Our Bella Cucina » Sides

Potato Frittata

sarah — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:00:49 +0000

It’s no secret that I love to bake, even though making dough is intimidating and I tend to avoid it, I still love to bake and I also love to read baking blogs.

That is how I found Joy The Baker.

Her site has lots of wonderful yummy things, one of which is this recipe for Potato Frittata. It is such a delicious combination of ingredients that is perfect for a Sunday brunch and will turn out yummy……if you’re not like me and don’t rush it. You know how it is, week night dinner time, kids driving you crazy, hungry husband on the way home and you’re trying to fix dinner. Brinner? Anyway, I was rushed, not being careful about slicing my potatoes thinly enough, and definitely not noticing that my potatoes seemed too big to include them all in the pan. I ended up with very crunchy potatoes that my family couldn’t eat, all because I didn’t slow down a bit and pay attention.

Don’t be like me.

INGREDIENTS
5 tablespoons canola oil, divided (I used olive oil)
1 small yellow onion, sliced
4 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/8-inch thick slices (mine were too large, so don’t take “large” too literally when picking them out!)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
7 large eggs
2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons minced chives
2 tablespoons heavy cream

DIRECTIONS
Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat to 400 degrees F.
Heat a medium saute pan over medium high heat and drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the onions and cook until caramelized, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Deglaze the pan with 1/4 cup of water, scraping any brown bits from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Cook until the water evaporates and the onions take on a uniform brown color, about 5 minutes.

Transfer the onions to the roasting pan and toss with the raw sliced potatoes.

Ignore my beat up old baking pan. She may be ugly, but she is good at her job!
Yes it’s a she. Got a problem with that?

Add 1 tablespoon of butter and the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil. Toss with your hands and season generously with salt and pepper.

Cover the pan with foil and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

Set the potatoes aside to cool for 15 minutes and reduce the oven heat to 350 degrees F.
Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, herbs and cream together. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over medium high heat. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in the skillet, making sure that melted butter greases the side of the cast iron as well and add the cooked potatoes to the pan.

Top with the egg mixture.

Cover the skillet with the previously removed foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for 10 minutes more.

Slice and serve directly from the skillet, warm or at room temperature.

I will definitely make this again sometime when I have a little more time to prepare it so I can pay closer attention to slicing the potatoes….and not use such mutantly large potatoes!

♥

Caesar Salad Dressing

sarah — Fri, 14 May 2010 08:00:27 +0000

In keeping with my recent trend of trying to have some healthier fare on Fridays, I thought I’d share this cesar salad dressing with you. I found it at Tasty Kitchen and have altered it slightly to have less lemon juice. The original recipe called for 1/3 cup of lemon juice but when I made it I felt it was just way too lemony. I’ve dropped it down to 1/4 cup but feel free to adjust to your own personal taste.

INGREDIENTS
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon anchovy paste
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1 dash freshly ground black pepper

One more thing – use the anchovy paste even if you hate anchovies. Really. I promise it doesn’t taste like fish when mixed into the dressing and adds to the flavour. Really.

DIRECTIONS
Combine all ingredients and whisk until completely blended.

Serve with romaine lettuce and fresh croutons.

Delicious!

Don’t those chicken nuggets look yummy too? Next week, I promise.

♥

Grandmother’s Cornbread

sarah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:00:30 +0000

No, not my grandmother. I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com and all I know is someone’s grandmother makes really good cornbread!

I’ve made a few different cornbreads in the past but this one is my favourite. It partly had to do with the cornmeal I used – I found one that was more finely ground than any other I’ve used before – but mostly because I liked the flavour. It’s not too sweet or too savory and has that slight cake-like taste while still maintaining its classic cornbread flavour. It also nicely straddles the line of not too moist and not too dry.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cooking Spray

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Grease an 8 inch square pan with the cooking spray.

Over a medium heat melt the butter in a large skillet.

Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the sugar.

Quickly add the eggs and beat until well blended.

