Creamy Sliced Potatoes

Recently, I got a mandolin, not a fancy one.  This is a  handheld one that works very fast and does have a protecting piece to use when you slice.  I love to use it because of the speed.  If I am slicing an English cucumber which is quite long, it take about thirty seconds.  Granted, I move quickly but it allows for that.  It has proven to be a time saver and a work saver.  It is also fun to use.  (as long as you don’t cut yourself)

The original recipe, I thought I was making, called for hash browns.  Chopping potatoes is not what I consider fun so I opted to make a slice potato dish.  Once, I deviated from that original recipe, I threw it away, and followed my instincts.  I firmly believe, it is hard, to ruin a potato dish.

Off, I went to play with my new toy.

Creamy Sliced Potatoes

4 potatoes, sliced thin

1 medium onion, sliced thin

1 tablespoon olive oil or butter

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1 cup organic vegetable broth

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup cream cheese

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

 

Heat olive oil in a large skillet.  Add potatoes and onions and cook for 10 minutes, mixing every two or three minutes.

Add the soup and black pepper and cook for another minute or two until soup is hot.

In a bowl, mix the sour cream, cream cheese and cheddar.  Add to potato mixture and continue to mix until cheese has melted.

Make sure the liquid has cooked out.

This has a nice creamy consistency and good flavor.

 

Apricot Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

It was a hot day and I knew, I was going to be in the kitchen for several  hours, preparing for the Sabbath.  It meant making fish, chicken, side dishes and salads.  Dessert was going to be cold or from the freezer.  I did not plan on baking.  I got around using the oven except for one item.  Cholent is made in a crock pot.  The chicken was cooked on the barbecue.  Most foods were made in the microwave or did not cooking.  I did pull out the frying pan and a sauce pan for short periods of time.  The bottom line was that I did not heat up the kitchen very much.

I was stymied with what to do with a sweet potato.  Of course, the beauty of the sweet potato, is you can bake it, put on a pat of butter and enjoy it. Simple and delicious is the way to go.  Of course, it can be candied but I find, it is usually sweet enough by itself.  I do love mashed sweet potato and started off on that path.

It was over 90 degrees in the sun and my kitchen didn’t feel much cooler and I didn’t want to use my oven.  I microwaved the sweet potatoes whole, for 8 minutes.  I would have baked them after I finished shaping them but again, it was not worth using the oven so I fried them in a smidge of margarine.   What is a smidge?  Just a little bit…..

Apricot Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

4 sweet potatoes

1 pat or margarine

1 tablespoon honey

8 dried apricots

1 tablespoon olive oil

____

Microwave whole sweet potatoes for about 8 minutes until completely cooked.  Since each microwave is different, the timing may be different.  Stick a fork in the potato at about 5 minutes and see how it is.  I would check it every minute, after that, until the fork goes in easily.

Peel the sweet potatoes and mash them with the margarine and honey. Mash well.

Make a two-inch ball out of some of the sweet potato and while you are rolling it, push a dried apricot inside.  Place in a frying pan with hot olive oil.  Do the same with the remaining sweet potato.  Brown lightly on each side.  If you are not dealing with hot weather, I suggest baking this in the oven.

Serve plain or with a little maple syrup.  I was thinking of adding chopped scallions and I will try that, next time, I make these.

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The softer, orange-fleshed variety of sweet potato, commonly referred to as a yam in the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sweet Potato & Turkey Combo

I still have a lot of food, left over from Passover and we are attempting to eat it before, it is no longer safe to do so.  It makes for an interesting dinner, a little bit of this and a lot of that.  When we eat leftovers, I usually make something new, to give new meaning to the meal.  Leftovers may be delicious but they are still reheated food.

With a few slices of corned beef, mashed potatoes and zucchini, I made a combo dish of Sweet Potatoes and Turkey with Shallots and Onions.  I should have added some sliced apple or maybe cranberries.  It needed a little sweetness and I prefer to go the natural way, so a fruit hopefully will fill the recipe need.

