Roasted Jalapeno Mashed Potatoes

I got so excited to see that the Recipe Swap theme this time was in the form of the Secret Recipe Club.  In the Secret Recipe Club, you swap blogs with someone and you get to make anything that you want. For this swap, I received Mary Ellen's Cooking Creations.

I perused Mary Ellen's blog for quite awhile, looking at all of her amazing food.  Something to know about my husband and I is that we eat side salads with about 90% of our meals.  They are easy to put together, especially after a long day at work.  After looking at her blog for awhile, I stumbled upon the side dishes.  They all sounded so good, and made it difficult to choose, but one of the comments on the Roasted Jalapeno Mashed Potatoes was: "OMG, these were THE BEST mashed potatoes I have ever tasted."  I love mashed potatoes, so because of that comment, I knew I had to make these potatoes.

Roasted Jalapeno Mashed Potatoes
slightly adapted from Mary Ellen's Cooking Creations
Ingredients
2 lbs red potatoes
2 jalapenos, roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped, then mixed with 1/4 c half and half and a few dashes salt to puree
3 tablespoons butter 
2 tablespoons reduced fat onion and chive cream cheese
1 tablespoon reduced fat sour cream
1/2 pint fat-free half and half
Salt to taste
Shredded Mexican blend cheese
Chopped chives

Directions

1)  Preheat oven to 375.

2) Wash potatoes, halve them, and put in a pot of lightly salted water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, about 12 minutes (this takes about 45-60 at high altitude). Drain.
3) In the meantime, transfer the jalapeno/cream/salt mixture to a blender and puree. 
4)Add jalapeno puree, butter, salt, and half and half to potatoes. Mash until creamy using a handheld masher adjust salt as needed, add more cream and butter if you want to get them lighter/creamier. 
5) Mix in the sour cream and cream cheese and transfer to a baking dish.
6) Top with the shredded cheese and bake for 15 minutes, or until the cheese has completely melted into the potatoes. 

I do have to agree with the comment on Mary Ellen's blog.  I do think these are the most flavorful mashed potatoes that I have ever had.  I loved the flavor of the jalapeno in the potatoes, it was present, but not overpowering. I served it with Crockpot Ranch Pork Chops though, and the creaminess in the sauce made the mashed potatoes not seem as strong.  My husband loved these too, and we ate all the leftovers very quickly.  This was a great side dish.


To see all the other SRC style recipes that were swapped, visit A Taste of Home Cooking.

Home Fries

For the potato recipe swap, I received Home Fries from Colleen's Kitchen Therapy.  I haven't run across Colleen's blog before so I spent some time on it just looking through her recipes.  I found an amazing Reese's Cup Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake that I know I'll have to make some day, and also some great looking Chunky Apple Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting that look delicious.

But since it wasn't a "choose any recipe you want" swap, I quickly read through her recipe for Home Fries as well, which sounded like a great accompany for many different types of meals.  I couldn't decide if we should serve it with a Chive and Cheddar Frittata or just as a side to a protein.

Home Fries
slightly adapted from Colleen's Kitchen Therapy
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 medium russet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons rosemary
1 teaspoon garlic powder


Directions 
1) In a large skillet that has a lid, over medium-high heat, saute onions and olive oil for 2-3 minutes until the onions begin to soften.
2) Add in potatoes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and rosemary and mix to coat potatoes in olive oil.  Cover and let potatoes cook, untouched, for 5 minutes. 
3) Remove lid and mix up potato and onion mixture.  Replace lid and cook, untouched, for 5 minutes more. 
4) Repeat this process until the potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft and cooked through on the inside, about 20-25 minutes.  Serve immediately.

I added the rosemary because we served the home fries with steak and rosemary seemed like a great herb to tie the two elements together on a plate.  I thought this made a great side dish to a fantastic meal.  I loved the flavor of the potatoes, and the texture on them was perfect.  Plus, they don't take too much time to come together, so they make for an easy side dish.

Pork and Potato Hash

February is Potato Lovers Month.  I didn't know that until the next theme for the Recipe Swap was announced: potatoes.  When I searched through my blog to find a potato recipe to swap,  I decided that I should make something new and then swap that.  So, I set out on a hunt to find a potato recipe. 

The first thing that came to mind was hash, so I typed in hash, and this amazing picture popped up.  The picture looked so good that I thought I could actually smell the hash through my computer, so onto the menu plan it went.

