Creamy Potato Stacks

I'm not sure if it's because I'm super organized or super insecure but, for whatever reason, I tend to plan out every minute of time when I'm having guests. Part of this detailed agenda includes each meal I'm going to fix, from the simplest snack on up to "elaborate" diners. When I see the time laid out on paper, I get a feeling of more control even though reality often turns out to be that each day has alterations and adaptations, including what meals we eat and where we eat them. For instance, with Iris and Sandie I planned two evening meals at home. The first night they arrived everything was set for lasagna and the fixings. I knew we'd go to Joe's BBQ one of their nights in town and I knew we'd have dinner in the form of appetizers at the Club for our Wine and Paint night, so that left the final night before they left as a time for the second evening meal I had planned. Too bad Iris left too early for eating dinner. With only Sandie around and with her request to visit Cracker Barrel, that's what we wound up doing between the two airport runs. No chicken dinner and no creamy potato stacks for either Iris or Sandie. Instead, Martin and I had them last night because I was now psyched to try the recipe out and see if it was as easy as advertised.

It was. Littlebroken.com has many beautiful pictures of the process and result for this recipe. Mine were neither as uniformly lovely or as seemingly not a bit greasy as hers but they still tasted great. Parmesan isn't my favorite cheese so I might try a modification next time, using some other kind of cheese. As soon as Emily tells me which substitute would work best!

The stacks lift out of their muffin tin beds easily and do look lovely plated. You could definitely serve this dish to guests, if they would just stick around long enough to eat them.


CREAMY POTATO STACKS WITH GARLIC, THYME, AND PARMESAN
Recipe Courtesy of Littlebroken.com

INGREDIENTS
1½ cups heavy cream
1 sprig fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ tsp. nutmeg
2 lbs. medium russet potatoes (about 4-5), peeled and sliced ⅛ to 1/16 inch thick
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
freshly grated parmesan cheese

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375F. Spray 12 cup standard muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
In a small sauce pan, whisk together cream, thyme, garlic, and nutmeg. Bring to a slow simmer and remove from the heat. You want the cream just heated through. Discard the thyme.
Toss the potato slices with salt and pepper and layer into stacks in the prepared muffin cups, filling each one to the top but not over the top.
Spoon cream over each potato stack, filling almost to the top. You will have couple or so slices exposed. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the potatoes are knife tender and golden brown on top.
Remove the muffin pan from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to loosen up the stacks and carefully remove to a serving platter.
Serve immediately.

Dutch Baby (Or German Oven Pancakes)

Two of my friends came to visit this week. One lives in San Diego, while the other is in DC. Many years ago, when our children were small and we were all living in San Diego, the three of us banded together as friends. We served on the same committees at church, looked after each other's kids, and, in general, walked the path of young motherhood together.

Iris (the one who now lives in DC) is the one who gave me her mom's praline monkey bread recipe oh so long ago. The same dish I serve on Christmas morning year after year. In homage to my friend and her Lunch Lady Mom, I decided I'd make that bread one morning for breakfast. Why not, since it's super easy to fix and is prepped the night before, such that you only have to pop it in the oven upon waking up the next morning.

The day before the arrival of my guests, I did a big shopping run, buying up all the necessary components of everything I planned to serve these gals during their stay. Sometime in the middle of that night, I awoke wondering why I couldn't remember putting the Rhodes rolls in the freezer. Since I was too half-asleep (or lazy?) to get up and check, I decided that Martin must've brought that bag in and done me the favor of seeing the rolls to their place in the freezer.

Nice idea but when I did finally get up the next morning to check, no rolls in the upstairs freezer or downstairs. Hmmmm....guess where I found them? Seems a bag got forgotten in the car trunk and there were the rolls, now exploded and ready to burst through the heavy packaging. So much for the Praline Monkey Bread recipe! (Yes, I realize there were still markets open in town and I could've run to replace the rolls, but my day was filled with other activities such as frantically cleaning the house and almost forgetting to go get the girls at the airport because I remembered the time of their arrival wrong.)

