Too darned good again, I never learn my lesson

I initially made the basis for today’s edibles when I had just delved into the sordid underbelly of food blogs. Hence the shabbier than shabby pictures, and lack of recipes in many of my early posts.
My friend Maurice lived for those cakes, which originally were made with potato. He is an awesome friend. Also my acting partner in crime as we get together and help each other prep for auditions and such. Then we don’t feel so alone like the tortured artists we are. Ennui, etc…Being as such, I will make (almost) anything for him. And I let him finish the original batch of these cakes. I should have made more, as he kept asking for the “things with kelp”. He is now more than well schooled in kale, fortunately or not.
I didn’t get a chance to share my butternut squash version of these with him because again, they were TOO DARNED delicious and I devoured them all.
Butternut Kale Cakes adapted from this recipe in the January 2011 Bon Appetit
For Cakes:
1 cup cooked, mashed butternut squash
2 tsp. butter
1/2 tsp. kosher salt, divided
freshly ground black pepper to taste
olive oil spray
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/4 tsp. minced garlic (I used jarred)
8 lacinato kale leaves, cleaned, stemmed, and chopped
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh sage
1 tsp. dried powdered thyme
dash nutmeg
For Rouille:
1/2 cup reduced fat mayonnaise
Heaping dashes of cayenne and paprika OR Sriracha
1/4 tsp. minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Mash up the squash with the buttah, 1/4 tsp. salt, and some pepper. Heat olive oil spray over medium then sauté the onion until softened. Add kale, garlic, 1/4 tsp. salt, and sage and sauté until the kale is wilted and all liquid has evaporated. Stir into the squash with the thyme, nutmeg, and more pepper if you like. Allow to rest for about 20 minutes and heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake 20 minutes on one side then gently flip and cook 20-30 minutes more. These are delicate. If you like broil for maybe one minute to get a bit crispy on the outside. Meanwhile, thoroughly mix up rouille ingredients. That was difficult. Hot or cold, these are grand.

Poturnip, potato

I admit I really like that old-school mayo-mustardy potato salad. Oddly enough I’m generally not the biggest mayonnaise person, but that salad I can get behind.
I wanted to use up the spate of potatoes and turnips I got from the CSA so I decided to adapt this recipe from the May Bon Appetit into a potato-turnip salad.

I also left out the chopped red onion because I can’t take tasting red onion all day.

Then, whilst mashing the hard-boiled egg yolks for the filling and looking at the whites I realized it:

This potato-turnip salad makes the best deviled eggs on earth.

And then you don’t waste the whites or have to eat them plain.

Seriously, BA, why did you not think if this? Slackers.

Eggy Potato Turnip Salad adapted from the May 2012 BonAppetit
1/2 pound boiled red potatoes, halved
2 c. Chopped boiled turnips
2 hard-boiled egg yolks, mashed
2 Tbsp. juice from a jar if sweet pickles
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 c. Reduced fat mayo
Heaping 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
2 1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard
Sweet pickle chips to garnish
paprika to garnish
Mash the potatoes, yolks and turnips coarsely, part it should have large chunks amidst the sea of mash. Mix salt, pepper, juice, mayo, and mustard. Stir into the mash. Divide amongst you, yourself and whoever and garnish with the sweet pickle chip and paprika. Yah.

OR be brilliant and fill the discarded whites with the salad. Pshaw.

Eat it. Eat it all.

Exercising restraint is so last month.
Papas=potatoes in Spanish. Chorreadas is…well according to my translator app it means chorreadas. Great. Anyone want to help me out here?
Well, either way. This dish had addictive qualities. And it’s easy to make. So you should.

It is from one of my first cookbooks, Laurel’s Kitchen. Laurel is old-school.

I ate half of this, went to bed, then got up in the middle of the night and ate the rest. Growing girl here. Been dancing like a mad-woman.

Menage a deux

RED AND WHITE FOOD FOR THE REDBIRDS: GO CARDINALS!!!

I was a bit puzzled why this was “boulangerie” fare. A boulangerie is a French bakery. Then I read my darling Mark Bittman’s blurb for this dish where he says it was traditionally cooked in a baker’s oven for hours. So I guess that’s the connection. Now that today’s lesson in French food words is done we can get on with it. Mais oui. Damn I want a croissant now. Avec beurre. Beurre makes everything better. Stop rambling Ellen. Okay.
French cooking can be remarkably downhome. Downright hippie. A glass of green tea with some of my SSSS ginger water would go well with this. Or some French wine. Take your pick. Eat this and you’ll be ready to go do things like wash your hair with baking soda. Which I do periodically and it rocks. Thanks for that hippie tip, Joy the Baker.
I played around a bit with this one…and it turned out well. I used red beans instead of white(Bittman says its ok, I did not peel my potatoes, and I reduced the recipe to serve deux and baked it in two individual pie plates instead of making a big casserole.
Of course, if you bake in disposable aluminum bakers you realize you cannot reheat these suckers in the microwave. But all can be unloaded onto a plate then zapped:

Now, time to menage a deux. It’s sexy to have a menage of two when it’s dinner.
Boulangerie Bean and Potatoes for deux(adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman, cookbook love o my life):
1 cup of cooked red beans
1/4 + 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
3 small Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and thinly sliced
1/3 cup water
salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp. butter
Preheat oven to 325. Put divide beans between two small bakers. Stir in 1/8 a tsp. of thyme into each, then salt and pepper to taste. A goute as the French say. Layer taters over. Pour the H2O over. Dot with butter, sprinkle with remaining thyme, and some more salt and pepper. Cover with foil and cook for 45 minutes. Uncover and cook 45 more or until the potatoes are looking a bit brown.
Go wash hair with baking soda while its cooking. Your locks will be sqeaky clean.
AND GO CARDS!!!