I haven’t been using my cast iron pans, recently which is a big mistake.  They cook evenly and can go from stove to oven.  Their only drawback is that the larger ones are heavy.

Sweet Potato & Turkey Combo

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 shallots, minced
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup cooked turkey chunks
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 1/2 cup organic low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
•  ground black pepper, to taste

                                                                                                                                                            DIRECTIONS

In a large cast iron pan or a skillet, add one tablespoon of olive oil. Cook onions and shallots until translucent.  Remove from pan.

Microwave the sweet potato for 4 minutes or whatever your microwave needs to bake the potato.  Of course, you can do this in the oven.  In the skillet cook the chunks to lightly brown. Add to onion mixture.

Add the sweet potato,  vegetable broth, thyme, black pepper,  sage to onion mixture and return to pan.  Cook for a few minutes until heated.

   Mangia Monday   Scrumptious Sunday

   Menu Monday    Frugal Food Thursday

Passover Cabbage Potato Cakes

I decided to audition a few recipes before the holiday.  Since, I printed this up, a few weeks ago, and have kept looking at it, saying, “I must make this,” I decided to do just that.  This is a good recipe to multi-task.  While the potatoes cook, chop and brown your vegetable. Everything can come together, at about the same time, in that way.  These were a success and I am going to make them in smaller tins for my grandchildren.  I think, they will enjoy, their own little potato cabbage cakes.

Passover Cabbage Potato Cakes

Ingredients:

1 cup cabbage, shredded and then chopped smaller

3 potatoes, peeled and boiled and mashed

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 large onion, diced

1 egg

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup potato starch

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Spray muffin tins with cooking oil.

Chop onions and carrots in a food processor.  I used my mini processor from my immersion blender to get small pieces, not as tiny as in my full sized food processor.  If you do not have this option, I suggest, chopping by hand.

Peel potatoes and cut into quarters.  Place in a boiling pot of water. (carefully)  Cook for 15 – 20 minutes until soft enough to mash.

While potatoes are cooking, heat olive oil in skillet and saute onions and carrots until onions are softened.

Add cabbage to carrots and onions.

Drain potatoes and mash.  Add other vegetables to potatoes.

Add dry ingredients and mix into potatoes.  Add wet ingredients and mix well.  Add eggs and oil and combine with potato mixture.  Add salt and pepper and mix in.

Using a quarter cup, scoop the potato mixture into the muffin tins.  Top with a little chopped parsley.

Bake for 25 minutes until lightly browned.

I think, you will really enjoy these.

This is linked to Real Food Wednesdays   Cast Party Wednesday – Link Party #34     Pennywise Platter

Potato Knishes

As a Brooklyn girl, I grew up on knishes, especially potato knishes.  We knew hole in the wall places that had the very best knishes.  What, I never have had, is a knish made with an  egg roll wrapper as the dough, at least I don’t think, I have.  I bumped into this recipe.  It comes from  vision works……huh?  I decided to make it, despite its dubious origins.

POTATO-KNISHES

Yield: 14 knishes

3 large potatoes, boiled and mashed
1/4 cup plus spray cooking oil
2 chopped scallions
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper
7 egg roll wrappers (6-inch squares) 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 

2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the mashed potatoes with 1/2 cup of olive oil, scallions and salt. Adjust the seasonings, if desired. 

3. Place an egg roll wrapper diagonally on a large cutting board or plate, so it appears diamond-shaped. Place 2 tablespoons of the potato mixture in the center. Fold the top and bottom corners over the filling to meet in the middle, then fold the right and left corners to meet in the middle. Pick up the knish and place it in the palm of both hands as if it were a ball and gently squeeze to make it round in shape. Repeat with the remaining ingredients. 

4. Arrange the knishes on an ungreased baking sheet, and brush the tops with the remaining oil. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. 