So this is the recipe I made instead. Turns out Iris eats fresh blueberries every day so she was happy to see the ones served on this plate. Both gals loved their Dutch Babies. Martin even liked this recipe, though he was surely not going to go for anything exotic like homemade lemon curd and fresh blueberries. His Dutch Baby was topped with maple syrup.

What I liked/loved about this dish is that it felt like a treat, in spite of being ridiculously easy to make. All dolled up with the lemon curd, blueberries, and powdered sugar, each serving looks far more fancy and downright special than the reality of how simple the recipe really is.

Dutch Babies
Recipe courtesy of Thegirlinspired.com

Ingredients:
2 cups milk
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1  1/3 cups all-purpose flour
4 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter (melt in pan per instructions: do not blend with the other ingredients)
1 lemon and powdered sugar for garnish   (This version suggests just a squeeze of the lemon and powdered sugar as a topping - I love lemon curd so decided to up the game a bit. I'm sure it's also tasty with just the lemon squeeze.)

Instructions:
Place 1/2 cup butter in a 9x13 heavy glass baking dish. Set baking dish with butter in the oven and preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a blender, combine milk, eggs, vanilla, flour, and granulated sugar. (I did this in my mixer)
When the butter is completely melted (before it browns or burns), pour the batter over a metal spoon into the baking dish. (Pouring over the metal spoon supposedly stops the glass from cracking when the cold hits hot. Who knows if this is true? I followed what these directions and had no problems)
Cook 20-30 minutes or until the pancake is set in the middle and the edges are very puffy and golden brown. Remove from the oven. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the top and dust generously with powdered sugar. OR, slather the lemon curd on first, cover with lots of fresh blueberries, and then put the powdered sugar on top. OR be boring and just pour maple syrup on top. Your choice.
Serve immediately.

LEMON CURD
Recipe courtesy of Emilie Barnes
Ingredients
2 eggs, beaten
zest of 1-2 lemons
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, sliced and cubed

Directions:
Set up a double boiler. Place all of the ingredients except the butter in the top pot. Whisk well to combine, add the butter and place over simmering water. Whisking occasionally, until thick and smooth, about 10 minutes.
While hot, pout into a clean mason jar and let cool. Seal and refrigerate for 2 weeks or more.
TIP:
If you prefer a thicker lemon curd, try adding only yolks, or add an extra yolk to the two whole eggs.

White Bean with Grilled Shrimp and Sausage

With a pantry full of different variety beans, I've been on the lookout for recipes that will show off those heirloom beans. What better place to find something amazing to cook, than on the site selling the beans? I liken this to something one of my wise friends once said when I complained about a doctored up to the point of almost inedible pumpkin pie recipe. "Libby's has a vested interest in you loving their recipe enough to keep buying those cans of filling. Why mess with what they've already figured out?" she asked me. Same principle applies here  - if anyone wants me to succeed at bean recipes, it's those folks at Rancho Gordo...hence their recipe for this dish.

Let's just start here - I love the humble food of beans and I can eat them just about any way, from plain to doctored up in all manner of fancy recipes. When I finished putting together this particular bowl of deliciousness, I couldn't stop eating the product of my labors. With the sausage, there's just enough of a tang to please the taste buds. I love every component of what goes into the recipe. It is one of those dishes where you can take delight in loading up your fork with just the right amount of shrimp, bean, sausage, and arugula to make for sheer joy at the resulting spoon of yummyness. Does anyone else rate recipes like that? Every bite is good, some are perfectly composed to produce a measured bit of perfection. And those are the ones that make you keep eating!

White Bean with Grilled Shrimp and Sausage
Recipe courtesy of Rancho Gordo Heirloom Beans

1 pound medium gulf white shrimp (shelled and de-veined)
1 cup dried Rancho Gordo white beans such as Alubia Blanca or Royal Corona
6 ounces Italian sausage (we use Caggiano from Sonoma)
1 Tbsp. garlic, chopped fine
1 yellow onion, diced fine
1 carrot, diced fine
2 small celery stalks, diced fine
1 Tbsp. butter
1 cup arugula
Salt and pepper, to taste
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup bean cooking liquid
Serves 4   (or one greedy, bean-loving cook)

Pre-soak the beans in 4 cups water overnight. Drain beans.
In a large pot, bring the beans up to a simmer in 4 cups of fresh, salted water (1 tablespoon). Cook until tender, let cool in liquid and reserve 1/2 cup cooking liquid.
In a sauté pan, render sausage in 1 tablespoon of oil, add onions, carrots, celery and garlic, and cook until tender. Add beans and the 1/2 cup cooking liquid until emulsified. Add butter and take off heat. When butter is melted, add arugula.
Meanwhile, salt and pepper shrimp. Drizzle with olive oil and grill on high heat about 2 minutes per side. Place bean and sausage mixture in bowl and top with grilled shrimp.