Combine the buttermilk with the baking soda and stir it into the mixture in the pan.

Add the cornmeal.

Add the flour.

And finally the salt.

Stir until well blended and few lumps remain.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes (mine was ready in 30), or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Everyone in my family ate this and I will definitely be making it again!

♥

Potato Bake

sarah — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:00:28 +0000

As delicious as this is, I’m embarrassed to post these pictures of it. Everything was going great in the cooking process until things got kind of crazy in my house right when the oven buzzer was due to go off…and it got slightly burned. So I beg your forgiveness and ask you to use your imagination to envision a lightly browned cheesy top and creamy moist layers of potato beneath it. Really!

INGREDIENTS
5-6 medium-large size potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
3-4 medium size cloves of garlic, crushed
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup whole milk
salt

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Use the butter to grease a medium size baking dish.

Evenly dot the garlic around the bottom of the dish.

Start layering the potatoes.

Periodically sprinkle a little salt and keep on layering.

And layer some more until you reach the top of the dish.

Mix your two cheeses together then evenly distribute it over the top.

Carefully pour the milk into the corners of the dish.

No that’s not milk in the picture – all I had was 1% so I had to use cream. Bad Sarah!

Then pop it in the oven to bake for 50-60 minutes.

Just don’t be like me and get distracted and end up with a dry, burnt disaster!

One more thing. We sometimes put some diced bacon or ham into the layers as we are stacking the potatoes and that adds a great new flavour to this dish. Try it sometime!

♥

It’s PW Thursday – Fettuccine Alfredo

sarah — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:00:09 +0000

Yes I know this is probably one of the most unhealthy dishes on the planet, but in the words of Paula Deen, “I’m your cook, not your doctor.”

That’s all I have to say about that.

INGREDIENTS
1 pound Fettuccine Noodles
1 stick Butter
1 cup Heavy Cream
Salt and Pepper, to taste
2 cups Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese, divided
4-6 slices of bacon (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Cook the bacon in a frying pan over medium-high heat to the level of done-ness you normally like. I love my cast iron skillet for things like bacon!

Sit the bacon slices on some paper towels to absorb some of the fat then cut it into small pieces.

There was more bacon than this but certain little fingers kept stealing it!

Put the pasta on to boil, following the directions on the box. I like to add a splash of olive oil to the water before putting in the pasta because I find it helps keep the pasta from sticking to itself too much.

Over a medium heat, melt the butter.

Pour in the cream and bring to a gentle boil until combined.

Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Now this is where I changed things a little. Ree has you put half the parmesan cheese (1 cup) into a bowl before pouring the sauce from the pan into the bowl on top of the cheese. I decided to mix half a cup of cheese into the sauce in the pan first.

Then I put 1 cup of the cheese into a large bowl before pouring in the sauce.

Add the bacon to the sauce and stir to mix.

Drain the pasta and immediately pour it into the bowl.

Toss a couple of times, then sprinkle in the remaining 1/2 cup of parmesan.

Yes, I did forget to toss it before adding the cheese!

Toss to combine, thinning with some of the pasta water if necessary. I didn’t need to thin mine because I used 12oz of pasta instead of a full pound, so there was more sauce to go around.

Serve immediately as a main course or accompaniment to meat or salad.

We do like meat in our house and I think if I were to serve it on its own like this again I might add some chicken to it instead of the bacon. The original PW recipe didn’t have the bacon, I just added it on a whim to see if it would work and it would work well if you were serving it as a side dish. Another thing I would change in the future is to add a little garlic to it.

Criticism aside, it was mighty tasty!

I was watching my 2 year old inhale this dinner last night and was so pleased he liked it that I asked him “Who makes the best dinners?”

His response? “Mommy does…….and Daddy loses!”

Poor Daddy.

♥

PW Wednesday – Roasted Potato Wedges

sarah — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:00:02 +0000

I made this yesterday for my boys for lunch and it was a huge hit! I only seasoned them simply since I was feeding a 2 and 4 year old but they were so delicious and I’d love to try them again sometime with garlic and other herbs on them!