Got any random beauty tips? What’s your favorite French food?

#EggsPicklesCelery

Okay, so I have used the whole hash tags theme before, but I can’t help it. I think that things like hash tags and emoticons are great. They are a unique way of enhancing the written(or typed) language.
But let’s talk about the gruel. I got a little crazy last week. Cheating on Mark Bittman with Chocolate Covered Katie. Mmm, mmm, mmmmmm. Tsk. This week I returned to my main man Mark and my beloved How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. This was another variation on straight-up Egg Hash. Vegans, never fear. There is a tempeh hash coming soon. Come to think of it, you could probably trade out the eggs for tempeh and the butter for olive oil and make this vegan.
This was good. Bittman describes it as being like a warm potato salad. I ate it warm, then I ate the leftovers cold which is what I prefered. Then again I like things cold that I am not supposed to. Like oatmeal…

Egg Hash with Celery and Pickles(adapted, just a bit, from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian)
olive oil spray
1 Tbsp. butter, separated into 1 tsp. and 2 tsps.
4 red new potatoes, chopped
salt
freshly ground pepper
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, whites chopped and yolks mashed(keep separate)
1 tsp. minced garlic
8 tsp. chopped scallions
8 tsp. minced celery
8 tsp. minced pickles
1 tsp. dijon mustard
Parsley for garnish(I am discovering these finishing touches really do make a difference, adding freshness and balance to the dish, so don’t omit and don’t use dried)
Mist pan with olive oil, add 1 tsp. butter and turn heat to medium-high. Add taters, sprinkle with salt and pepper and let cook undisturbed until edges brown. Toss, turn heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally until crisp and golden. Add a splash of H2O, scrape up any browned bits and transfer all to a plate. Turn heat back to medium high, add 2 tsps. butter and melt. Add egg whites and let cook undisturbed until they start to sizzle. Add salt and pepper and toss. Turn heat to medium and add garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally until garlic and eggs are golden, about 2 minutes. Add back the potatoes, along with the scallion, toss, and cook on medium-low for about 3 minutes. Stir in yolks, celery, pickles and dijon mustard. Put it on a plate, garnish with parsley, and gobble. Or daintily nibble. Whatever you like. I chilled and devoured it.

#ChipotleEggs

Ok, so technically this dish was Chipotle Egg Hash but I could not resist playing on that by hash-tagging it. Get it? I am too easily amused.
This dish intrigued me because
a)Who ever heard of sauteeing hard-boiled eggs?The cookbook-writing love of my life Mark Bittman, that’s who. Crazy!
b)chipotles. spicy. num. all in lower-caps for some reason.
c)Before I became a vegetarian at the age of 12 hash of the corned beef variety was one of the few meat dishes I really dug.

This dish totally rocked. Adding chipotles was a variation on the original recipe, which I am going to give a whirl, as well as a couple of the other variations, methinks. In the meantime, try this because it is easy and awesome.
Chipotle Egg Hash(slightly adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman)
olive oil spray
2 tsp. butter, divided
1 white potato
salt
freshly ground pepper
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 tsp. chopped garlic
2 Tbsp. green onions
1 canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced
cilantro

Dice potato. Spray a skillet with olive oil and melt 1 teaspoon butter over medium high heat. Add potato, salt and freshly ground pepper and cook about five minutes undisturbed then stir, turn heat to medium and cook until browned, about 10 minutes. Add a splash of water to pan, scrape up any tasty browned bits, transfer all to a plate.
Separate whites and yolks. Mash yolks with the chipotle and chop whites into big chunks. Melt 1 teaspoon butter over medium-high, add whites and cook undisturbed until they are browning and sizzling. Add salt and freshly ground pepper. Stir, add garlic and cook a bit more. Stir in potatoes and green onion and cook a bit more. Lastly stir in yolk mixture. Garnish with cilantro. Don’t forget the cilantro. Unless you are one of those nutjobs who does not care for it. Kidding. You are not a nutjob, but you are missing out.

This potato salad lacks charisma

…but it makes up for it’s lackluster looks with excellent taste. And the roses behind it are smashing, no? I wish I had exotic exciting taste in flowers like Eleanor, that would be cool. But no, I love the traditional romance of wine, candles and red roses. I digress. Because I am supposed to be talking about this recipe: Potato salad with cream cheese dressing from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by my other love in life, Mark Bittman. I had adorable fingerling taters from my organic delivery and cream cheese( ok it was fat free but it worked well) and half n half(Bittman calls for cream but I subbed this with success)in the fridge that needed using. I made a half recipe:
3/4 lb taters, cut into edible bites, boiled til tender.
6 Tbsp. Cream cheese, 1/4 cup of half in half melted in a small saucepan. Then whisk in 1/2 a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice, plus salt and pepper to taste. Fold in taters with 2 Tbsp. of chives. Chill. Both the potato salad and you, if you’ve got leisure time. Me, I ran off to acting class while the salad chilled.