipe for you before you’ve fallen asleep for the night!
G doesn’t “do” fungus but Maddie & I do. Since he was working late every night, we threw all mushroom caution to the wind!
This recipe marks my first attempt to use egg replacer. I picked it up at The CO-OP in Santa Monica. It comes in a groovy, totally Brady Bunch looking box.
See?
You can probably get egg replacer at any health food store or maybe even Whole Foods? The kind I got comes in powder form.
Ok. Let’s make the biscuits first!
Here’s what you need for those:
BISCUIT INGREDIENTS
2.5 c all purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 – 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 c chopped fresh chives
3/4 c unsalted butter, cold & cubed
1 large egg (I used egg replacer!)
3/4 c buttermilk, cold
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, black papper & chives.
I spent so much time buying, chopping and photographing my chives…
that I forgot to add them until the end. It worked out fine though.
2. Add butter to dry ingredients. Just look at it!
3. Use your fingers or a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter into the flour mixture.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg replacer & buttermilk.
5. Make a small well in the center of the fat and flour mixture.
6. Add the buttermilk mixture.
Use a fork to combine the wet & dry ingredients.
7. Be sure to moisten all the flour bits with the liquid. Your dough will be “shaggy.” No problem!
8. Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface & kneed together until well combined. Use a rolling pin or your hands to make your dough about 1.5 inches thick.
9. Use a round 1.5 inch biscuit cutter to cut the biscuits. I didn’t because I didn’t have one. But I did use a flower cookie cutter. Because I did have one. Doesn’t my biscuit look cute?
Place biscuits on a cookie sheet, wrap with plastic & refrigerate until ready to bake.
Here’s what you need for the mushroom mixture:
MUSHROOM MIXTURE INGREDIENTS:
2 TBSP olive oil
1 TBSP unsalted butter
1 pound small cremini mushrooms, cleaned and cut into bite size chunks
1 medium purple onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 teaspoon dried thyme
2 medium carrots, sliced thin
2 cups diced sweet potatoes (small!)
1.5 cups frozen peas
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups vegetable or mushroom broth (Mushroom broth? They really have that?)
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
dash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
1. If you plan to make the whole kit n caboodle, then set the oven to 375 right now!
2. Melt butter into olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add mushrooms in a single layer in the pan and allow to cook, without disturbing, for about 4 minutes. Add a hearty pinch of salt & black pepper. Toss the mushrooms every once in a while until softened and golden brown.
You’re probably looking at this picture and thinking to yourself, “That doesn’t look like a single layer of mushrooms to me.” I need to use a bigger saucepan next time. So sue me!
Remove mushrooms from pan.
3. Add more olive oil and sautee onions about 4-5 minutes, until soft & translucent.
4. Add garlic & cook for another minute.
5. Add carrots & sweet potatoes and sauté for 5-7 minutes. I actually did 10-12 minutes because I worried I hadn’t chopped them small enough.
6. Add thyme. Return mushrooms to the pan. Turn heat to low and add flour. Toss. Slowly add broth, stirring constantly until thickened. Add peas.
7. Add salt & pepper to taste. Stir in Worchestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar.
Pour mushroom mixture into an 8×8 inch pan. Or whatever you have that comes close. I think I used an 8×11 glass casserole baking dish. Place the biscuits on top of the mushroom mixture.
8. Bake for 20-35 minutes until biscuits are golden brown.
YUM!
These will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days and they get better!
Tasty & filling, not to mention good-looking healthy comfort food!
Ingredients
BISCUIT INGREDIENTS
2.5 c all purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
½ – 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
¼ c chopped fresh chives
¾ c unsalted butter, cold & cubed
1 large egg (I used egg replacer!)
¾ c buttermilk, cold
MUSHROOM MIXTURE INGREDIENTS:
2 TBSP olive oil
1 TBSP unsalted butter
1 pound small cremini mushrooms, cleaned and cut into bite size chunks
1 medium purple onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 teaspoon dried thyme
2 medium carrots, sliced thin
2 cups diced sweet potatoes (small!)
1.5 cups frozen peas
⅓ cup all-purpose flour
2½ cups vegetable or mushroom broth (Mushroom broth? They really have that?)
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
dash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
Instructions
BISCUITS:
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, black pepper, and chopped chives.
Add butter to the dry ingredients. Use your fingers to quickly incorporate the fat into the flour. Break up the butter with your fingers until some of the fat is the size of oat flakes and some of the fat is the size of small pebbles.
In a small bowl, whisk together egg and buttermilk.
