Tag-Archive for ◊ creamy ◊

21 Nov 2010 Basil Mashed Potatoes
Author:  |  Category: Rice and Potatoes, Side Dishes  | Tags: , , , , , , ,  | 4 Comments

I hope you are going to the Farmer’s market this weekend.  I was there last week, and there were still large bunches of fresh basil for a dollar. Spend a dollar.  Buy a bunch of fresh basil. Get some potatoes, too (Yukon Golds or white boiling potatoes).  Then try this recipe for Basil Mashed Potatoes. Thank you, Ina!  I found this recipe in Ina Garten’s (The Barefoot Contessa) new cookbook, “How Easy is That?“.

This recipe is for a savory mashed potato side dish.  No gravy needed.  This is a versatile side dish that will pair nicely with any number of main dishes. Serve it with your next meatloaf, roast chicken, pork chop, salmon fillet… Next time I make Shepherd’s Pie, I am going to top it with these potatoes.  Won’t that dress up a casserole that can sometimes be a bit bland? Last week,  I made some rather boring vegetable soup.  It perked right up when I stirred in some leftover Basil Mashed Potatoes. You’ll be amazed with what 2 cups of fresh basil will do to 2 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes.

Full disclosure: making mashed potatoes can really mess up a kitchen and dirty a lot of dishes.  Basil mashed potatoes dirties one or two more pots than regular mashed potatoes, but you don’t even have to think about making gravy…!

Basil Mashed Potatoes

  • 2 cup fresh basil leaves, lightly packed
  • 2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes or white boiling potatoes, peeled and cut in quarters
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • ¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • 2 teaspoons Kosher salt
  • ¼ to 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper (add to taste)

    • Directions

    1. Fill a small bowl with ice water and set aside.
    2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add the basil leaves to the boiling water and cook for exactly 15 seconds.  Remove the basil from the boiling water with a slotted spoon and immediately plunge into the ice water.  Drain the basil and set aside.
    3. Add the peeled and quartered potatoes to the same pot of boiling, salted water.  Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Drain well.
    4. In a small pan over medium high heat, bring the half-and-half and Parmesan cheese to a simmer.
    5. Place the drained basil in a food processor fitted with a metal blade.  Puree the basil, then slowly add the hot half-and-half and Parmesan mixture and process until smooth.
    6. Mash the drained potatoes.  Slowly add the hot basil cream and beat until smooth. TASTE.  Add salt and pepper as needed.
    7. Place mashed potatoes in serving bowl and sprinkle with a little extra grated Parmesan cheese.  Serve hot.

    Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.  So glad Ina was here with me!!!

    26 Oct 2010 Pumpkin Parmesan Pasta
    Author:  |  Category: Pasta, Seasonal, Side Dishes, Veggies  | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  | 12 Comments

    A few weeks ago my friend Nancy and I went to a free cooking class at Williams-Sonoma.  We like free. Part of the free class was a sales pitch, which we had to sit through before the the free food was served.  We were shown $300 pans we couldn’t cook without, $500 blenders to blend and boil soup (I am not kidding), and a $12 bottle of Pumpkin-Parmesan Pasta Sauce that would change our lives.  We like free; a $12 bottle of pasta sauce was out of the question…, but that boiling blender was sooooo tempting. I still dream about it. But I digress… After downing the free samples (and not being that impressed), I went home to Google Pumpkin-Parmesan Pasta Sauce Recipes.  Five popped up. I compared them. Combined them.  Made them. I fed the first batch to my grandson. He loved it (and he doesn’t love everything).  My daughters had the leftovers and they said the words that make me swoon, “This is really good, Mom”.  I love those girls. Feeling I was on the right track, I upped the spices a bit, and made another batch for my Dining For Women group. They liked it too! YAY! They asked me to post the recipe. I love those women.  I hope you bought an extra can of Pumpkin Puree. You are going to want to use one to make this recipe at least once this season.  It’s tasty, it’s different, it’s nutritious and it’s just the thing to be eating this time of year and, drum roll please, it’s FREE!

    My only caution about this recipe: don’t make it ahead of time.  Make it, and then serve it immediately. Right after combining the sauce with the pasta, it’s all nice and creamy, but it doesn’t take long for the two parts to congeal into a big blob.  Other people didn’t seem to mind, but I did. Perhaps I need to add more liquid to keep it creamy longer?

