Tag Archives: potato

Vegetable Tian

9 Mar

I think we have established already I love anything French…  so every time we have a get-together with my French-speaking friends, we try to create French recipes to keep the theme intact.

I first made this recipe for the Yoga Center – back when I was more consistent cooking at least once a month.  It was a way to introduce cooked vegetables in a different way than how they make them week in week out. 

Most recently, I shared the recipe with my friend Annie Mariel and she was the one who actually made the version photographed here.  It is cheesy yet tastes very light.   She created it as an example of Parisian cooking…  bon appétit.

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VEGETABLE TIAN

2 large onions, sliced in half
2 garlic cloves, minced
5-6 potatoes – I used russet potatoes, but Ina Garten says that Yukon Golds are a particularly good choice
2 medium zucchini
4 medium sized tomatoes – I used plum tomatoes
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp black pepper
1 tbs thyme leaves or 1 tsp Italian Seasonings blend
2 ounces gruyere cheese, grated
Olive oil

 

  1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F
  2. Brush a rectangular baking dish with olive oil.
  3. In a medium sauté pan, heat a drizzle of olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onions and cook for about 8 minutes until they’ve beginning to soften.  Add the garlic and cook for a few additional minutes.  Spread this onion mixture on the bottom of the baking dish you oiled.
  4. Wash well and dry the potatoes.  Slice them in thin slices, about ¼” thick.  Slice the zucchini, tomatoes too the same thickness.  Layer them alternatively on top of the onions.  I placed them slightly at an angle one on top the other like shingles. Place a potato, zucchini, tomato, potato, zucchini, tomato, and so on…
  5. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, thyme leaves or Italian Seasonings and drizzle a bit more of olive oil.
  6. Cover the dish with a parchment paper and then aluminum foil.  Place in oven and bake for 30-40 minutes until the potatoes are tender and cooked. 
  7. Remove the covering, add the grated cheese and bake for another 30 minutes until the vegetables are browned nicely on top.

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Garlic-infused Mashed Potatoes

8 Feb

I once saw Tyler Florence do mashed potatoes boiled in a mixture of cream and milk.  He infused the liquid with lots of flavors – bay leaves, garlic and salt, among others.  This is my rendition of those potatoes…

I used half and half – partly because I already had it in my fridge, partly because that’s exactly same thing as mixing equal parts of milk and cream…  why buy two things if you can buy only one.  What I liked about adding the garlic whole and letting it cook with the half and half is that it mellows the strong taste of garlic…  giving it a smoother, almost roasted, taste to the mashed potatoes.

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GARLIC-INFUSED MASHED POTATOES

About 10-12 fingerling potatoes – I would also use Yukon Gold or Red Bliss Potatoes, which are my favorites
About 2 cups of half and half – enough that would cover most of the potatoes
1 bay leaf – fresh or dry
2 medium garlic cloves – smashed and with the peel removed
Salt to taste – I used about 1 tsp
Freshly Cracked Black Pepper – optional
 
  1. Wash well the potatoes  – It is very important to wash well the potatoes because we will not discard the liquid they’re being boiled in.  Cut them in half or even thirds if the potatoes are a bit large. I usually do not cut my potatoes too small, but because we’re boiling them with the same liquid we’re mashing them in, none of the nutrition will be “drained away”. 
  2. Add the potatoes, half and half, salt, bay leaf and garlic to a large pot.  You might think the pot is too large, but this is to prevent any spillovers.  I tend to cover my pots when I boil potatoes, but because we’re doing it in a dairy product, only half-cover the pot for now.  This will help bring the liquid to a nice simmer/ light boil.
  3. Boil the potatoes for about 30 minutes, until they’re fork tender.  Fingerlings tend to be a bit tougher than Yukon Gold’s or Red potatoes… just so you know.
  4. When the potatoes are done, cover the pot and let them be for about 10-15 minutes.  The steam inside the pot will ensure they’ll be thoroughly cooked and the liquid will not be as hot for you to handle the mashing…  this is experience talking here.
  5. When the time has elapsed, discard the bay leaf, drain some of the liquid out (this will make the mashing a bit easier) and mash potatoes with remaining liquid with a potato masher.  Add more of the boiling liquid if you see they’re not as creamy as you would like them to be.  I use most of the half and half when I make them.   As you’ll see, the garlic is soft enough and mashes easily into the potatoes.
  6. Check for seasonings.  Add more salt if needed.  Add cracked pepper is using.

 

garlic-infused-mashed-potatoes

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Yellow-Mustard Fingerling Potatoes

27 Jan

Last year we already established how much I love potatoes with my Potato Festival, celebrating the Year of the Potato…  but I have only shared only a fraction of all the potato dishes I know how to make and love to eat.

I made these potatoes for the first time when I visited my sister in her new Florida home last year.  I wanted to make something with these incredible potatoes she had bought and this is what I came up with.  I ate them with a veggie hot dog, and in my opinion, if you don’t have chips around, these are great with any veggie hot dog or veggie burger.

They’re super easy to make and after you put them in the oven, you can literally forget about them for about an hour.  So they’re great when you have a lot to do and not a lot of time to tend to the cooking.

