Parmesan Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

There are just so many unique and interesting ways to prepare potatoes. So why is it then, that I alway fall into a rut. A potato rut. Mashed potatoes, potato wedges. That seems to be my potato repetoire these days. I do have a few favorite potato recipes. My Smashed Potato recipe is to die for, but it just seems like a bit too much effort for a regular weeknight dinner. Same with my Mashed Potato Puffs, I love those but they call for cottage cheese which I don't normally stock.

So last night for dinner, I knew I needed to make something "postable" because my archive backlog is drying up. The main event was pan fried snapper filets with a store bought coating, so I can't post that. So I made some Parmesan Roasted Fingerling Potatoes. They were quite good, I will make them again.

Parmesan Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

1 bag (2lb) fingerling potatoes
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup olive oil

1. Cut the fingerling potatoes in half lengthwise. Wash and dry the potatoes.

2. In a plastic bag mix flour, grated Parmesan, salt and pepper. Drop in potatoes and shake to coat.

3. Spread olive oil on a non stick baking sheet (or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper). Arrange potatoes cut side down.

4. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes. Flip potatoes and bake another 15 minutes.

Poutine

Several weeks ago, I was tagged by Cherry at Diet-Meals-Recipes to write about my favorite food. It took me a while because frankly, you just can't go around whipping up an order of Poutine everyday. I also, don't know if I need to point out the irony of a blog dedicated to healthy eating and dieting encouraging me to prepare and consume one of the most unhealthy (blissfully unhealthy) foods on the planet. But I would like to thank Cherry for helping me to rationalize eating this meal!

Poutine is my all-time favorite food. No joke, if I had to pick my "last meal" this would be it. It is the perfect food to eat at a chip wagon at 3:00 in the morning, it is the perfect hangover cure, and it is the perfect food to satisfy pregnancy cravings (warning: eating Poutine 3 times a week while pregnant may cause excessive weight gain - and that little nugget was provided from a position of great authority on the topic).

Poutine, for those who don't know, basically consists of french fries, fresh cheese curds and gravy. The best Poutine will be made with thick, fresh cut french fries, real cheese curds (not grated mozzarella) and a beef veloute sauce. If you have never had Poutine, my advice is DO NOT make this recipe. Once you get a taste of this, you will be hooked like me.


Poutine
makes 4 side servings or 2 main servings

4 large russet potatoes
oil for deep frying
salt
2 cups beef stock
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups cheese curds

1. Peel and slice the potatoes into thick fries (at least 1 cm thick).

2. Soak the potatoes in ice water for about 30 minutes. Remove and drain well.

3. Heat oil for frying to about 325F and deep fry potatoes for about 8 minutes.

4. Remove from oil and set on paper towel. Turn the oil up to 375F.

5. In a saucepan melt the butter and stir in the flour. Add the beef broth and stir over medium-high heat until thickened. Reduce heat and keep hot. (I use a tiny bit of gravy browning to get that nice dark colour).

6. Return the french fries to the oil and continue frying until golden and crispy. This should take about 5 more minutes. Remove fries to drain on paper towel and salt to taste.

7. Assemble the poutine quick while everything is still HOT. (Poutine is best made in a bowl or other container which will contain the heat and help melt the curds. Also, the curds should be at room temperature before assembling the Poutine). Start with a layer of fries. Put some cheese curds in the middle. Add more fries and top with more cheese curds.

8. Ladle gravy over the fries and cheese curds.

Mashed Potato Puffs

If you only ever try one recipe from my blog, let it be this one.

This is by far the best mashed potato recipe I've ever tasted. I got this recipe originally from my mother-in-law and then one day surfing around, I found the exact same recipe on the LCBO Food and Drink Website. I made this recipe many many times before I managed to get it right, but I'm glad I kept trying.

The eggs in this recipe make the potatoes puff up and become light and fluffy. You can make this in a casserole dish, or in individual muffin tins, or ramekins as I did. This is also something that you can make ahead quite easily.

My first tip is to weigh the potatoes. The recipe calls for three pounds, so don't guess.... "well there's 10 potatoes in this 5 lb bag, so divided by 5 equals 2 potatoes times 3 equals 6 potatoes".... don't do that! That is calculus, not cooking! The consistency of the potato mixture before you cook it should be a little runny and if you use too many potatoes it won't work right.