INGREDIENTS
Potatoes (number and variety of your choosing; russets work well)
1/4 – 1/3 cup of olive oil
Salt To Taste

Optional Ingredients:
Fresh Herbs, to taste
Garlic, Minced
2 Tablespoons (to 3 Tablespoons) Balsamic Vinegar
Cayenne Pepper
Paprika

Basically throw in there whatever you think might taste good on potato wedges!

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Wash potatoes.

Cut each potato in half length ways then cut each half into quarters length ways so each potato yields 8 wedges and put them on a baking sheet.

Toss with oil, salt, and whatever else you’d like: garlic, balsamic, spices, etc. I just drizzled them over but next time I think I would put them in a Ziploc bag or something to make sure all of them got a good, even coating of seasoning.

I used olive oil, kosher salt, and balsamic vinegar.

Pop them in the oven and roast them for 15 minutes. Then take them out, shake them around a bit to loosen them and turn them over before returning them to the oven for another 15 minutes. Just keep an eye on them so they don’t burn – like mine did a little!

Serve immediately.

♥

Quinoa Tabouli

lorrin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:34:40 +0000

I’m often asked by friends how I can get enough protein on a strict vegetarian diet – the answer is, “EASY!” Plants contain various amino acids required to synthesize a protein. Your body is amazing and can compile amino acids from different sources. So bottom line: all you really need to do is eat a VARIETY (key word here, folks) of plant-based foods. You can also boost your protein input by eating legumes, grains, nuts & seeds – and you CAN still get a complete protein from certain plants – such as soy and quinoa.

One of my absolute favorite high-protein vegetarian dishes is Quinoa Tabouli – it’s light yet filling, high in protein yet doesn’t contain soy, to which some people are allergic. I have yet to bring this dish to a party or serve it to guests without someone asking me for the recipe.

Quinoa Tabouli

1 cup quinoa cooked in 2 1/2 cups boiling water for 15 mins or until done

When cooked, your quinoa will be light and fluffy

1 bunch parsley, chopped fine
1 bunch green onions, sliced fine
Punnet of grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped

Mix together the tomatoes, cucumber, onions and parsley

Let the quinoa cool before adding to the rest of the ingredients.

Cook the Quinoa much as you would rice, it's that easy!

When the Quinoa is cooled, mix all together and make the dressing:

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the dressing ingredients in a small jar with a tight-fitting lid, and shake until blended. Pour over the solid ingredients and mix gently.

How much parsley you use is up to you. Some like it green!

The recipe says to marinate for at least an hour, but I tend to get impatient and just get my nom on right away. Enjoy!

~Lorrin

Sweet Potato Bake With Apples

sarah — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:54:08 +0000

This has become my signature Thanksgiving dish. I saw it years ago on the Oprah show and have been cooking it every year since. We go to Thanksgiving at a friend’s house each year and I always bring “my” sweet potatoes!

INGREDIENTS
4 pounds (about 6 large) sweet potatoes
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg.
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon.
2 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper.

3 tablespoons butter
2-3 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into eighths (I like to use Braeburn).
3 tablespoons light brown sugar

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375°.
Scrub potatoes, then prick several times with a knife or fork.
Bake 1 hour, or until very soft when pierced with a knife.
Combine orange juice, cream, butter, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
Remove potatoes from oven. Once cooled, scoop out the insides with a spoon.
Place the sweet potato meat into the bowl of an electric mixer.
Add juice-and-cream mixture, blend until combined but not smooth, and pour into a large baking dish.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Add apple wedges and brown sugar.
Cook for about 10 minutes, turning apples occasionally, until lightly browned on both sides.

Place on top of sweet potatoes and bake 30 minutes, until heated through.
(Note: If refrigerating before baking, cook 45 minutes, or until heated through.)

This recipe was originally double the size but I have halved it and it serves 6-8 people.

♥