I like to make these with fingerling potatoes because when you quarter them, they actually look like “steak fries”… don’t’ you think?

 yellow-mustard-fingerling-potatoes

 

YELLOW MUSTARD FINGERLING POTATOES

About 10-12 fingerling potatoes, washed well and quartered lengthwise
2 tbs yellow mustard
1 tbs olive oil
1 clove of garlic minced or grated
1 tsp salt
A few grinds of freshly cracked black pepper
A few sprinkles of Italian Seasonings
  1.  Pre-heat oven to 400 F.
  2. Mix all the ingredients, except the potatoes, in a bowl that can fit the potatoes eventually.  Toss the potatoes to coat well with the mixture.
  3. Place the potatoes in a sheet pan and roast in the oven for about 1 hour.  At about 35 minutes into the cooking, look at them and see if they need turning.  I sometimes turn them, sometimes I do not… but anyway, they turn out great. (it rhymed and I did not planned that…)

 Let them cool a bit before digging in…

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Veggie Sancocho

19 Nov

Today we celebrate the Discovery of Puerto Rico…  or the day Christopher Columbus landed on the Island of Puerto Rico for the first time in 1493.  Because if you ask the Taínos who already lived on the Island, they already knew Boriquén existed and they needed no discovery of any kind.

I wanted to commemorate this day with a very Puerto Rican dish – SANCOCHO.  The name is not that pretty, but it tastes awesome.  It’s a stew/soup of many root vegetables, or as we call them locally, viandas.  It’s great for those rainy days in November…  as we thankfully say goodbye to the hurricane season, which fortunately has left Puerto Rico unscathed this year.

I’ll be honest, when I make this dish, I’ve made it for 40 people at a time… so bear with me when I try to scale the measurements for something more in tune with a regular family of 4. 

 sancocho

SANCOCHO

3 medium potatoes, can be russet, red skin, Yukon gold, cleaned and cubed
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut in ¼ inch rounds
1 medium yautía blanca, peeled and cubed
1 medium yautía lila, peeled and cubed
1 small malanga (taro root), peeled and cubed
2 celery stalks, cleaned and sliced thin
1 small onion, diced
1 small bell pepper, diced
1 corn on the cob
¼ head of white cabbage
2 tomatoes, peeled and cut in small dice
2 tbs sofrito
1 tbs olive oil
1 vegetable bouillon cube
2 bay leaves
½ bunch cilantro (optional), chopped
1 tsp Herbamare seasoning (optional)
1 tbs Salt, divided
10-15 turns of the mill of Freshly Cracked Ground Pepper, divided
Water
Avocado slices, for garnish at the end

 

  1. In the largest stock pot you have, start by adding the olive oil, sofrito, onion, bell pepper, celery and bouillon cube.  Smash the cube so that it melts in with the rest of the ingredients.  Allow for the celery, onions and peppers to soften.  Add the tomatoes and let those juices mix together. Season with a little salt and pepper.
  2. Add the viandas – potatoes, carrots, yautías, , malanga – and the cabbage.  Mix well with the ingredients already on the pot.  Add water until covering 1 inch over the contents of the pot.  Add the bay leaves, the chopped cilantro leaves, the Herbamare seasoning, some additional salt and pepper.  Taste to check the water is well seasoned. Cover.  Let it come to a boil and simmer at medium heat for about 30-40 minutes.
  3. Check the pot every so often and move the sancocho around, to avoid the bottom from scorching.  When you reach the 20 minute mark, add the pieces of corn on the cob.  Cover again and let it boil for the last 10 – 20 minutes.  Make sure the root vegetables are fork tender.
  4. Turn off the stove and let the sancocho finish cooking with the residual heat from the pot and stove.  Allow it to rest and mellow for about 20 minutes.  The soup will maintain hot for about 1 hour, no problem.
  5. When you’re ready to eat, garnish on top with slices of avocado… and if you want, you can drizzle a squirt of lime juice too.

 

This is a stew perfect for cold and rain days.  This is what we almost always eat after a few days of fasting at a Yoga Retreat.  It’s full of vitamins and nutrition and will even “revive the dead”.  There is a lot of ingredients, but it’s all chop and dump…  not that difficult.   

You can eat it with plain whole-grain rice…

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Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes

7 Oct

You know how it is…  that the things that come naturally to you and you think they’re the most normal and mundane, some people find fascinating.  To you, it’s something you’re sooooo familiar with that you take completely for granted.  Such is the case of these mashed potatoes.   It’so “run-of-the-mill” for me that I didn’t even bother to style the plate a little when I made them… 

Mashed Potatoes, as I have seen in sooooo many TV shows, cookbooks, food magazines is an exercise in the balance of butter, milk, cream, salt, pepper, mashing, ricing, etc…  I don’t bother with any of that.  Lately, people have been fascinated that I mash my potatoes only using olive oil.  That’s what common and normal to me… why bother with anything else??? All I dirty is a saucepan and the plate and fork I will be eating it with…  here’s how I do it.

 

 

OLIVE OIL MASHED POTATOES

3-4 red-skinned potatoes, washed well and quartered
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Garlic salt, optional

 

  1. In a medium heavy-bottomed sauce pan, place the potatoes and pour water covering the potatoes only half way.  Sprinkle kosher salt on the water/potatoes and move around so the salt mixes well with the water.  Cover and boil at medium-high heat.
  2. After 8-10 minutes have passed, lower the heat to medium.  Wait about 5-8 minutes more and check the potatoes, they should be fork tender by now.  If not, just leave them a few extra minutes.  I turn off the heat and leave them there for a few minutes so they finish well and cool off a bit so I can handle them.
  3. I take them out of the saucepan, place in the plate I will be eating and mash them with a fork.  Drizzle olive-oil on top of them and keep mashing until they’re sort-of smooth and chucky at the same time.  I sometimes sprinkle a bit of garlic salt on top for extra flavor.

 

That’s it!!!  This is my go-to meal when I am feeling under the weather.  I also eat it a lot when my stomach acts up and can’t stomach regular cooked foods…  like I said, it’s sooooo normal to me.  Enjoy them.

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