Make a small well in the center of the fat and flour mixture. Add the buttermilk mixture. Using a fork, combine the wet and dry ingredients. Try to moisten all of the flour bits with
the liquid. Dump the shaggy biscuit dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead together until dough forms a disk about 1½ inches thick.
Use a round, 1½-inch biscuit cutter to cut biscuits. Gather the dough scraps, knead for a few turns, and cut out more biscuits until no dough remains. Place biscuits on a small cookie sheet and place in the fridge until ready to bake.
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
MUSHROOM FILLING:
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter into olive oil. Add mushrooms in a single layer in the pan and allow to cook, without disturbing, for about 4 minutes. Add a hearty pinch of salt and black pepper. Toss mushrooms every once in a while until softened and golden brown. Remove mushrooms from the pan.
Add a touch more olive oil and sautee onions until softened and transluscent. Add garlic and toss for one minute. Add carrots and sweet potatoes and saute for 5 to 7 minutes, softened the potatoes slightly. Add thyme. Return the mushrooms to the pan. Turn heat to low and add flour. Toss together. Slowly add the broth, stirring constantly until thickened.
Add peas.
Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in Worchestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar.
Pour mushroom mixture into 8×8-inch pan. Remove mushrooms from the refrigerator and place 9 biscuits over the filling. Bake for 20-23 minutes, until biscuits are golden brown and cooked through.
Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before serving. Mushrooms and dumplings will last for up to 4 days, well wrapped, in the refrigerator.
Notes
Stores in refrigerator for up to 4 days!
The only thing I changed was to use egg replacer instead of the egg.
2.1.7
Please excuse the funkiness of the printable but that’s the only way to insert two recipes on one posting according to my technological prowess.
I was going to go into more about the neighbor who “adopted our cat” and renamed him “Maxwell” despite him sleeping here every night but I think we’re all tired so I’ll sign out here.
Tomorrow check back for the Christmas pix and, more important, the recipe for the EASIEST NO-KNEAD (no need to knead?) rustic bread you’ve ever (or never) made in your life!! If you’ve never made bread before, you only need FOUR ingredients, all of which can be purchased at Ralph’s. So definitely check back tomorrow for that posting! And then call Maddie & ask if she can take a nap tomorrow so I can actually write it. Thank you!
This afternoon I got smart and put the baby in the backpack when she got ornery.
I still had to work pretty quickly though! I remembered a really good sweet potato pancake recipe I made a longggggg time ago from the Moosewood Cookbook so I decided to make them and I’m glad I did. The ingredients list is VERY simple for these! They’re really tasty AND good for you and you can reheat the next day. I did alter the recipe by adding regular potatoes and I planned to add grated carrots until I realized I didn’t have any.
You can also make them with just the sweet potatoes or yams if that’s all you have…
You’ll need these ingredients:
And some of these:
And this stuff:
Oh yeah and this:
That’s a lemon from my tree. Now, before you detect smugness on my part at having a lemon tree, please realize it’s a dusty old, rooty old, grumpy old neglected lemon tree that yields about 3 lemons per YEAR. So let me enjoy this lemon, will you?
INGREDIENTS:
1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes or yams
3 small potatoes (I had red potatoes so I threw them in just to use them up!)
1/2 onion
1 cup minced parsley
1 tsp salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
1/3 c flour
3 eggs (original recipe calls for 4 but I only had 3 and it worked out fine. 2 might even do.)
3-4 t lemon juice (I squeezed in about half a small lemon)
**NOTE: I would add 1 or 2 grated carrots if you have them!**
1. In a large bowl shred potatoes and onion (& carrots if you have ‘em) using food processor or the old fashioned way.
Keep going! Your arm will soon look like this:
Check on the kids every once in a while.
Fill up the compost!
2. Turn on heat in a seasoned skillet, large non-stick frying pan or electric skillet. (Basically, whatever you have!) Heat should be medium/high. If you use an electric skillet about 325 is pretty good.
2. Add flour, salt, lemon juice, pepper & parsley to bowl of shredded taters.
3. Beat eggs & add to potato mixture. Combine thoroughly.
4. Heat oil in skillet.
5. Plop large spoonfuls of the mixture into the skillet. Flatten with a spatula.
6. Fry until brown. Flip and add more oil as necessary.
Serve hot with sour cream, butter, yogurt, cottage cheese, apple sauce or anything else that appeals to you!
Bea loves these through her food mill!
Maddie didn’t share her sentiments.
These taste like mashed potatoes but are a lot lighter & would be great served with a fresh green salad!