Pork and Potato Hash

adapted from MyRecipes

Ingredients

12 ounces pork shoulder or butt

1 carton (32 ounces) reduced sodium chicken broth

1 tablespoon rosemary

1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning

1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cups (1/2-inch) cubed red potatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons thinly diagonally sliced green onions

Directions

1) Place pork in the crockpot and pour chicken broth over the pork.  Season with rosemary, Italian seasoning, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and black pepper.  Place the crushed garlic into the broth mixture and let cook in the crockpot about six hours on low.

2) In a skillet, place a tablespoon of oil and place on medium-high heat.  Add the potato and chopped onion and cook until both potatoes and onions are tender.

3) Shred pork with kitchen utensils.

4) Plate potatoes and top with pork and green onions.  (The original recipe had an over easy egg on top, but we didn't include those).

The pork tasted amazing when it came out of the crockpot.  It was one of those foods that you want to just keep eating, but you hold yourself back because you know you're about to eat dinner.  The pork tasted great with the potatoes and the onions added some great flavor.  This is a fast, low calorie meal that was great.  This dish would not have been the same without the red potatoes, so I'm going to say that this is a great dish for Potato Lovers Month. 

Beer Braised Sausages with Warm Potato Salad

I just recently received a Dutch Oven that has allowed me to conquer more one-pot meals.  Before getting the Dutch Oven, I just didn't have any equipment that was big enough to handle all of the ingredients the one-pot recipes called for.  I'm finding that the Dutch Oven is just about as handy as a crock pot.  The ingredients all meld in the pot to create amazing flavors.

I recently stumbled across Martha Stewart's recipe site and she also has a lot of one-pot meals that I'm interested in making.  Most of them are fantastic comfort foods that are great for cold nights.  This recipe turned out great, so I'll definitely be heading back to find some other recipes to make.

 

Beer Braised Sausages with Warm Potato Salad

slightly adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients 

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausages
1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

24 ounces beer (we used Easy Street, a nice wheat beer)
1 1/2 pounds small red potatoes, halved (I ended up quartering mine by the end so they'd cook faster)

2 cups of water
Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 tablespoon oregano

1 tablespoon chives

2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1) In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high. Add garlic and sausages, cook until brown on all sides, about 8 minutes. Add onion and cook until softened, about 7 minutes. Add beer, potatoes, and water; season with salt, pepper, oregano and chives and press to submerge potatoes in cooking liquid. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes (took about 40 at high altitude).
2) Transfer sausages to a serving platter and keep warm. In a large bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon oil, vinegar, and parsley, and a dash of chives. With a slotted spoon, transfer potato mixture to dressing (reserve cooking liquid) and toss to combine.
3) Return pot to high heat; boil cooking liquid until reduced to 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Return sausages to pot and cook until heated through, 2 minutes. Place sausages and dressed potatoes on serving platter; drizzle half the sauce over top. Serve sausages and potatoes with remaining sauce alongside.

I really wanted to use turkey sausages in this recipe, but it turned out that my grocery store had run out.  Jacob kept commenting on how great the house smelled with the combination of the beer, sausages, and garlic.  I doubled the amount of beer in the recipe to get more of the flavor, but also to fully cover the potatoes in the Dutch Oven.  Without two bottles of beer and two cups of water, the potatoes would not have been covered.

I thought that the red wine vinegar taste of the potatoes went great with the beer flavored onions and sausages.  The herbs were subtle, but still contributed to the flavor profile of the dish.  Everything worked well to provide this great comforting dish.

French Onion Stuffed Baked Potatoes

The theme of this round's recipe swap was Thanksgiving side dishes.  The only side for Thanksgiving that I have ever made was a green bean casserole in college for a get together for students who couldn't go home.  This year will be my first Thanksgiving cooking, so I was excited to participate in this swap to get new ideas.

I received French Onion Stuffed Baked Potatoes from the Redhead Baker, who writes the Does Not Cook Well With Others blog.  I had to chuckle because the last recipe that I received was for French Onion Soup, so I seemed destined to make many French Onion recipes this month.

French Onion Stuffed Baked Potatoes
adapted from FoodNetwork
Ingredients
4 russet potatoes
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 button mushrooms thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon red cooking wine
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup shredded gruyere, plus more for topping

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stab the potatoes with a fork a few times and then wrap in foil and put in the oven for an hour.
2) About half-way through the potatoes' cooking time, heat the olive oil, salt, and garlic in a skillet, and cook the onions and mushrooms until caramelized, about 20 minutes.
3) Add the wine,the beef broth, bay leaf and reduce the liquid into the onions and mushrooms, should take about ten minutes.
4) When the potatoes are done, split them open and scoop out the flesh.
5) Mash the potato flesh, caramelized mushroom and onions, and 1/2 cup of shredded gruyere.
6) Stuff into the potato skins, top with more gruyere, and put back into the oven just until cheese melts.

