Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

On their birthdays, I let the kids, ok, and my husband, pick the food.  I really try hard not to be disappointed when the kid's answers usually end up being McDonald's, and not something that I make.  I try to remember that I didn't realize what good cooks my parents were until I was older, and that life as I knew it from a culinary standpoint began with McDonald's and ended with Taco Bell, but still, COME ON! McDonald's.  Ok, I'm fine now.  That being said, imagine my shock and delight when my son asked for real food for his birthday, not fast food, not a restaurant, a real dinner that I could make him.  He asked for ham, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, and lima beans (yes, I said lima beans). I was on it!

This is a well used recipe, modified only slightly from a Cook's Country recipe that I've had for ages.   My modifications are simply a little more liquid, and roasting the garlic.  You will also notice that I did not peel my potatoes.  I am going to tell you that I don't do that because I like them better that way, and not because I am lazy and simply cannot stand peeling potatoes.  I peel them on special occasions, like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but on a day to day basis I just buy the red, thin skinned potatoes and eat them as is, peels and everything, its extra fiber and vitamins. . . right?

GARLIC MASHED POTATOES
as modified from Cook Country

4-5lb red skinned potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (just make sure they are all relatively the same size)
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 head of garlic, roasted
1 tsp sugar
2 cups half and half
1/2 cup water
Salt & pepper

Roasting Garlic:  Preheat oven to 400 degrees, Cut the very top of a head of garlic off, exposing the cloves, place on a square of aluminum foil, drizzle with at least 2 Tablespoons of olive oil over the garlic, sprinkle on salt & pepper.  Wrap the garlic up in the foil and bake for 1 hour.  Remove from oven and let cool.  Once cool, unwrap, and try to drain off as much of the oil into a separate container as you can, it is liquid gold.  Squeeze the garlic cloves out, removing and pieces of skin that may come along, and mash them in to a paste.




Melt 4 tbsp of your butter in a large pot, add the sugar and garlic to the pot, and saute them for about 2 minutes.  Add your potatoes, 1 1/2 cups of half &half, water, and 1 teaspoon salt, and then stir everything to combine and distribute the garlic throughout the pot.





Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover with a lid, and simmer for 25-30 minutes.  Stir the potatoes occasionally, depending on your stove, they may start to stick to the bottom a little as the potatoes cook.  Continue cooking for 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and most of the cooking liquid has been absorbed.

Remove the pot from the heat, and add the rest of the butter.  Mash the potatoes using your potatoe masher of hand mixer adding additional half and half as you go until the potatoes reach the smoothness and consistency that you want them at.  Check you seasoning and add more salt and pepper to taste.

Chiles Rellenos Bake

I have a confession to make.  Up until about a year ago, I had never eaten Chiles Rellenos.  Mexican food is one of my favorite food groups, but I had just never stepped away from enchiladas, tostados, and nachos.  Then one magical meal, my husband and I decided to split an order, and it was love at first bite.  Now actual fried Chile Poblanos is just not something I am going to try at home, I like to leave some things to the professionals, but when I saw this recipe on Pinterest, I had to give it a go.  It really hits all the right bells and whistles and it is the perfect winter meal, so warm and gooey.

However, I just can't leave anything alone, so I added ground beef, more peppers, and cheese.  If you don't feel like making, or just don't care for, adobo sauce, you could easily swap out a can of enchilada sauce and carry on with the dish.

Also, as I've mentioned before in previous posts, you do really wanted to blacken the living daylights out of your peppers when you go to broil or grill them, it will make your life so much easier when you go to remove the skins and seeds.

• 8 Poblano Peppers
• 4 Egg Whites
• 1 cup Milk
• 1/3 Cup Flour
• 1lb ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped 
• 2 Cups Chihuahua Cheese, shredded (I also have used shredded sharp cheddar)
• 1 can Tomato Sauce
• 1 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)
• 1 tsp. Cumin
• 2 tsp. Chili Powder
• 1 tsp  Ground Oregano
• 1 tsp. Salt 

Grease a 9 x 13 glass baking dish.

Preheat your broiler, my oven currently only has one temp. for this (or maybe I just don't know how to use it properly),and put an oven rack on the highest shelf so that it is closer to the broiler unit.  Put your Poblanos on a baking sheet, and put them in the oven.  I usually rotate them around ever 5-6 minutes to make sure they are getting evenly blackened.  Once they are good, black, and roasted, remove them from the oven and put them in a plastic or paper bag, seal them up and let them sit for about 15 minutes.  Return the oven to a normal baking setting, and set it for 350 degrees.  

When they have had their time, remove the poblano skins, stems, and seeds.  Don't worry if they fall apart a little, and as you can see, some seeds ended up in there too.  

In a skillet cook the ground beef and onions until the ground beef is no longer pink, drain off fat and return the skillet to the stove.   Add the tomato sauce and spices to the cooked meat and stir to combine together.  

Whisk together the egg whites, milk, & flour together in a bowl.  Pour half of the mixture into the baking dish.

Arrange the half the poblanos in the pan, top with half of the meat mixture, and half of the shredded cheese.  

Add another layer of poblanos, the rest of the meat, pour over the remaining egg white mixture and then top with the remaining shredded cheese.  

Bake for 45-50 minutes until the egg mixture has set.  Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes, it will be volcanic.  Serve with all our favorite Mexican food toppings, sour cream, salsa, etc.  

Blogging 101:  Take a picture before you eat it all!

Things on The List

So many books, so many blogs, so many recipes and so little time.  Just a few things that are on the list:

I have yet to venture in to Thai Food , but this definitely seems doable, and most importantly, seems delicious.