5. Arrange the knishes in a platter and serve plain or with your favorite dipping sauce.
Adapted from Leslie Cerier’s cookbook, Going Wild in the Kitchen (2005, Square One Publishers)

This is linked to Mix It Up Mondays     Must Try Mondays     $5 Dinner Challenge   Totally Tasty Tuesdays (Mandy’s Recipe Box),   Talent Show Tuesday (Chef in Training), Trick or Treat Tuesday ,   Tuesday Confessional     Tuesday’s Tasty Tidbits

Kids in the Kitchen

Sweet Potatoes and Dried Pears – Side

This turned out to be an incredible experiment.  It was one of my last-minute deals when I had to use up some produce, pronto.  I had a few sweet potatoes and no immediate plans for them.  We had come to the point that they were talking to me.

SP (sweet potato):  Why did you buy us?

Me: To eat, of course.

SP: So, why are we sitting in the corner of the hydrator with celery, of all things.  Don’t you know, we generally are not friends with celery unless you are making a savory salad and then their crunch makes them endearing.

Me:  Hmmmm, savory salad sounds good but I was thinking hot, a nice hot dish and sweet, not savory.

SP:  That is fine with us.  Just do it.  If you leave us any longer, we are going to get ugly and then you might throw us in the garbage.

Me:  Garbage?  Of course not.  You are the diamonds of the hydrator.  No garbage for you.

SP: Then, it is time to warm us up.  Do you have any idea how cold it is, in here?

Me; Refrigerators are supposed to be cold.

SP:  Then you live in one.  We want out. We want a nice warm oven or stove burner to live in or on.

Me:  I have had enough of your complaining.  You are off to become part of a dish with yummy honey and you had better like it.

SPs:  Cheering.

I knew, I wanted something really easy to do with these “fresh” sweet potatoes.  I did my thing and opened up the cabinet and saw honey and there was my recipe.  I also had taken out some dried apricots and pears, a short while before, so I removed the dried pears.  Here, you try it.

Sweet Potatoes and Dried Pears

Ingredients

2 – 3 medium large sweet potatoes, cut into slices about 1/2 inch thick

6 dried pear slices

1 tablespoon

2 tablespoons honey

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a casserole with about 1/2 inch water, layer sweet potatoes and dried pears.

Drizzle honey over them.  I did it by layer.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and mix so that the top layer is now in the water.

Bake for another 10 – 20 minutes until sweet potatoes are cooked through but not falling apart.

The dried pear goes beautifully with the sweet potatoes but my guess is that almost any dried fruit or fresh fruit would also be delicious.

• Twice Baked Creamy Sweet Potatoes (bookcasefoodie.wordpress.com)
• Savory Sweet Potato Salad (bookcasefoodie.wordpress.com)
• Have Leftovers – Make Soup (bookcasefoodie.wordpress.com)

This is linked to Everyday Mom’s Meals      Savory Sundays    Cast Party Wednesday     Pennywise Platter

Mashed Potato Casserole

Paula Deen is known for her Buttah and fattening and unhealthy recipes.   Despite this, she is one good cook and her recipes are worth following with a few changes.

Although now, with her medical diagnosis, hopefully changes will be made.  This is one of those recipes which I happen to love.  There are ways to cut back and I tend to do this with any recipe, not only Paula’s.  I crossed out what I changed so you can see the differences.  If you want to, you can cut the cheese down, even more.

Mashed Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

 2 cups mashed potatoes

1/2 cup sour cream  (cut to 1/4 low fat)

1 small onion, sliced thin

1 small bell pepper, sliced thin

8 tablespoons butter  (one tablespoon margarine)

1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar   (1 cup)

Method:

Spread mashed potatoes evenly on bottom of casserole dish.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Layer sour cream evenly over top of potatoes

Saute onion and bell pepper in margarine and place over sour cream.

Slice potatoes and layer over onions and bell peppers.

Finally top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Yum,

This is linked to Everyday Mom’s Meals

Mashed Potato Timbales

 Memories of childhood have lots to do with mashed potatoes.  If I did not feel well, I got mashed potatoes and I felt better or so I told myself.  I don’t have strong memories of food and my childhood but oh how I remember potatoes.  I still like almost any kind of potato but it is the mashed that bring back the memories.