Basic Meatloaf

There have been two different times when I've been prompted to get rid of excess stuff in the kitchen. The first came when we gutted our old kitchen and completely remodeled that room. Do you know what a huge chore it was to take every single cooking/baking item I owned and cart it to another place in the house where it sat for 6 weeks! The dining room was filled with kitcheny things, as was Tim's room. No, I didn't make my kid sleep with a toaster oven in his bed and spatulas hanging from his closet - he was away at college so the empty room seemed like a perfect overflow storage space. Except for that part about having to lug all those gadgets and gizmos all the way up the stairs...and then down again, when the new kitchen was finally finished. More recently, I went through a similar purge cycle when we moved. Knowing you're paying by the pound to schlep everything you own from one state to another does make you evaluate carefully just how much you really want or need the stuff you've had laying around forever...or at least, since the big kitchen remodel of 2001!

Where am I going with this, you might ask? This is a cooking blog, not a home organization site. Here's how I'm tying the above anecdote of me getting rid of stuff to meatloaf - after vowing to never again buy specialty gadgets I don't really need, guess what I purchased right after Christmas? A meatloaf pan that comes complete with a rack inside, to allow all those juices to go to the bottom of the pan, away from the cooking meatloaf. Another gadget, but not a bad one. Just the sight of all that grease lying separated from my completed meatloaf made me feel a little healthier and like every penny of the cost was worth having one more item to find storage for in my kitchen.

If you've been reading long enough, you probably remember Paula Deen isn't one of my favorite people. I will say, however, that absence really must make the heart grow fonder because not having seen Paula in years - and, more importantly, not having heard that fakey, syrupy "y'all" used over and over and over, I can actually think about her without wanting to gag. Plus, her meatloaf recipe did actually turn out moist and tasty. Because I still haven't learned how to take a picture of meats without making them look so disgusting as to be rendered inedible, I'm forgoing a photo. Y'all just have to take mine and Paula's word that this is a satisfying down-home main course for dinner.  ;-)


Paula Deen's Basic Meatloaf

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
8 ounces canned diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
Topping:
1/3 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon prepared mustard

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix all meatloaf ingredients well and place in a baking dish. Shape into a loaf.
Topping:
Mix ingredients for topping and spread on loaf. Bake for 1 hour.

Red Bean and Green Grain Taco Bowl

This is a rather dreadful picture of a rather fabulous dish 

When you get to my age, there's not a whole lot to want for Christmas. This is partly because you already have a life time's worth of stuff and also because what you really crave/desire/covet/need, you can generally go out and get on your own. Even so, a thoughtful gift from the heart is always a blessing...like say when a loved one gives you beans. Ummm....yes, you read that right. For Christmas this year, my darling daughter sent me a heavy box full of various types of Rancho Gordo heirloom beans. (Who knew beans could be considered heirloom?????) Maybe this sounds like a weird item for a daughter to give to her mom but, in this case, a sweet note let me know that Emily made this choice because she thought I might want to create some of my mom's legendary beans. Truth is, I've never attempted to make my own for the very reason that my mom was so famous for hers. How can you compete with perfection? It's not like Edith, queen of the "a little bit of this, and maybe a dab of that, cooked until it seems right" school of cooking left me any kind of recipe to follow!

So now I have my own assortment of beans to work with, along with a recommended recipe from the Bean Giver. Emily let me know that this is the dish that caused her to fall in love with Rancho Gordo beans and, after making my first batch tonight, I can definitely understand her sentiment. The recipe is from....where else, Smitten Kitchen. As with so many of Deb's recipes, when you first look at the entirety of instructions it all seems lengthy and complicated but, in this case, the dish came together in a very straightforward way.

