Tag: potato

Balsamic Chicken

~ Dad's Turn To Cook ~ Leave a comment

Wow.  Who knew having two people working full time would cut into the opportunity to cook some new and fun things?  Me.  I did.  I’m still trying to do some digging and find time for new recipes though.  Hence today’s winner.  Pan-Fried Balsamic Chicken!

I was making some roast potatoes and onion in the oven, and needed to find a way to make the protein (that I forgot to thaw before work).  Pan fry it is!  A little bit of quick digging and I discovered this recipe…

Pan Seared Chicken With Balsamic Reduction

Guys.  Straight up.  This one is tasty, incredibly easy, and will make you look like a fancy white poofy hatted Chef.  As you can see by clicking the recipe link above, you toss some garlic and onion powder (along with some salt and pepper) on a couple chicken breasts, put them in a hot oiled pan to fry, flip once, and fry the other side.  Easy!  A little bit of liquid goes in the pan, boil it then simmer it for a bit, and voila!  This is a very rustic and hearty tasting way to eat chicken and it paired fantastic with the roast potatoes.  A bit of gristle, a bit of char just makes the flavours pop that much more.  A dish you can burn and make it seem like you meant to!  This one will be going into the rotation.  The only ‘not necessarily in your kitchen’ ingredients are some chicken broth (you can buy a can of Campbell’s or your ‘no-name’ equivalent) and some Balsamic Vinegar…which, after tasting this chicken, I will be sure to have in stock at all times.

Oh!  As for the roast potatoes?  Chop them up into little cubes, toss on a pan, drizzle on some olive oil, crank on some salt and pepper, and bake anywhere between 400 and 425 for about an hour.  I chopped up a small onion as well.  It gets a little charred and blackened and pops the potatoes a bit.  Again, it’s quick to prep, pretty mindless to make, and tastes great!

-g

Thanksgiving Dinner – The Potatoes

~ Dad's Turn To Cook ~ Leave a comment

Well, first of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow Canadians this past weekend.  Aside from some tight defensive battles in the CFL (Go Stamps!) we also saw the Riders clinch a playoff spot and me demolish enough turkey to conceive a food baby that turned out to be triplets. (In other words, I ate WAY too much turkey dinner…but in my defense, this is the first year that I handled the bulk of the prep for the big feed, and it turned out pretty good.

First up?  The taters.  Now, these are no ordinary mashed potatoes.  These are creamy, cheesy (yes, cheesy) whipped potatoes that you can actually prep up a few days prior to the feast so you can really limit the amount of work (and dishes) you’ll require on the big day.  I have to give my Wife’s aunt Connie a big shoutout.  She brought these to a family gathering potluck over a decade ago and they’ve been in our rotation ever since.  Well, at least whenever we have the time and ambition to ‘fancy’ things up a bit.  It’s well worth the time and effort, and honestly, I forgot how fast they disappear so my best advice is to take the recipe and just go ahead and double it right away.

Without further adieu…start softening that cream cheese, here we go!

Creamy Oven-Mashed Potatoes

  • 5 lb red potatoes
  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened (1 brick of Philly)
  • 1 cup sour cream (1 250ml tub…the small ones)
  • 1 tsp onion salt
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 2 tbsp margarine or butter

Directions:

Peel the potatoes.  Chop them up into quarters, or smaller even if you want to minimize the boiling time.  Toss them into your biggest pot filled with water.  Boil until you can stick a fork in ’em and have them relatively break apart.  Drain all the water out.

Mash the potatoes with a hand mixer.  Soften your cream cheese and add all the rest of the ingredients in (with the exception of the margarine/butter – keep that aside for now).  Take a hand mixer and whip up the mixture.  It should essentially become a white smooth paste – the goal is to get all the lumps out, you want these to be fluffy.

Spray down a casserole dish with cooking spray (it will save you TONS of scrubbing when doing the dishes later).  Put all the potato mixture into the dish.  If you’re cooking right away, take the margarine/butter and dot it over the top, I dust a bit o paprika over the top as well like you might do with a shepherd’s pie.  Cover your dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

That’s if you’re baking right away.  If you are prepping these in advance…you can just cover and freeze in the dish and they’ll be ready to bake whenever you need them.  You’ll then take the dish out to thaw before putting in the stove.  You’ll want to add about 15 minutes to your cooktime as well.  If the potatoes are looking watery, just cook them uncovered and that will take care of some of that excess moisture.

You can also prep this the day before, toss them in the fridge and bake them the next day.  Again, you’ll want to put on the counter and bring up to room temperature before you bake, as well as add a bit of extra time to the proceedings.  Just hold off on putting the margarine/butter on top until you’re about to put in the oven.