I've always wanted to make grilled lobster, and this weekend, we did, this recipe for grilled lobster tails, was perfect.

Can my new house please have this. pretty please?

I will need those bookshelves for all of these books. Who doesn't love a "best of" list?

Does anyone have one of these?  Is it as fun as it looks or just another thing clogging up the kitchen shelves.

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Stuffed Pizza Bread

I love a good cookbook, and if you were standing in my kitchen right now, you would see that my collection is growing out of its space.  I not only love new cookbooks, but also have a habit of rooting through flea market bins to find those old spiral bound church, school, or society recipe collections.  Those are the best, you know those dishes that ladies would bring to church for potlucks, yeah, those recipes are in there.  One of the best ones that I have in my collection is actually one that my husband brought home from work.  The man truly knows the way to my heart, and it is not flowers or chocolates, it is books, especially cookbooks (ok, and occasionally Chinese food).

If you invite me to a party and I need to bring food, there is a pretty good chance I'm going to show up with this.  The most difficult thing about this recipe is cutting the bread, you want as many criss cross cuts as you can get so that the ooey gooey cheese, butter and toppings get down into the bread. I would urge you to actually cut and prepare it on the baking sheet you are going to cook it on, transportation of the uncooked product gets kind of messy.  If you are taking this to a party or potluck, place a large piece of aluminum foil over your baking sheet and prepare the bread on that as well.  That way, you can wrap up the bread in the aluminum foil as it comes out of the oven, and there will be no fussing around with getting it transported.

You can go wild with your topping selection for this, you are limited only by your imagination and how much stuff you can cram in between the cuts of bread.  If you are not in a hurry, you can take the whole, uncut loaf of bread, and pop it in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes, I find that doing this really helps me not squash the bread as I am cutting, and if there was ever a time to get out your bread knife, this is it.

• 1 Loaf French or Italian Bread (whole, not sliced)
• 1 lb Mozzarella Cheese, shredded 
• 1 8 oz Can Mushrooms, drained 
• 1 8 oz Can Sliced Olives, drained
• 1 Package Pepperoni-sliced

Garlic Butter:

• 2 sticks butter, melted (unsalted or salted works here)
• 1/2 tsp. Garlic Salt
• 1/2 tsp. Ground Mustard 
• 1 tsp. Minced Onion
• 1 tsp. Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp. Seasoning Salt 

**Optional--Place bread in freezer for 5-10 minutes to stiffen it up a little bit.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees

Prepare a baking sheet, either by just spraying it with cooking spray, or with aluminum foil if you are planning on traveling with it.

Remove the bread from the freezer if you remembered to pop it in there, and make several criss-cross cuts in the bread, taking extra care not to go all the way through the bread.  You want a somewhat blooming onion effect here, you want the bread to spread on the top, but not come apart completely at the bottom.

Start stuffing the cuts with the olives, mushrooms, pepperoni, and cheese.  I rotate these as I stuff, I do not put them in any particular order, I want every piece of the bread to have something yummy going on.  Stuff until you either run out of ingredients or room.

Mix or whisk together the garlic butter ingredients in a bowl. Slowly pour the garlic butter mixture over the bread.  Make sure to take your time, the goal here is to get the butter mixture to soak in as much as possible, not have it run off the top and onto the pan.

Place the bread in the oven, and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cheese has melted and your house smells like heaven.

Serve with Spaghetti or Pizza Sauce.

The leftovers, if there are any, reheat really well in a toaster oven or just in a 300 degree oven for 5-10 minutes.

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Getting In Gear --The Great Prep Day

After another string of not so great health around here.  I'm trying to get myself back in the weight loss and healthy living mind frame.  Over the years, I've come to just accept something about myself that is not awesome, I'm kinda lazy.  There I said it, it's out there.  My entire weight loss approach has been adapted over the years to accommodate this fact.  The only way I succeed is to make it super easy for me to eat healthy, and that means that on grocery shopping day, we not only do the shopping, but also the prep work that needs to be done for the week.  Which seems counter-intuitive based on my previous statement, but one day of work that equals 6 more days of less work seems to make sense in my head.

That entails lots of washing and chopping, broccoli & cauliflower for roasted veggies, peppers for salads, and whatever fruits need to be taken care of.  I also usually need to boil and peel some eggs.  Eggs are my meal super stars.  I thankfully love them just about however I can get them, and they are a definitely a little low calorie, protein power house.

Next up, bananas, their brown spotty little faces used to haunt my fruit bowl.  Now my daughter's job every weekend is to take the leftover bananas, peel them and chunk them up.  They then get tossed into a freezer bag and frozen to be used in smoothies throughout the week.

We make our lunches around here, the kids occasionally do hot lunch, but the routine is to make lunches in the evening when everyone gets home.  We also try to streamline this process as well, so on chopping day, we go ahead and divide up the carrots and veggies that we will take in our lunch.  My husband is just a carrot guy, but I'm a little more high maintenance, I need some variety, and something to dip those veggies in.  Hummus is my dip of choice right now, and the added protein doesn't hurt my feelings either.

As much as I'd like to, I can't take all the credit for this process, my husband is the organizational mastermind around here.  I come up with the ideas, and he is the person who streamlines the process so we get it done as quickly as possible.  This process is constantly getting tweaked, I've debated marinating and grilling up a pile of chicken breasts to have on hand for easy suppers and salads, and I'm also considering buying a couple bags of onions to chop quickly in the food processor and stash in the freezer so I have those ready to go at a moments notice.   Everything is a work in progress, but that's life now isn't it?  Happy New Year!