Red bean and Green Grain Taco Bowl
Courtesy of Smitten Kitchen

GRAINS
2 fresh poblano chili peppers, seeded and roughly chopped
1 cup cilantro leaves (from one bunch)
3/4 of a medium onion, roughly chopped (Mince the last 1/4 to use as a topping)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 1/2 cups water or broth  (I used water here and in cooking the beans. There was some worry that not using broth might make the rice taste "puny" but that's definitely not the case! The grain mixture cooked up perfectly and tasted fabulous.)
1 cup uncooked wheat berries (Yea, try finding that in a small town in Missouri! I substituted with rice but you could also use quinoa)
Salt to taste

BEANS
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 to 1 finely chopped chipotle from a can
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups water or broth
1/4 pound dried small red beans
kosher salt to taste

FIXINGS
Minced white onion or pickled red onions, lime wedges, hot sauce, sliced avocado, pico de gallo, cheese or tortilla strips

Soak red beans. Cover red beans in an inch of water and soak over night

Make green grains: Combine poblanos, cilantro, onion, and garlic with a splash of cooking broth or water in a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth. Combine rice, remaining broth, 3/4 of green puree and salt in a medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil, then cover, and reduce to a very low simmer. Cook for 18 minutes or until rice is tender. (Mine took longer). To restore the bright green color, add in the remaining green puree and cook for an additional 5 minutes. (I didn't do this. It looked green enough to me and it certainly tasted yummy enough to stop, without the additional step.)

Make red beans: Heat olive oil over medium heat in a small sauce pan. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add beans and their soaking liquid plus an additional cup of water. Bring to a boil for 10-15 minutes. Lower heat to a gentle simmer. Add chipotle, cumin, oregano, and tomato paste. Cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar to let the beans breathe. Let cook for 30 minutes, adding additional HOT water or broth as necessary. At this point, check every 5 minutes, adding hot water when needed. When the beans are almost done, add salt (but not before). NOTE: my beans took quite a bit longer than this, even though I'd soaked them. But, in the end, they tasted great.

Assemble and eat: Add your desired ration of grains to beans and top with desired fixings. I could see where any of the toppings listed above would be a  great accompaniment to the rice and beans. In my case, I used only avocado  and a bit of cheese. Something about the texture of that avocado with the rice and beans made every bite something to savor. Honestly, this is a bowl of goodness I could've kept eating all night long as each bite made me want another...and another... and another.

Banana Pudding

Who says you can't wear moose pajamas while taking tea? 

Banana pudding isn't something I normally associate with high tea but, for the circumstances of the tea where I served these, cute little jars filled with banana goodness seemed just right.   Originally, I had planned to take my friend Terri to a high tea in Lee's Summit when she came to visit.  Too bad she chose the weekend of a Kansas City ice-storm so severe that most businesses pre-emptively closed their doors to keep people from going out and slipping on the ice. (Just like I later managed to do while trying to give Funston a morning walk.)    With the tea room closed, there was nothing left to do but make some scones, brew some tea, and hold the most informal formal tea ever. Definitely the first time I've sat at a makeshift tea table in my pajamas. 

I'd been wanting to make Smitten Kitchen's banana pudding for a long time. In fact, I went so far as to buy the exact same adorable little Weck jars that Deb advocated and then never got around to using them until this icy cold January weekend. Truth is, the jars were much smaller than I'd imagined. After filling two cute tea sized jars, I spooned the rest into a big cereal bowl. Genteel eating at tea, unbridled gluttony later. 

Smitten Kitchen includes the recipe for miniature homemade vanilla wafers and, honestly, I had every intention of making them until I saw you can now purchase the same teeny variety of this cookie in  your local grocery store. In my defense, I'd just returned from Montana when Terri arrived so there wasn't a lot of time to spend in the kitchen before she came. As a hostess, who wants to be bound to the kitchen making a Deb intensive recipe??? Not this girl! 