Now, remember when I said you should just go ahead and double the recipe right away?  I really meant that.  These potatoes are delicious, and the best part is they keep really well.  Once you’ve baked them, you can keep them in the fridge for about a week and divvy them up with your leftovers.  They don’t NEED gravy, but it doesn’t hurt.

One thing I also like is you don’t have to be TOO fussy with the cooking temp.  If you have a turkey or other dish baking in the oven at 325 or 375, you’re fine tossing these in and adjusting your cook time accordingly (add a few minutes if you’re lower than 350, subtract a few if you’re hotter…)  They’re pretty much fool-proof which works just great for this amateur cook.

If you’re back-timing the whole process?  I made these up the afternoon before the big feed and whacked them in the fridge overnight when I took the turkey out of the fridge where it had been thawing for about 24 hours and put it in cold water in the sink to finish thawing overnight.

Tomorrow?  The stuffing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shepherd’s Pie

~ Dad's Turn To Cook ~ Leave a comment

 

I know I promised meatloaf, but…something came up.  Namely, I decided to use that ground beef I had thawing and take a swing at Shepherd’s Pie!

I’ve made this dish I believe…once previously.  It essentially wound up being a veggie casserole with potato on top.  Not very good.  So, while doing a little hunting online for inspiration I stumbled across this video by Gordon Ramsay.

A bit MTV, isn’t it?  Yeah.  While the video doesn’t really give you much in the way of measurements and actual instruction…I watched it a couple times, picked up a few ideas and decided to wing it.  The verdict?  My wife called dibs on the leftovers, my one kid gave it a 6 stars out of 5, and our picky eater made toast.  I was tempted to throw a few Gordon Ramsay adjectives their way, but…everyone has their own preferences, right?

Here’s how it all shook down.

Gordon Ramsay Inspired Shepherd’s Pie – A DT2C mashup! (?)

The Mashed Potatoes.

  • 2 lbs potato.  Salt some water, peel and dice the potatoes and boil them until you can put a fork in them without that crunchy potato resistance.
  • Drain
  • Add a splash of milk.  Mash.
  • Add 2 egg yolks.  Stir it all up.
  • Add about 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese.

I started the potatoes boiling and cooking while I was doing the meat.  Once the potatoes were ready for mashing, the meat was simmering off some liquid.  It all timed out rather nice.

The Meat.

  • 1 lb lean ground beef.  (Ramsay used Lamb.  Who’s got THAT lying around?) Brown it, strain it, set it aside for a bit.  You’ll want to use a large deep pan you can load up and simmer things in.
  • 1/4 onion – shredded with a grater.  Could have done more, I had 1/4 onion on hand.  Go with 1/2.
  • 1 carrot – shredded with a grater.  I did about 8 mini-carrots.  A big one would have been much easier to shred.  It all tastes the same.
  • 2 teaspoons crushed/minced garlic.  I’m guessing on quantity here, I was really winging this one.

Saute the onions and carrots, cook them down a bit, then toss the ground beef back in.  Alright, now it’s time for some seasoning.  Here goes (to my recollection).

  • 2 teaspoons rosemary
  • 2 teaspoons thyme
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tablespoons Tomato paste (I used a couple squirts of bottled pizza sauce I had handy – saving the tomato paste in the pantry for another recipe this week…)
  • a few good cranks of black pepper from the pepper mill
  • 1 cup chicken stock/broth

Let everything relax and simmer together.  This would be a good time to pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F (180 Celsius).  You want to get the beef mixture cooked down so it’s still moist, but not runny.  Okay.  Time to toss it all together.

Grab a casserole dish.  The round ones with a lid (you won’t need the lid unless you have leftovers – and with this one you won’t have leftovers.  Yum.)  Put the meat mixture on the bottom, press it down a bit.  Next, put the mashed potato mix on top, kind of like you’re icing a cake.  Once that’s done and smoothed over a bit, take your parmesan cheese and sprinkle generously over the top of the potato.  I then gave a few cranks of black pepper from the pepper mill and sprinkled some paprika spice on top to give a bit of colour to everything.  Not much, just a light dusting.

Whack it in the pre-heated oven for…20-25 minutes.  Scoop.  Serve.  Enjoy.

With the ground beef running around $3.50, the potatoes about $1.50 and then various spices, odds and ends and parmesan…I’m guessing all tallied this one came out to about $8 to pull off?  I shredded up a head of romaine to have alongside this.  I mean, there’s already veggies, starch, protein and dairy included…and as a heavier dish, a light salad made a good companion.