Potatoes, Potatoes and Potatoes!!

Super Simple Basic Recipee #2 Mashed Potatoes, Baked Potatoes and Oven "Fries"

OK, Laura and I seem to be moving forward on a potato thing, but you cannot get much thriftier than basic potatoes. There are a good source of complex carbohydrates and vitamin C (especially if you eat the skins). Here are some super good, super simple ways to make them.

Homemade Mashed Potatoes (makes 2 very large servings)
*1 pound potatoes (any non waxy type such as russets, idaho, yukon gold etc. Not small red potatoes which are better for cold potato salads). Peel skins and cut in quarters. Place in lukewarm water in a medium saucepan with about 1/4 tsp of salt
*Boil on the stovetop about 25 minutes...maybe a bit longer until a fork easily goes through a potato chunk
*While the potatoes are cooking, get the rest of the ingredients together:
1/3 cup milk, 1 tablespoon butter and salt (to taste..add last). Get something to mash the potatoes with initially and your hand held mixer out.
*When the potatoes are done, quickly drain the water (you don't have to be religious about every drop), add the milk and the butter and smash the potatoes a little to break up the big pieces. Then beat them with your hand held mixer until smooth. Add 1/2 tsp salt initially, more later if you want.
*Serve immediately

This is just the super simple basic recipe. You can easily double, triple, quadruple this recipe. You can add a bit more milk or butter. You can replace the butter with a tablespoon or so of cream cheese (this reduces the saturated fats by quite a bit) or you can add several tablespoons of shredded cheddar cheese. You can add a tablespoon of shallots, fresh chives, parsley or green onions at the end.
You can use this basic recipe to refill Laura's hollowed out skins for twice baked potatoes. Carefully remove the insides leaving 1/4 inch of potato and skin and use the mashed potato recipe to refill the skins. Rewarm at 350 F. for 20-30 minutes.


Baked Potatoes
This is why we always eat the skins!!
*Scrub the outsides of a baking type potato (non waxy types) under cool water
*Dry them well, poke several holes in the potatoes with a fork
*Pour a little canola oil into your hand and oil the surfaces of the potato, then roll in salt (I really like coarse or kosher salt)
*Bake for 50-60 minutes in a 350 F oven
(This is also a special way to make twice baked potatoes)

Oven Fries
*Allow a medium sized potato per person, minimum
*Scrub the outsides of your potatoes under cool water
*Cut in half lengthwise, then cut the halves lengthwise. You will now have four pieces which you will slice lengthwise in half again.
*Place in warm water for 10 minutes (this makes the outsides crispy)
*Remove from water and dry with a clean towel
*Toss with 1/2 tablespoon or so of canola oil per potato and lay out in a single layer on a cookie sheet.
*Sprinkle with salt (I really like coarse salt)
*Bake 400 F for about 15-20 minutes

I love these. They have no artificial preservatives, no saturated fat and taste divine. Coarse salt really does taste better on these and can be found in your grocers , usually labeled kosher (least expensive) or specialty (most expensive) Many times, it's the little things that make the difference!!!

Potato Skins

For this I have to thank Simply Recipes.  Without the beautiful photography on that blog, I may not have made these and that would have been a shame.  I, of course, had to put my own spin on these.

Here is what I did:

1.  Bake some potatoes - I usually use Russet potatoes, wash them, dry them and smear them with a tiny bit of butter.  I have found the easiest way to do this is take a baggie on my hand, pinch off a bit of butter and proceed to rub it all over the potato (or pan - if I need to grease a pan).  I know that many people pierce their potatoes with a fork to keep them from exploding, but I come from a potato growing family and we have never had that problem.  I bake them at 400 for about 45-60 minutes, or at 325 for as long as I feel like it.  :o)  It is completely possible to over-bake potatoes, and I have done it a few times, but the insides are fine, it is just the skins that aren't so tasty anymore. 

2.  Serve as baked potatoes.  My family doesn't usually eat the skins of their baked potatoes anyway, so this doesn't matter.  You could also cut them in half and scoop out the flesh for mashed potatoes, or hash, or a number of things.

