Baked Potato Puree - an Original recipe!

So, tonight I was finally creative with cooking again. I've been cooking a lot, just nothing "new" because I have been busy cooking and freezing old favorites to pull out and eat once the Lil Man decides to grace us with his presence.

But today, I did something new, and it was my own original recipe.

See, we had a jicama in the house that I was planning on making a puree with. But I pulled it out of the fridge today and there was mold on it! Darn! I also learned after googling that jicama's are good for 3 weeks, but have to be kept in a cool, DRY place. Oops. Lesson learned.

So, we had one potato left from the same shopping trip and I didn't want THAT to go bad too so I decided to make a puree with that. First I started to try and find recipes but realized I could probably pull something off by myself. And I did. I made a baked potato puree.

It turned out great! My husband loved it, and it is something different to do with potatoes. The whole process took me about 30-40 minutes with peeling the potato, boiling it, and then pureeing it with some other ingredients in the blender. But I was very proud of it!

So here is the recipe!

Ingredients: (sorry, no exact measures, I was playing around)

1 potato, peeled and boiled
sour cream - about 1.5 TBSP
shredded cheddar - about 2 TBSP worth, maybe a dash more
scallions - chopped (to taste)
margarine or butter (melted about 2 TBSP)
bacon bits (i used imitation, to taste)


Directions:

First, peel and boil your potato. Put some salt in the water as it boils to give the potato some taste.

After 20 minutes, take the potato out of the water and carefully cut it into smaller chunks. Place that in the blender along with the rest of the ingredients.

Puree until smooth.

Enjoy hot!

Simple and easy... and delicious!

Enjoy!

Marbled Stuffed Potatoes

This recipe is courtesy of the October 2010 Food Network Magazine Issue


When I saw the following recipe in my Food Network Magazine, I couldn't wait to try it out - even though I am still not a huge sweet potato fan.

Well, the result was amazing. It was SO good - and both my husband and parents agreed and gobbled it up!!

The only bad thing about this recipe is the time it takes to make it. It's definitely an hour and a half to two hour project, so it's good for a weekend day you are home or if you have a day off. You can make this at night for the next day - I made it the day before I served them and they turned out just fine!

I used these as part of the Yom Kippur pre-fast dinner I was hosting for my husband and parents because it would be a filling component for dinner and my husband was fasting the next day for the holiday. These were definitely filling!

Here are the ingredients: (this was for a serving size of 4)

4 large russet potatoes
1 large sweet potato
1/4 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
2 scallions, thinly sliced
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (I actually just used ground nutmeg I had in the spice cabinet)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Put the russet and sweet potatoes directly on the oven rack and bake 30 minutes.

Pierce each potato a few times with a fork and continue to bake until tender, 15 to 20 more minutes for the sweet potato and 20 to 25 more minutes for the russet potatoes. Let cool slightly.

Peel the sweet potato. Transfer to a bowl and mash lightly with a fork until almost smooth.

Trim a thin slice off the top of each russet potato, cutting lengthwise. Scoop most of the flesh into another bowl, leaving the shells intact.


Add the sour cream and butter to the russet potato bowl and mash with a fork. Stir in the scallions, 1/2 cup cheese, the nutmeg, 1 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste.

Gently fold in the sweet potato.


Brush the potato skins with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Generously fill with the marbled potato mixture and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup cheese.

Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F. Place the stuffed potatoes on a baking sheet and bake until the cheese melts, 25 to 30 minutes.



Since I made these the day before I was serving them, I actually only baked them for about 22 minutes and then let them cool. I put them in a covered tupperware and refrigerated them overnight. When it came time to serve them, I stuck them in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes until hot. I was worried they would get dry but they didn't due to the cheese and sour cream in the stuffing portion.

I also ended up having too much stuffing so I set it aside in another tupperware for us to eat as mashed potatoes one day!!

One change I made was using freshly grated Parmesan cheese instead of cheddar cheese. I was using a lot of Parmesan in other foods I was making for Yom Kippur dinner so I wasn't to keep it consistent and I thought the taste would mesh well. It did!!

I know these are a lot of work but I honestly can't tell you how delicious they are - coming from someone who never liked sweet potatoes and is just now starting to eat them in certain forms.

I give this a thumbs up and encourage you all to try it one day when you have some extra time. It's worth it!!