    I wanted to serve the sauce with cheese tortellini or cheese ravioli tonight, but I forgot to buy some, so I had to make do with what I had in the cupboard, Rotelle. I’ve also made this with with Penne and Bowties, too, and both were good. But I really wanted to try it on cheese ravioli 🙁  If you try it on ravioli, let me know how it is, please!

    I serve this as a side dish.  Recipe will serve 6-8.  This sauce goes together quickly.  Not as quickly as opening a $12 jar of sauce, but almost!

    Pumpkin-Parmesan Pasta Sauce

    1 tablespoon olive oil
    1 chopped shallot (about ¼ cup)
    ½ cup chopped onion
    1 tsp. minced garlic
    1 box pasta (penne, rotelle, bowtie)
    1 15 oz. can pumpkin puree
    1 cup chicken broth
    1 cup half-and-half
    2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
    ¼ tsp. ground sage
    ½ tsp. nutmeg (freshly ground is best)
    1 ½ tsp. salt
    ½ tsp. pepper
    1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
    2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage

    Fill a pasta pot with water, bring to boil, add salt.

    While the pasta water is coming to a boil, heat the olive oil in a skillet and stir in onions and shallots.  Saute until translucent.  Stir in minced garlic and saute for another minute or so.

    By this time, your water should be boiling.  Stir in pasta, and cook according to package directions.

    Add pumpkin, broth, cream, vinegar and spices to the onion/shallots/garlic mixture in the skillet.  Simmer on low for 5 minutes or so.

    Gradually stir in 1/3 of the cheese to the sauce.  When that cheese has been incorporated, repeat with another 1/3 of the cheese.  Then repeat again with remaining cheese. Stir in chopped fresh sage.

    By this time, your pasta should be cooked.  Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water.

    Stir the drained pasta into the sauce.  If the sauce seems too thick, add a bit of the reserved pasta water until the sauce reaches desired consistency. Serve immediately. Enjoy!  Happy Fall!

    Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.  Raise your hand if you are a pumpkin junkie! (I am, I am!!)

    20 Sep 2010 Chocolate Mocha Tart
    Author:  |  Category: Pies & Tarts, Sweets  | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,  | One Comment

    I wish I’d had this recipe decades ago!  I had three kids. I had to take a lot of food to a lot of potlucks, meetings, classes, games, gatherings and parties.  I also had to pull together a lot of nice dinners at home for meetings, holidays, and guests. I worked full time. I was a single parent.  Time was not something I had in abundance.  This recipe could have saved my arse a hundred times over.  Not only is this an easy, quick recipe, it’s an AWESOME recipe. This. Is. One. Fantastic. Chocolate. Tart.  If you could only make  one of my recipes, make this one. After you make this once, you’ll save the recipe in that file with the kids’ birth certificates and the pink slip for the car. I know you will!

    I found this recipe on The Hungry Housewife,  who has even posted a video on how to make this…, and how she reacted when she found ¼ of her tart was gone…!

    Chocolate Mocha Tart

    1 Premade Chocolate Graham Cracker Pie Crust (or make your own, but why?  This is a quick and easy recipe!)
    4 Ounces of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, at room temperature
    ¾ cup Heavy Cream (but regular whipping cream works, too)
    ¼ cup Sugar
    ¾ Tbsp Instant Espresso Powder
    1 Bag Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (like Ghiradelli or Guittard)

    In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, melt cream cheese.  This will be a bit tricky.  Stir constantly. Whisk in the heavy cream and sugar. Add in the instant espresso powder and mix until combined. Bring mixture to just under a boil (bubbles will be forming around the edges). Remove from heat.

    Place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. Pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate chips and let sit 5 minutes without stirring.
    After 5 minutes, whisk the chocolate until smooth. Pour into your pie crust and place in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight until set. Or, if you are really short for time, place pie in the freezer for 45 minutes.

    Serve small slices plain, or with whipped cream  (in a perfect world, I’d like to have some concentrated raspberry syrup on the plate, too, like they do in fancy restaurants).

    Tart can be made several days in advance.

    This was a good, good day to stop by my kitchen, wasn’t it?