3.  Scoop out any remaining flesh, and save for another purpose.  I scoop almost all of it out instead of leaving a 1/4 inch or so like most people because I like the skins to be crunchy.  My skins also don't look nice and neat like Simply Recipe's, but they are still very tasty! 

4.  Heat up the oven to 450 degrees.  Place skins on a rimmed cookie sheet.  Brush or spray with olive oil - or whatever oil suits you - on both sides. 

5.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crunchy, flipping halfway through.

6.  Take out of oven and top grated cheese and if you want, some crumbled ham, bacon, chicken, whatever you like.  Put back into oven until cheese is bubbly - a couple of minutes.

7.  Remove and serve with sour cream and BBQ sauce.  At least, that is what I like to have it with!

8.  Enjoy the oohs and ahhs from your family and friends.

Super Simple Recipe #1 ..Medium White Sauce for Mac N Cheese and More

White Sauce for Mac n Cheese, Chicken Pot Pie and More


Medium White Sauce
2 Tbsp butter …….Melted in a medium saucepan over medium heat until just bubbly
2 Tbsp flour ……… Add and stir quickly to blend…Cook one minute
¼ tsp salt
1 cup milk………….Whisk in with a wire whisk or a fork ¼ cup at a time
Cook until thickened….about 3-5 minutes stirring occasionally

This is a very easy basic recipe that can be altered easily as long as you keep the ratio of flour and fat the same. To reduce saturated fats you can successfully replace the butter in a white sauce with 50% olive oil/50% butter. You can use skim milk, 1%, 2% or whole milk. You can also replace up to half of the milk with half and half or cream but do NOT boil it after as the cream will curdle. Warm the half and half/cream on the stove top or in the microwave (carefully!) then add to the rest of the sauce after it is thickened. I often use the cream variation of this sauce in making creamed soups. So with this basic recipe, you can make super simple Mac N cheese( see below), the inside of a Chicken Pot Pie(see below), or with some minor variations, creamed soups, gravies, Alfredo sauce and other delectable goodies. You can even make your own cream of mushroom soup to replace the stuff you by in cans!! Although, honestly, it probably won’t get as far as the casserole…it’s just that good. Creamed soups in a later post, Mac N Cheese for now!


For Homemade Mac N Cheese:
*To the medium white sauce recipe, stir in ½ to 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (or cut up into thin pieces if you don’t have a shredder) until it is melted and the sauce is smooth. Then add…….*8 ounces of cooked and drained macaroni noodles (either whole wheat or regular. Any noodle that has some body; shells, spirals, wagon wheels etc). You can begin boiling the noodles right before you make the white sauce and they will cook for 5 minutes while the white sauce is cooking. It’s better if you don’t overcook the noodles

THAT”S IT, that’s all. My kids always called this Mac A Cheese……. It was a favorite for lunch or a super fast easy supper. Your kids will love it, especially if they are not used to the highly salted, over processed stuff AND...you can actually pronounce all of the ingredients in it. You can add a bit more salt if you think you need to, some course ground pepper , a little onion (like a tablespoon or so) or some leftover cut up ham, but you don’t have to. You can vary the cheeses in it. ( If you use strongly flavored cheeses like Parmesan or Romano, use less than a cup.) You may also put this in a casserole and bake it topped with crumbled crackers and a little cut up butter over the top, but again, you really don’t have to.


For Chicken Pot Pie (Chicken A La King as my mother called it)
To the white sauce, add 1 cup cut up leftover chicken, a chicken bouillon cube (I use a package of George Washington Seasoning..it boosts the flavor), 2 -3 Tbsp chopped onion cooked in a little oil for 2-3 minutes with one peeled and chopped carrot and ½ cup frozen peas (add them last because they cook really fast)

TA DA!!! THAT’S IT, that’s all. Serve over toast (easiest) or mashed potatoes (next easiest) OR if you want a real treat, divide into four oven proof bowls and place a square of puff pastry over the top. (super easy, but not super thrifty) Bake in your oven according to the puff pastry directions. If you are ambitious, place inside a pie crust. Now we are not talking easy, but we are talking good.