Another tip, is to cook this at high heat 450°F, the original recipe calls for a much lower temperature and I found the eggs didn't puff up enough, and the cottage cheese didn't quite melt (you could still detect curds of cottage cheese in the mashed potatoes). This recipe will serve about 8 people (the LBCO recipe says FOUR people, but I don't know who those people would be - giants maybe).


Mashed Potato Puffs
adapted from LCBO Food and Drink

3 lbs potatoes, peeled
1 cup cottage cheese
4 eggs
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 green onions, diced (white part only)
salt and pepper (use white pepper if you don't want flecks)

1. Boil the potatoes well. Boil the crap out of them. Drain and return to the burner. Continue to cook the potatoes over low heat for about 5 more minutes (stir so they don't stick) this will get all the extra water out of the potatoes.

2. Mash the potatoes very well. We want NO LUMPS. I put the potatoes through a potato ricer which takes care of that nicely.

3. In another bowl, with a hand mixer, beat the eggs, butter and cottage cheese until fluffy. Add in the potatoes and onions and beat with hand mixer until all mixed together.

4. Put the mixture into a greased casserole dish, or muffin tins. This is where you can let it cool and refridgerate, if you are making them ahead (let them come back to room temperature before baking though).

5. Bake in a 450°F oven for about 25 minutes (a little more if you are making them in a big casserole dish). The potatoes should puff up and get a little brown on top.

Barbecued Potato Packets

In yesterday's post for Lamb Shoulder Chops, I left everyone with a bit of teaser about what was contained in all of the other foil packets on the barbecue. The first two packages had the Lamb Shoulder Chops. The third packet had this potato recipe, and the last had dessert, which was a Cape Cod Apple Pudding (I will post that tomorrow).

These potato packets were good and tasty. The kids loved them, even though Marco isn't usually much of a potato fan. My Mom often used to make potato packets on the barbecue with sliced potatoes, sliced onions, salt, pepper and butter. I decided to jazz things up a bit with this recipe and so I added bacon and Parmesan.

I did make one mistake, I thought I'd be "professional-ish" and just pour the olive oil onto the potatoes straight from the bottle like the TV chefs do, you know, "and just add about a glug or two of olive oil". Issue was my olive oil bottle went glug....glug....glug glug glug..SPLAT. I have no idea how much I put on, but it was WAY too much. I think about 2 tablespoons would have done the trick.


Father's Day Poll Update: The winner of the Father's Day Poll in the side bar was Prime Rib with Yorkshire Pudding with 41.2% of the vote. And so I am off to the butcher to find a nice prime rib. I am also happy to report that this was Mario's preferred dinner, so he is pleased. Thanks for voting! I'll post the Father's Day Recipes sometime this week.

Barbecued Potato Packets

20 mini red potatoes
6 slices bacon, crumbled
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 red onion, sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Wash potatoes and cut in half. Place potatoes and remaining ingredients into foil packets.

2. Place on grill over indirect heat for 1 hour. Be careful when you are opening the packet!

Caesar Potato Salad

I wanted to make a nice potato salad on the weekend to go alongside the BBQed steak I served when my Mom and Dad came to dinner. I do have a regular potato salad recipe that uses a can of cream of celery soup, but I was also trying to think up a recipe that I could submit to my next blog event. Hay Hay its Donna Day 12 is being hosted by Katie B over at Other People's Food and the theme this month is "Caesar Salad". So I decided to combine my love of potato salad with my love of Caesar salad.

This actually turned out quite nicely (which still sometimes surprises me, when I don't follow a recipe and try to create a dish all on my own). It really did taste like Caesar Salad, but with potatoes. I thought it might also be nice to add some cooked sliced chicken breast and serve this on a bed of Romaine lettuce, as a meal in itself.

I started off by mixing the sauce, and I ended up making about twice as much as I needed for the amount of potatoes that I made. I will post the full amounts, so I don't screw anything up in the conversion, but unless you are having a BIG potato salad party, you might consider cutting this in half. Then again, leftover potato salad is not a bad thing. One more note: I used light miracle whip in the dressing, but if I was actually making this for guests (Mom and Dad don't count as guests), then I might have used "real" mayo, and I think it would have been even better! I usually make a comment about whether or not my kids liked the recipe, but I honestly can't remember, I guess I was too busy stuffing my pie-hole with potato salad and steak to pay attention to them.