Mine turned out more like potato skins because when I cut them in half to stuff them, they came all the way apart.   If you love French Onion soup, these baked potatoes are great.  They have the same flavors as the soup, just in a different vessel.  I added mushrooms because I had extra mushrooms from another dish this week, and I think it added to the taste and texture, but could also be left out.  We ate ours with steak, but I think that they'd be the perfect addition to the Thanksgiving table.  The only thing that I did notice was that they didn't retain their heat for a long time, so they can't sit out for awhile before you serve them to guests.  They basically need to go from the oven to the table.

Ground Turkey with Potatoes and Peas

I have to admit that we've been a little dependent on the Skinnytaste blog recently.  It seems like everything I make from the blog is a huge hit and we're working hard on reducing our portion sizes.  The food on the Skinnytaste blog seems to be super filling because my husband never goes into the kitchen for seconds.  We've had a lot of leftovers, which helps for lunches the next day.

I liked this meal because it seemed heartier, which is always good for a late autumn night.  It was also super easy to put together, and most of the time is spent chopping things, so the meal seems to go from the skillet to the table quickly.  Plus it is one of those one-pot meals so cleanup was super easy, which was great since we had a lot of Trick-or-Treaters.

Ground Turkey with Potatoes and Peas

slightly adapted from Skinnytaste

Ingredients

1 medium tomato
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
1/4 cup red onion
1.25 lb 93% lean ground turkey
4 medium scallions, chopped
1/2 cup canned peas  or 1 cup fresh peas
1 potato, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch strips
8 oz can canned tomatoes
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp cumin, or to taste
salt, to taste
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup cheese

Directions
1) In a food processor or by hand finely chop tomato, garlic, red onion, and cilantro.
2) In a large skillet, brown turkey.  Season with salt and cumin.
3) When meat is browned and cooked through add scallions, chopped tomato mixture, peas, potato, tomato sauce, water, cumin, salt and bay leaf.
4) Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until potatoes are cooked through, about 25 minutes stirring occasionally. Add more water if needed. Remove bay leaf and serve over rice.  Add cheese if you'd like to finish off the meal.

I used a whole cup of peas like the original recipe called for and the dish seemed a little overrun with peas.  This could be due to the fact that I used canned peas instead of fresh peas.  The tomato taste was prominant, but I couldn't really taste any of the other spices.  When I make this again, I'll probably up the amounts of the spices quite a bit, so that they don't get lost in the tomato elements of the dish.  I thought that the potatoes and the rice would make this dish too starchy, but everything seemed very proportionate in this recipe.

Smashed Red Potatoes

I don't actually sit down and watch too many cooking shows where the host actually is making a meal.  I usually lose interest about ten minutes in and just tell myself that I'll look the recipe up online. 

5 Ingredient Fix is on while I am at home for lunch though and I often get sucked into her delicious sounding, few ingredient meals.  One day, she was talking about roasting potatoes and then smashing them with a potato masher.  Around this point, I lost interest and told myself that I'd look up the recipe later.
While meal planning, I ran into Gourmet: Day to Day's Crash Hot Potatoes, and thought that it was the perfect recipe to try the 5 Ingredient Fix technique on.

Smashed Red Potatoes
adapted from Gourmet Day to Day and 5 Ingredient Fix
Ingredients

• 8 small red potatoes (make sure they are around the same size so they cook at the same time)
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons of chives
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• parmesean cheese

Directions

1)  Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 

2)  Place the potatoes on a sheet pan, pour 3/4 cup water over the potatoes and cover tightly with foil. Bake on the bottom rack until tender, about 30 minutes (this is about an hour if you live at high altitude). Remove from the oven, drain any remaining water.

3) With a potato masher, gently press down on each potato until it slightly mashes. 

4) Drizzle each potato with olive oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, chives, and parmesean cheese.  Place a little pat of butter atop each potato and place back into the oven for about 5 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and butter is melted.

I served these with the Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce.  I loved the potatoes, but they took a long time in the oven.  Jacob said they weren't worth the effort, but I think that it was just because we were both so hungry and it took an hour just for the potatos to roast.  I think that the potatoes are a great side though and are fantastic if you 1) don't live at altitude 2) have the time to make them.