Mmmm. Soup.

This is the first time I have made this particular soup and it is wicked good.  Seriously.  I got 'yums' from my picky eaters (and don't tell them this, but it has lots of veggies in it).  It is called 'U.S. Senate Bean Soup' and I got it from "Joy of Cooking".  It said something about how it has been on the menu at the Senate since dinosaurs roamed the earth.  There is a reason for that.  Gooooooood.  It called for a small ham hock, but there was nothing small about our pig and I have shanks which include the hock.  Another good reason to have an inventory - I was convinced that I had a hock in the freezer and without an inventory I would have been out in the freezing garage cursing and searching through the freezer.

So, I used the pork shank that I had, and after boiling it for a couple of hours I picked off the meat and only added a cup and a half of shredded meat back again.  This left me plenty of meat to work with for future recipes, one of the bones went to my dog with the rest in the freezer for to distract him when we really don't want him around.  Yay!  I also saved the fat off the shank.  I will use it instead of butter (cheaper too!) when I need to saute something and want the ham flavor - potatoes for example.  Keep tuned!

Here is the recipe for the U.S. Senate Bean Soup (slightly adapted from "Joy of Cooking"):

Bring the following to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer together for a couple of hours or until meat is very tender and falling off the bone:

7 cups water (I needed 14 cups of water to cover my pork shank -so when the meat and bones were ready to come out I just took out 7 cups of water and then froze it to use when I want to make this soup again - without the hock/shank)

1 small ham hock 

1 1/4 cup white beans (I used navy beans - and they were too pretty not to take a picture of)

Remove ham hock and pick off the meat.  Add back to the pot. Add:

1 large baking potato, peeled and finely diced (I actually used the inside of a baked potato leftover from last night - reserving the skins for potato skins of course!) 

1 large onion (or 2 small ones!), diced

3 medium stalks of celery with leaves, chopped

2 (or more!) cloves of garlic, minced (this means cut up really fine)

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

Whenever I have more than one thing that needs to be chopped/minced I use my food chopper (as seen in the picture) or my food processor.  It makes it worth washing if I am going to chop a few things with it and it makes the food prep go so much faster.  I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to be one of those people who can slice and dice and make it look effortless - plus they always seem to be able to do it evenly! I have a relation who can and I am always jealous when I see him smoothly cutting up veggies in the kitchen.  He is pretty handy with teeth too - he just opened up his own dentistry practice in Madison.  I, however, have grown to be content with my food chopper and processor along with my mediocre slicing abilities.   

Cook until potato is soft (about 20-30 minutes), then mash with a potato masher to make soup slightly creamy.   Stir in 2 TBL chopped fresh parsley.  I didn't do this, b/c I didn't have any fresh parsley.  Serve with bread.  Yummy!

This would be an easy one to do in the crock pot too.  I would put the beans and hock/shank in the crock pot all day on low, and then add the other ingredients 20-30 minutes before I wanted to eat.  Happy cooking!
 

Chili Mac and Beyond

So here ends the saga of the second pile of taco meat.  Hooray!  Actually all of these were pretty good.  I was just a little tired of the taco seasoning taste by the end.  First up is a variation on chili mac.  I just cooked a package of elbow macaroni (in retrospect, I should only have cooked half the box).  Then I put those in a 9x9 cassarole dish and topped with the leftover salsa and taco meat.  Then I grated some cheese, sprinkled it on top and baked it for about 25 minutes in a 325 degree oven.  That was pretty good, but I sent it in Jake's lunch - so I had to come up with something different for supper.  (Remember the two meals in a row rule?  BTW - Jake says he wants to be recast - he says he sounds too picky in my blog.  I told him that if he wasn't picky he wouldn't be portrayed as picky.)  Anyway.  I fried up some potatoes and then took the meat/cheese/salsa cap off, broke it up and sauteed it for a few minutes with the potatoes.  I forgot to take a picture of the final produce, but you get the idea. 

I still had the noodles to deal with.  I intended to make some kind of noodle pancake, but the elbow macaroni didn't want to stick together nicely like spaghetti do.  It still turned out fairly well though.  My five year old loved it.  I mixed a couple of eggs in with the noodles and broke up a couple of pieces of bacon that we had leftover from our waffle weekend.  Then I just sauteed the whole thing in some butter (or maybe bacon fat - I don't really remember).  So that was the last of it, and I don't think that I will be making tacos again for a while...

Laura's Laws of Thrifty Cooking #7

THIS IS A PROCESS!

There is no way that you will be able to implement every thrifty practice into your life overnight.  If you try, you will get overwhelmed and stop.  There is absolutely no shame in taking things slow and incorporating things one at a time, as you feel comfortable.  I am still working on many of my own "laws" and it has taken me years to get this far.  Literally.  Years. Please keep in mind that it takes time to form new habits, and learn new techniques, but it does get easier.  Lots easier.  I hardly have to think about making bread anymore.  My little girls do most of the work now - for some reason they love bread dough, and I guess that motivates them.  :o)  When I first started cooking, I found that cookbooks had a lot of assumed knowledge, and so do most cooks.  We are trying here to help with that.  Please ask us questions about anything and keep in mind that this is a process!

Turkey Soup

So, I was faced with a dilemma this week. I had to find something that I could bring for supper for some friends. They live about 45 minutes away and have two small children, one of whom just had heart surgery (at 2!). Anyway, I needed something that would be quick, easy and kids would eat. Of course I called my MIL (mother in law). She is an awesome cook and always has great ideas. She suggested using up the last of our Christmas turkey for soup. Fantastic! I adapted a recipe of hers to the situation and made it the day before - fed 4 adults and two kids and then brought the remainder, fed 4 adults, two kids and still had a lot of leftovers. I forgot to take a picture until after we all ate, but you can still get the idea. (By the way - it was a hit!)



Turkey Soup

1 Turkey carcass (I always pick off pretty much all the meat that I see to use for other things, and still usually have plenty of meat in my soup - this time I added some extra meat because I wanted it plenty meaty)

Place in a stockpot and just cover with water. Add some vegetables - a carrot, a celery stick, an onion. Or, you can save vegetable peelings and use those to flavor your stock. That is what I do. When you peel vegetables for other things, stick them in a bag in the freezer for future use.  I have one bag for onions, one for carrots and one for celery.  Then, whenever I make a stock I just bring out the bags and dump them in. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. I usually cook at a simmer for about 4 hours or so. Then strain out the stock, let the carcass cool for a little while then pick the meat off. You may be surprised how much you get off! I always am.

Add the meat back to the stock. Add peeled carrots cut into about 1/2 to 1 inch pieces. Add sliced onions. I usually cut my onions into quarters and then slice them. Add cut up celery, cover and cook at a simmer for about an hour. Then add amish type noodles (you can buy these in the noodle section of your grocery store) or make homemade - recipe following. After noodles are cooked add dumplings.


Dumplings

1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup milk
flour

Mix beaten egg and milk together. Gradually add flour until the consistency of pancake batter, about 1 1/2 cups. Dip the spoon into the liquid before dropping dumplings to prevent dough from sticking Drop teaspoon into boiling broth to form small dumplings. Cook for about 5 minutes.


German Egg Noodles

1 beaten egg
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBL milk
1 cup flour (approx)

Combine egg, salt, and milk. Add enough flour to make stiff dough. Roll very thin on floured surface. Let stand 20 minutes. Roll up the dough and cut into 1/8 inch thick strips. Spread on paper to dry. Drop into boiling soup and cook 10 minutes.

This soup was really good. You can add some seasoning if you want. My MIL uses "Orrington farms chicken flavored ( as directed with water)". I am not really a bullion person, but hers is fantastic too. Sometimes, I taste the soup and then smell some of my spices. If they smell good, I might add some. Trust your senses. You can always take a cup of soup and just flavor that to try it out if you don't want to risk your whole pot of soup. Have fun!

PS - I often freeze my leftover soups and then pull them out for a quick meal when I am super busy.