Caesar Potato Salad

1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp chives, chopped
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
6 slices Bacon, crumbled (about 1/3 cup)
pinch cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
10 medium red potatoes, washed and not peeled

1. Boil potatoes in a pot of salted water about 20 minutes, or until a metal skewer can be inserted easily into the largest potato. Drain and let cool.

2. Mix mayonnaise, sour cream, vinegar, chives, mustard, garlic, Parmesan and bacon. Season with pepper.

3. Chop potatoes into large rough chunks and mix with sauce until all are coated. Sprinkle top lightly with Cayenne pepper.

Roasted Greek Potatoes

As promised in yesterday's post, here is the recipe for my Roasted Greek Potatoes. It is one of those recipes that I have been making for so many years (long before I had ever conceived of writing a food blog) that I have no idea who to give credit to. I have always kept the ingredients the same, but have played a lot with the cooking times, and amount of time covered/uncovered to achieve just that right combination of crispy and juicy. I love potatoes in just about any form, but this is one of my favorites because I think they come out just like those yummy potatoes you get when you order Greek takeout.

I have a convection oven, so if you don't you might have to increase the cooking time by about 20 minutes. Lining your baking dish with parchment is a must, or they will stick and you will be scrubbing for a week. Don't skimp on the lemon juice or the oregano. Trust me.

Roasted Greek Potatoes

5 large red potatoes, washed and not peeled
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Roughly chop potatoes and place in a parchment lined baking dish.

2. Mix garlic, lemon, oil, oregano, sugar, salt and pepper. Pour over potatoes and mix around with a rubber spatula until all are coated.

3. Cover baking dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

4. Remove the foil, increase oven temperature to 400F and stir the potatoes around with a rubber spatula.

5. Continue cooking for 30 more minutes, stirring once to make sure all sides of the potatoes get brown. About 5 minutes before they're done, put the foil back on the dish. This softens them up nicely (if you prefer real crispy potatoes, skip this last step).

Potato Pancakes

I was just scrolling through my blog and I noticed that the last 4 recipes I posted had rice in them. I wouldn't want anyone to think that's all we eat around here, so to prove it, here is a potato recipe. I love potato pancakes. We often have them on the side if I am making a big "weekend" breakfast. Or, on occasion, I make them as a side dish with dinner. Sometimes I even take them to work for lunch and I eat them cold with light cream cheese and apple sauce on them. For some strange inexplicable reason, my kids don't eat these well. I keep telling them, "they are just like the ones you get at McDonald's for breakfast". Yeah, they ain't buying THAT! Anyway, I am sure it just a phase and if I keep making them, eventually my kids will come around.

Sometimes I add a couple of tablespoons of finely diced onions, which makes them even better but exponentially reduces the odds that my kids might eat them. In the past I have fried these in oil, but lately I've been baking them with a little bit of cooking spray to be healthier. They are nearly as good baked (but let's face it, EVERYTHING is better fried - obviously).

Potato Pancakes

4 medium potatoes, peeled
1 heaping tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp flour
1 egg
salt and pepper

1. Grate potatoes on a cheese grater and squeeze out the excess liquid.

2. Mix with sour cream, flour, egg, and salt and pepper.

3. Either (a) heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a skillet over medium heat and add potatoes by large spoonfuls. Flatten them out with the back of your spatula and fry until browned on each side, or (b) drop by large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Flatten them out and bake at 400F for about 10 minutes per side (when I flip them I spray a little more cooking spray underneath each one).

Smashed Potatoes

I love this recipe. I have served it about 4 times for guests, and I get lots of compliments. But, I guess after this post, the secret will be out of the bag....its the easiest recipe in the world, and anyone with a cookie sheet can make them. This recipe is adapted from one I found in Fine Cooking Magazine (Jan 2007).

Smashed Potatoes

16 mini potatoes (white or red skin)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup olive oil

1. Wash potatoes, but do not peel. Boil the potatoes for about 15 minutes until tender. Drain and let cool.

2. When cool, place a clean towel on the counter, and use a second to press down gently on the potato. Smash the potato down until it is about a 1/2" thick. The skin will keep the potato from falling apart.

3. Arrange the potatoes on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with salt and bake in a 450F oven for about 30 to 35 minutes until brown and crispy.