DELICIOUS roasted potato fries.

I have no photos of this, but after the reviews on Saturday night for making these when Adam's parents came over for dinner, I had to post what I did, or else I'll lose the recipe in the back of my mind forever!  These were some of the best roasted potatoes I've ever made.

INGREDIENTS:
4 large white potatoes (oblong is best)
Olive oil (will use about 1-2tbsp total)
2 tsp of nutritional yeast
3/4 tsp granulated garlic powder
2 tsp of italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon of smoked paprika
fresh ground sea salt and pepper

Borscht!?!? YES!!

I've been browsing borscht recipes for awhile, not sure why.  I had savoy cabbage to eat and I was at home sick.  Nutritious soup was in order for lunch, but the preparation ended up tiring me right out.  At least it tasted great.  Or I think it did.  Not sure if I've even HAD this kind of soup before.  It's Ukranian apprearantly.  I can only assume if I like it it turned out right, traditional or not!  (It's a great way to use beets!)



A messy bowl, served with sour cream, YUM.

My main inspirations are these pages here:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/ukrainian-red-borscht-soup/detail.aspx

http://mostlysoup.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/vegetarian-borscht/

I also did some stuff from here and there but honestly, I don't remember what recipes the ideas came from.

Sarah's Basic Borscht!

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb beets*
1/2 lb carrots (about 3 medium)
1 small onion slivered 2 garlic cloves minced
4 C of savoy cabbage shredded
1c canned chopped tomatoes drained**
3 medium new potatoes, scrubbed, peeled, and cubed into approx 1.5cm pieces
1t dried dill
1/4t caraway seeds
2t balsamic vinegar

1T of vegetable oil

900ml carton of beef broth (or equivalent homemade stock)
2+C of water (I say + because you may need a bit more than 2, depending on consistency)


salt and pepper to taste

Sour cream for serving

Special Tools:Food Processor

You say Potato, I say SALAD....potato SALAD potato SALAD

Potato Salad folks!  It was my Grandmother's birthday party yesterday (86 years young) and I was commissioned to bring some starchy salads. 


The finished product, you can see
my famous pasta salad behind it :)

I've made potato salad, but I've never made really good potato salad...until now.  I stole this one from Martha Stewart.    When combining the warm potatoes with the seasoning at the beginning, the flavour is excellent.  I will make this again.  I could eat this all day.  There's enough leftover, so I might just do that! http://www.marthastewart.com/341697/basic-potato-salad


BASIC POTATO SALAD

INGREDIENTS:

3 pounds waxy potatoes (such as Yukon gold or new), scrubbed and cut into 3/4-inch cubes

1/3 cup white-wine vinegar
4 scallions, white part minced, green part thinly sliced
Coarse salt (1tsp)
Ground pepper (1/4 tsp)
1/3 C light mayo
1/3 C plain 2% or non-fat greek yogurt
1 stalk of celery, finely sliced
Fresh Parsley (optional)

Potatoes and cheese, with some Ham please!

I had a great weekend in food! and some great leftovers I've been enjoying.  I'm going to share 2 recipes and the first one is the feature of this post!

I also ate out a couple of times, but it was at chain restaurants, so I've decided to write more about smaller, local or just plain unique eating experiences (although I'll never EVER have anything to say negative about the RIBS at BATON ROUGE - oh baby!)

Recipe 1 - Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes with Asparagus

I made this recipe based on cheesy sauce and from googling Aparagus potatoes gratin (which I found here,    http://bellavita-bellasblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/italian-asparagus-and-potato-gratin-in.html  you will see my recipe is almost nothing like that one)  I just like looking to see if, you know, my idea exists??  It did :)  But I did it differently.  This recipe is inspired by any cheesy casserole or scalloped potatoes I have ever done (any rip offs, not intended).  Read the recipe for the ingredients before you start - I made this kind of on the fly so I'm writing it like I made it.

Just delicious, can you go wrong with cheese?



Preheat your oven to 400F

Combine in a large bowl:

1.5 lbs peeled yukon gold or other all purpose potato sliced thinly (use a mandolin if you have it)



.5 lb of asparagus tips, chopped into 2 inch pieces (if the asparagus is thick stemmed, cut it in half or quarters so they are nice and small)

Season with about 1/4 t salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper