Almost healthy potato gratin

I love potatoes, they are probably my favourite food.  I like them boiled, mashed, fried any way I can get them.  Potatoes sliced and cooked with cheese in the oven is found in almost every European culture, in France it is called potatoes au gratin, in North America it is called scalloped potatoes.  What these two dishes have in common is cream or milk and lots of calories, so I decided to lighten up the dish and made a version with much less cheese and chicken stock instead of cream.

I used asiago cheese as that was what I had in my fridge.  Asiago is an Italian cheese, and is strong flavoured similar to paramazan.  Any cheese would do, but the stronger the cheese the less you need to use.

This made a dish that served 6

6 medium potatoes thinly sliced, I used my new mandoline and managed not to slice my finger!
1 yellow onion thinly sliced
1 cup of grated cheese
1/4 cup of grated parmazan
1 cup of chicken stock.

Put a layer of potato slices in the bottom of a baking dish, I used a deep sided pie plate.  They should be just overlapping and cover the bottom completely. Then layer 1/4 of the onion on top.

Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on top then a 1/4 of the cheese.

Easy roast chicken with carrots and potatoes

I guess it is no secret I love roast chicken, I love the smell of it cooking, I love crispy chicken skin and I love the versatility of it.  Chicken goes with so many flavours and is a staple in just about every culture in the world. Sunday night I was feeling like roast chicken and decided to do another riff on the chicken legs cooked on a bed of vegetables.

I kept this very simple letting the taste of the wonderful free range chicken shine through. There was 4 for dinner that evening, so I used four whole chicken legs cut in half and a whole de boned breast.  I was hoping to have a couple of pieces left over for lunch, but I was sadly disappointed.

To feed 4

2 pieces of cut up chicken per person (maybe extra if they are hungry)
1 medium potato per person cut into chunks
1 carrot per person sliced thickly
1/2 small onion per person or 2 green onions per person chopped
2 cloves of garlic sliced for 4 people
Sprig of rosemary
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Place the potatoes, carrots, onion and garlic in the bottom of a roasting tin. Drizzle with olive oil salt and pepper and toss together.

Chicken breast with yogurt and potatoes

It is January, and that means only one thing new years resolutions.  I, like the vast majority of the western world, every year resolves to get in to shape and lose weight.  This year I have an added resolve to lose 17lbs by June 27 when I retire, I want to look good at my retirement party and I want to be in good shape to enjoy a long healthy retirement.  I publicly declaring this to make me accountable. So the first thing to do is start tracking everything you eat, stepping up the activity and cooking lighter.

Boneless skinless chicken breasts are one of the best choices when cooking light, but they can be so dry and tasteless, so my challenge is find ways to make them moist and tasty with out adding too much fat.  For Christmas this year my Father bought me a mandolin, something I have been wanting for a while and this was the first time using this to slice my potatoes, and it was great, quick and easy to clean up.

I sliced them fairly thin so that they would cook quicker.

Feeds two

2 medium to small potatoes sliced fairly thin
1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
2 chicken breast
1/2 cup of low fat plain Greek yogurt
1 clove of garlic grated or put through a garlic press
1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese

Toss the potato slices in the olive oil and salt and pepper and place in the bottom of small roasting tin.

Grilled rack of lamb and duck fried potatoes

I have been absent from the blog for a few of weeks, as summer, catering and weekends out of town got in the way.  But the summer is over :( the catering is all done and time to settle back down in to my routines.  This meal is one that I cooked up at Pender Harbour earlier in the summer and was enjoyed by my good friend and I as we spent a couple of days capturing a little peace and quiet.

If the sun is not shining and you do not want to use the barbecue, these would be just as good cooked under the broiler.

1 rack of lamb
2 tablespoons of grainy mustard
Sprig of fresh rosemary stripped from the stalk
Salt and pepper

Cut the lamb rack into cutlets and then coat in the mustard salt and pepper.  then press the rosemary into the meat.  

I left this to mellow while we went for a walk. then heated up the barbecue. These cook quickly as lamb chops are really best when pink in the middle.

Ground turkey hash a one pot meal

I love one pot meals, because I do not love washing up and I especially love dishes like this, that can be made ahead and provide a quick easy dinner after work, or even lunch at work.

Serves 4

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1lb ground turkey (or beef)
1 yellow onion chopped
1 clove of garlic sliced
4 ribs of celery
1 small butternut squash peeled and chopped
2 medium potatoes chopped
1 bay leaf
handful of chopped parsley
1 jalapeno pepper chopped finely
1 cup of frozen peas or edema beans
Salt and pepper to taste

Add the olive oil and turkey to a large saute pan and cook stirring often until the turkey is almost cooked through and then add the onion and garlic.

Continue to cook, until the onion is softened, then add the remaining ingredients except the peas or beans.

Kale and potatoes

One dish that appeared to be on every menu in Croatia was kale and potatoes.  This along with grilled vegetables seemed to be one of the only vegetable dish that was served.  I was OK with this, as actually I really liked it. So on my return I had to have a go at cooking it.

• Enough good chicken stock, preferably home made to just cover the potatoes
• 2 small yellow potatoes for each person cut into chunks
• 1 bunch of kale for each 4 people.

Place the chicken stock and the potatoes in a large pot, cook until the potatoes are almost cooked through.  Cook with the top off, so that the chicken stock cooks down, making sure it does not dry out.

spinach and potato soup

On the weekends I like to make soup, sometimes a large batch to last a few meals during the week, and sometimes just to use up some ingredients languishing in the fridge.  This weekend I had a container of baby spinach sitting in my fridge, which the plans I had had for it did not come to fruition.  So spinach soup it would be.

This made enough for 3 for lunch.

1 onion chopped
1 garlic clove sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 bag of baby spinach
3 cups of chicken stock
3 small potatoes chopped into about 11/2 inch cubes
1/2 cup of milk
a couple of gratings of fresh nutmeg.

Sweat the onion and garlic in the olive oil for a couple of minutes until the onion is translucent. Add the spinach.

Stir in, this will soon collapse down to almost nothing.

Roast pork tenderloin with roast vegetables

I really like pork tenderloin, it is pork and I love pork, but it also low fat and tender, and therefore fits in with my healthy eating plan right now.  I picked up a couple of pork tenderloin's from Hopcott's and though there was only two of us for dinner, I decided to cook them both, so that I had left overs for dinner or lunch during the week.

This is a one dish meal (less washing up) and with an addition of a green salad is healthy and very tasty. I used potatoes, carrots and fennel, because that is what I had in the fridge, but winter squash, eggplant or red peppers would have been great too.

Enough for 4

2 pork tenderloins
grated zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of chili powder
4 medium potatoes
4 large carrots
1 bulb of fennel
1 sprig of rosemary
2 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Toss the vegetables with the garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil  and rosemary and place in a roasting tin.

Put this in a pre heated 400 oven for about 15 minutes.  While this is cooking prepare the pork tenderloin, by rolling it in the spices and lemon zest.

Locro de Papa and aji criollo

Almost every meal in Ecuador starts with sopa (soup) and it is often some version of locro de papa, (potato soup).  This soup is not dissimilar to the french leek and potato soup, but with the addition of cheese and avocado. Saturday night we were having a reunion party with some of the participants of our epic to adventure to Ecuador last fall, and I offered to cook an Ecuadorian dinner. Obviously it had to start with this soup

It is simple and easy to make, but does require a good chicken stock. Fortunately in the process of making one of the other dishes I had a large amount of very flavourful chicken stock.  I suspect like all traditional ubiquitous dishes there are as many recipes as there are families making it, so I combined several making it the way that I liked it best. I made enough for 20, but it would be very easy to cut down the quantities to a make more reasonable amount of soup, so I will give the measurements for  6 servings.

1 large onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 pounds of yellow potatoes peeled and cut into 2 inch cubes
5 cups of chicken stock
1 avocado sliced
Crumbled queso fresco cheese, or a mild feta would work as well.

Place the oil in a large pot and add the onion and garlic, cook slowly over low heat until the onions are translucent. Then add one cup of the stock.

Pour this into a blender or food processor.  Blend until the onion is pureed and add back to the pot.

Baked potato soup

At our Christmas Caroling party I always make soup to be served in Christmas mugs for when the cold wet (it always seems to be raining) return.  This soup was the ultimate in warming comfort food soups. I am afraid it was almost impossible to get a good picture of it, and I failed to get one in the cup as I was too busy serving and forgot. I found this recipe on a southern food site though I have changed it a little.

For 6 to 8 servings

2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup flour
4 cups milk
4 large baking potatoes, baked, cooled, scooped out of their skins and mushed up a little 4 cups
4 green onions, thinly sliced
10 to 12 strips bacon, cooked, drained, and crumbled
salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:

In a large pot over low heat, melt butter. Stir in flour; stir until the butter is all absorbed and the flour has cooked a little.

Gradually add milk, stirring constantly, until sauce has thickened. Add potatoes

and onions. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until soup begins to bubble. Reduce heat; simmer gently for 10 minutes. Cook the bacon until it is crisp and drain off any fat that has rendered out.

Barbecued Pizza

This is something that I have been wanting to try for a while, I have read about it and seen it on TV, but I have never actually tried it before. So on the last night of staying up at Pender Harbour I grilled two pizza's using what I found in the fridge and pantry for toppings.

I made one traditional style pizza with a tomato sauce, fresh tomatoes, mozzorela and fresh basil and one using pesto sauce, sliced cooked potatoes, provolone and fresh rosemary.

Now there were a couple of things I was missing for this experiment, proper flour (I was still using the easy blending flour), a pizza peel and a pizza stone.  I have seen this done with putting the dough directly on the grill, but without a pizza peel it is hard to transport a thin crust pizza with out misshaping it.  Also the easy blending flour does not make a very stretchy dough, I really would not reccomend it.  Any way nothing ventured nothing gained so I gave it a try.  I made my basic foccacia bread recipe and then formed the base of each pizza on an upturned cookie sheet.

Almost ratatouille

We came home from a hard day's shopping in Watford looking forward to moules marinier and french fries, a quick easy dinner to make, especially as Jacky's husband was making the fries.  So we did not really start thinking about cooking until very close to dinner time.  The fries were cut and soaking in water time to prepare the mussels.  Horrors the mussels were past their due date and not looking as healthy as they should and none of us wanted to take a chance, so plan b it was.

Jacky produced some chicken breasts and assorted vegetables from the cellar, we perused the ingredients and we came up with roasted ratatouille (substituting the eggplant with mushroom) chicken in home made barbecue sauce, green salad with warm balsamic dressing and of course french fries.

Jacky took on the chicken and salad, Howard the fries and I was responsible for the roasted vegetables.  I had

• 2 portabello mushrooms, 
• 2 red peppers, 
• 2 zucchini (courgettes), 
• 2 small red onions 
• a box of cherry tomatoes

I quickly chopped all the vegetables up through them in a roasting tin added the tomatoes and drizzled on some olive oil, and threw them in a 400 oven.  These cooked for just over half an hour which was the time it took to prepare the remainder of the meal. The vegetables were soft and just turning black on the edges, absolutely perfect.

Jubilee Dinner

After arriving back from watching the Flotilla on Sunday we changed into some dry clothes and set about making dinner.  Jacky had a couple of chicken breasts and a pork tenderloin in the fridge, so we used both in order to feed 6 of us.  She cut the chicken breast into 6 pieces and wrapped each one in a slice of bacon.  We then tossed these with the pork and some potatoes, leeks, garlic and a lemon cut up.

We drizzled over some olive oil and some ras hanout (morrocan spice) and roasted in a 400 oven for about ¾ of an hour, until everything was crispy and cooked through.  

We also had an amazing care package brought from Belgium of white asparagus.  

Roast butterflied chicken and potatoes

I have seen recently this method of cooking a whole chicken several times in the last month or so and have been meaning to try it for a while.  I have seen it cooked on top of a bed of vegetables, as well just potatoes and on the barbecue.  Butterflying the chicken in this way allows it to cook much quicker, and my family decided because of this it kept the chicken moister.

The thought of the chicken roasting on a bed of potatoes appealed to me, I recently cooked a roast rack of lamb on potatoes and the potatoes were wonderful.  With all the juices that come out of a chicken this could only be better.

Butterflying (or spatchcocking) is quite easy to do, but you do need a good pair or kitchen shears.  I expect any decent butcher would do it for you.

Feeds 4

1 whole frying chicken
4 medium potatoes sliced
1 onion sliced
sprig of thyme
sprig of sage
Drizzle of olive oil

Home made baked potato chips (crisps)

One of my biggest weaknesses is salty snacks, and right on top of the list of salty snacks is potato chips (or crisps as we called them in England).  This is not something I give in to very often, and only buy them when we are entertaining, and even then I often avoid them as might eat them before any guests arrive.

This weekend when wandering aimlessly around Gourmet Warehouse avoiding the rain, I came across something I have been wanting for a while, a mandolin.

This was not the fancy wooden (expensive) french mandolins, but a plastic smaller (cheaper) version.  I picked this up for less than $20.00 and I could not wait to use it.  So when we arrived home I decided to experiment with making baked chips to snack on with a glass of wine.

Spring roast lamb with lemon and rosemary

Saturday was warm and sunny, warm enough to eat lunch on the deck, finally spring is here.  This made me crave rack of lamb for some reason.  Probably because the day before I had seen some really good looking Canadian lamb at the local grocery store.  Any way I went back and picked up a very meaty 6 bone rack of lamb for dinner.  I had been browsing around on the Donna Hay magazine that I had on my Ipad and saw this rack roasted on top of potatoes, I thought that sounded like a really good idea, and so I decided to give it a try.

Serves 2

4 small potatoes thinly sliced
Sprig of rosemary
1/2 lemon thinly sliced
Rack of lamb
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Line a roasting tin or high sided cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the potatoes on the  bottom making a bed big enough to place the lamb on. Place on top a couple of slices of lemon and sprinkle on some rosemary leaves.

Sprinkle on some salt and pepper then place the lamb (which you have already dusted with salt and pepper) on top with the bone side down.

Quick and easy sausage supper

 I love Christmas and look forward to it every year, all the parties, the food, presents and family. Though I do love all these things, after the crescendo of Christmas day I crave some peace and Quiet.  So Nancy I ran away to Pender Harbour on the day after boxing day for two nights of rest and relaxation.  We cooked food left over in the fridge from the holidays played a lot of Quiddler and worked on some appetizers for New Years.

The weather was not perfect with little shots of sun bathing the local hills and islands for a few moments then moving on. But very conducive to rest and relaxation.  We arrived up there at about 6:00 and we were hungry, so after a very quick reconnoiter of what we had available we came up with this dish which will I believe go down as another Pender Harbour classic like Sunday night sausage and potato dinner While Nancy was turning on the water turning up the heat I turned the oven on to 400 and pulled the ingredients out of the bags we had brought.

6 small nugget potatoes halved
4 mild itatlian sausage chopped (these were from Hopcott's )
1/2 white onion chopped in to large chunks
6 whole mini sweet peppers (also from Hopcott's)
2 carrots sliced fairly thickly
1 clove of garlic sliced
4 tablespoons of olive oil.
A handful of fresh herbs we used parsley as that is what we had.

Throw all these ingredients into a roasting tin toss in the olive oil and salt and pepper.

Put this in the oven, for about 1/2 an hour to 3/4 depending on the size of your potatoes. This is just enough time to enjoy a glass of wine and a game of quiddler.

Roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts

Roasting vegetables that are usually steamed or boiled seems to be every where these days and for good reason.  Asparagus, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts all seem to improve with a little caramelising.  Brussels sprouts are actually in my opinion the king of the green vegetable kingdom, and I would eat them much more often if it was up to me.  I am afraid the rest of my family does not necessarily agree, they are willing to put up with them with a Sunday roast but that is about it.

But with my husband and father in Chicago for a few days I find my self on my own for dinners, so I can cook what ever I want.  This will often be eggplant or liver but it is the season of the Brussels sprout and I had one last potato from my garden to eat so I decided to roast them together.

This could hardly be called a recipe really just a suggestion.  Toss Brussels sprouts and chopped potato together with a little olive oil and some salt . I used about 2/3 sprouts to 1/3 potato.

The potatoes need to be cut quite small so that the sprouts do not get over cooked before the potatoes are ready.

Potage aka Leek and potato soup

Last week we were very kindly invited to the Cottager and his wife's for an informal dinner after work.  The Cottager was in charge of making an old favourite of mine Leek and potato soup, he had added carrots as well, and it was delicious. When I was a child growing up in England, we used to go to France for our holidays every year. One of the highlights of those trips for me was the food, the food in France tasted so much better than anything in England.  There were several things I had to have every year, Stuffed tomato from a charcuterie, a custard slice from a bakery, moules mariner from Etaples and Potage the ubiquitous potato soup that seemed to be everywhere.

Any way when I saw some lovely fresh leeks at the farmers market I decided to follow his lead and make some Potage for my self.

To clean leeks (which tend to have dirt growing up inside the rings) you cut the leek in quarters with out cutting through the root.

Leek with the top cut off and the shaft cut in to quarters

Then you spread out the leaves under a running tap and all the dirt will be washed away.

Rosemary roasted potatoes

On Sunday my husband dug out one of our potato plants to see how the potatoes were doing. Finally they have grown large enough to really use.

They are not quite as large as they look next to those carrots, those carrots are mini carrots really too small to be taken away from their mother.  But the potatoes were spectacular and enough to feed five for dinner and a couple of small ones for two of us another evening.