The pudding came together great, with a rich, creamy texture and plenty of banana flavor.  It’s either going to be good news or bad news when I tell you the mixture should be made a day ahead. Me? I’d just as soon have things already prepared long before whatever event I’m cooking for, but I definitely also understand how you can get something this delicious cooked up and then be desperate to dig in immediately. The pudding will taste fine once it is set but, trust me, it will be way way better given a night to set up and baste in it’s own yumminess. 

If you don’t have twee little jars, you can also make this pudding in an 8x8 pan. You’ll need to use a full batch of the homemade wafers and probably make double the whipped cream for the top, if prepared in this way. 

Banana Pudding 

Recipe Courtesy of Smitten Kitchen

Custard

3⁄4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar

1⁄4 cup (35 grams) cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

6 large egg yolks

3 1⁄2 cups (830 ml) milk, preferably whole

2 tablespoons (30 grams) butter, cut into a few bits

1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla

1 tablespoon (15 ml) dark rum (optional, but think it has an amazing impact here)

Wafers

1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar

Seeds from 1/2 of a fresh vanilla bean

1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

1 tablespoon (15 ml) vanilla extract

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/3 cups (176 grams) all-purpose flour

Assembly

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

4 large firm-ripe bananas, thinly slices

Make the custard: Whisk sugar, cornstarch, salt and yolks together in the bottom of a large saucepan, ideally 4-quarts to protect against splattering as it simmers. Drizzle in milk, whisking the whole time so that no lumps form. Place over medium heat on the stove and bring up to a simmer, stirring. Once simmering, stirring, until custard thickens, 4 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat; whisk in butter, vanilla, and rum. Let chill in fridge for several hours or overnight to finish thickening. You’ll have 4 cups custard.

Make the wafers: Heat oven to 350°F. In the bottom of a large bowl, combine sugar and vanilla been seeds, rubbing them together so that the abrasion from the sugar granules helps release the maximum vanilla flavor. Add the butter and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, beat to combine. Sprinkle baking powder and salt over batter, beat to combine. Add flour and once again, beat just to combine.

Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats. Using your tiniest scoop (yes, I actually have one that holds about 1 teaspoon), spoon or even a 1-teaspoon measuring spoon, scoop the dough (you can then roll it in your palms for a more perfect final round shape) and space at least 2 inches apart on prepared sheets. Bake 10 to 11 minutes, keeping a close eye on them. You’ll want them to be nicely golden at the edges before you take them out. Let cool on racks. Yield: About 80 1 3/4-inch cookies.

Assembly: Beat heavy cream with 2 teaspoons sugar until soft peaks form. Line the bottom of 8 1-cup dishes with a wafer cookie. Add custard (you’re looking to use about 1/3 of it total right now). Top with a layer of bananas. Repeat twice with more cookies (you can break them up to get them to fit better in small cups), custard and bananas. Dollop each pudding with whipped cream; chill (I prefer to do so with lids on so the whipped cream doesn’t dry out) for a few hours and up to a few days.

Whoops...I forgot to get a picture of this before I'd already dug in

Eight Can Crock Pot Soup

The red crock pot has my soup. How does it look? 

I often think of soup as a satisfying dish you can spend all morning making - dicing vegetables, cutting up potatoes, stirring soup stock and, best of all, filling your kitchen with the aroma of homemade goodness. On a cold winter day, there's little more satisfying than busying yourself in the kitchen, knowing a big pot of soup awaits the end of your efforts.

This soup is, however, the exact opposite of what I've described since all you do is open up a bunch of cans and then wait for the crock-pot to do its magic.  It's easy and a good choice to serve up at a luncheon. Which is exactly what I did - and will do again, in the future.

One last specific note about this soup. The chili peppers in the Rotel tomatoes do add some spice.  I use the mild version and it still has a little bit of punch.

Eight Can Crock Pot Soup

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 can Rotel tomatoes (tomatoes with chili peppers)
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can Veg-All mixed vegetables
1 can chili WITH BEANS
1 can chili WITHOUT BEANS
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato soup
1 can vegetable soup

Directions:
Brown and drain ground beef. (OK...so I lied. This part involves more than opening a can.) Then add, but DO NOT DRAIN the Rotel tomatoes, corn, veg-all, chilis, diced tomatoes, and the soups. Turn crock pot to LOW, may simmer all day. Any leftovers can be frozen.