I guess, I sat on the sofa and ate them, when unwell.  I can picture cuddling on one end of the sofa with a bowl in my hand, filled with those wonderful potatoes.

So, here I am remembering and making mashed potato timbales.  These are light and tender.

Mashed Potato Timbales

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed

• 1 tablespoon margarine

• 1 tablespoon grated onion

• 8 ounces reduced-fat ricotta cheese

• 1 cup reduced-fat sour cream

• 1/8  teaspoon garlic powder

• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed

• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

• 2 egg whites

• 2 tablespoons taco crumbs

 Directions

Place potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and cook for 20-25 minutes or until tender. Drain.

Mash potatoes with margarine and onion until small lumps of potato remain; set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat ricotta cheese, sour cream,  garlic powder, rosemary and pepper until smooth.

In a small bowl, beat egg whites until frothy; fold into cheese mixture. Fold into potato mixture.

Generously coat muffin cups with nonstick spray; evenly sprinkle muffin cups with bread crumbs. Fill with potato mixture; smooth tops.

Bake, uncovered, at 425 degrees F for 27-30 minutes or until edges of potatoes are lightly browned. Cool for 15 minutes. Loosen timbales from sides of muffins cups; invert onto a baking sheet to remove.

Some Other Potato Posts

Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes – Ellie Krieger

Oven Roasted Spicy Potatoes

Potatoes – Half Baked

Linked to Friday Favorites

Potatoes – Half Baked

I know this sounds like these potatoes are not baked completely but they certainly are.  

Actually, they are half-baked in the microwave and half- baked with the standard oven.  This is not why I call them half-baked, though.  It is because, I bake them as opened halves.  This makes the outer part of the inside crispy over the softer part of the potato.

Potatoes – Half Baked

Ingredients

2 potatoes (Idaho), cut down the middle

spray olive oil

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1/4 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika, whichever you prefer

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Method:

Place potato halves on a plate in the microwave for 8 minutes.  Remove and spray olive oil over the surface and bake for 20 minutes in the traditional oven at 400 degrees.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove potatoes from oven and cover pieces with  chopped onions and green pepper.  Sprinkle with seasoning and cover with vegetables.  Spray additional olive oil on the top.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

Smoked Salmon Potato Salad

I buy lox (smoked salmon) in the local grocery store and my husband picks it up at Costco.  We usually are organized and only one of us brings it home.  Perfection is not always in play and one week, we both brought home rather large packages.  Being a lox lover, I was thrilled and started on a search for recipes other than bagels and lox, scrambled eggs with lox or stuffed wontons with lox.  I found some with noodles and others with potatoes and there were a big variety of salads.

I found recipes on several sites and there is one particular site that particularly held my interest and where I got this recipe, Just Smoked Salmon.  Knowing me, you know I adjusted some of the ingredients but all in all, I kept to their recipe.  They used canned Sockeye Smoked Salmon and I used fresh smoked salmon.

Summer Salmon potato salad 

1 large slice smoked salmon
3 large potatoes, boiled and cut into chunks
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 cucumber, cut into bite sized chunks
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 Tablespoon coarse grained mustard
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon fresh dill chopped

Combine salmon, potatoes, tomatoes and cucumber in a bowl.
Sprinkle with pepper.
Combine remaining ingredients and mix well.  I used a small Rubbermaid container and shook it with the lid on, of course.
Toss with salad ingredients.

Serves 6-8.

The  lox makes all the difference in the potato salad.  It brings the salty flavor to pop throughout the salad.  The

cukes felt just right, in this salad, although, I have never used cucumbers in potato salad, before.

This is linked to

See Ya in the Gumbo             Mangia Mondays

My Meatless Mondays           Savory Sundays 

Tuesday’s Tasty Tidbits                Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays

Real Food Wednesdays             Ultimate Recipe Swap