    29 Aug 2010 Fresh Tomato Lasagna
    Author:  |  Category: Main Dish, Meatless, Pasta  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | One Comment
    -:: Fresh Tomato Lasagna ::-

    Every morning, every good, calm morning, I browse the food blogs.  Most mornings I print off a few recipes.  The recipes then sit around for a while and I revisit them from time to time.  Eventually, I do try some of the recipes.  Very few of the recipes I repost “as is”.  Some recipes show promise and I work with them for a bit (I have been working on a recipe for Orange Creamsicle Cookies for a few months now).  I probably post (or plan to post) about 50% of the recipes I test.

    This morning I found this recipe.  This afternoon I printed it off, picked two pounds of tomatoes from my garden, and went to the store for some fresh mozzarella.  This evening I made the recipe (since our temperatures have finally dropped about 25 degrees in the last two days, I was OK with turning on the oven for 45 minutes).  This lasagna was creamy, cheesy and fresh tasting,  lighter than regular lasagna, but still rich.  Since there are so few ingredients in this lasagna that, if you decide to make it, be sure your tomatoes are the BEST and your olive oil is the best you can get.  Although this pan of lasagna looks very small,  it would certainly serve four people.

    The original recipe can be found at SortaChef, One Hot Cat in a Woodfired Kitchen.  I changed the Béchamel Sauce to more closely resemble the flavor of one I have made many times before (adding nutmeg, allspice and Parmesan cheese).  I also added some chopped fresh basil (thanks to a suggestion from my friend, Jeanne) and oregano, and changed the method a bit.

    Fresh Tomato Lasagna

    • 2 pounds fresh ripe tomatoes (don’t use tomatoes purchased at the supermarket)
    • 8 ounces fresh mozzarella, preferably buffalo, sliced thinly or shredded
    • 4 Barilla no-boil lasagna noodles
    • 3-5 cups water at 150º (use half hot tap water and half boiling water)
    • 2 tablespoons good olive oil
    • 4 teaspoons chopped fresh basil (more or less to taste)
    • 2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano (more or less to taste)
    • approx. ¾ teaspoon salt

    For the Béchamel Sauce:

    • 2 tablespoons butter
    • 3 tablespoons flour
    • 1 cup milk (I used 1%, but whole milk is traditionally used)
    • ¾ teaspoon salt
    • 1/8 teaspoon finely ground pepper (or more to taste)
    • 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
    • dash of allspice
    • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
    • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

    INSTRUCTIONS

    Preheat the oven to 375º.

    Pour 3-5 cups very hot water (about 150 degrees) into a loaf pan or casserole dish and slip the no-boil noodles in one at a time. Let noodles soak for 15 minutes.

    Make the Béchamel sauce. Heat milk in the microwave for one minute. Melt butter in a quart-sized saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is barely melted whisk in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.  Turn off heat. Whisk in one-third of the milk and incorporate thoroughly before adding the next third.  Be sure the sauce is smooth before you add more milk. Once you have successfully added all the milk and the sauce is hot and smooth, add in the salt, pepper, nutmeg and allspice. Whisk in the egg.  Turn the heat back onto medium and cook the sauce for 2 minutes. Stir in the grated Parmesan. When the cheese has been incorporated, remove sauce from heat, cover tightly with a lid and set aside until ready to use.

    Slice 8 ounces of Buffalo mozzarella (or another fresh mozzarella) into ¼ inch pieces. Slice the tops and bottoms off of the tomatoes and discard or reserve for another use. Cut the rest of each tomato into ¼ inch rounds (or just chop coarsely). Coarsely chop the basil and oregano.

    In glass loaf pan build the lasagna in this order:

    • A layer of uncooked tomato slices, pack as many in there as you can.  Drizzle with your finest olive oil and sprinkle with 1/4 t. salt, 1 t. basil and 1/2 t. oregano.
    • 1 lasagna noodle
    • ¼ of the mozzarella
    • ¼ of béchamel sauce spread evenly to all edges of the pan
    • Continue the sequence with remaining noodles and filling, finishing with a layer of tomato slices drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, basil and oregano.

    Bake at 375º for 40-45 minutes, until béchamel has puffed up and the edges are bubbling.

    Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.

    Thanks for dropping by my kitchen today!

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