Purple Loaded Mashed Potatoes and Mixed Grill

When I picked up my CSA share a few weeks ago, I did notice the potatoes looked dark, but I just thought they were a little wet. It rained heavily on our pick up day and I set them in a colander on the counter to dry. They were put in a bag for another day. So when I was planning a meal for a dinner guest, I decided that potatoes would make a nice side but it wasn't until the actual meal prep that I noticed: The potatoes were purple! I have had fingerling purple potatoes but I couldn't remember if they retained their color when boiled. I told our guest I had a surprise for him when he arrived. They were beautiful to look at and tasted great, really no different from a white potato at all. Had I been paying closer attention I would have thought more about it, but I love little unexpected changes from the usual.

The meal includes marinaded steak tips, chicken and Italian sausage with Cilantro-Parsley Pesto (also used for the chicken marinade) and Loaded Mashed Potatoes. It included cilantro, potatoes, peppers, and chives from my share.

Loaded Mashed Potatoes:
10-12 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 sticks butter
1 bunch chives, chopped
1 cup bacon, chopped
2 cups shredded cheese (cheddar, or a favorite blend)
1/2 c sour cream
salt
pepper

Boil potatoes until they are easily pierced by fork. Drain. Add butter, and partially mash. Add rest of ingredients, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Continue to mash to desired consistency. Allow to stand about 3-5 minutes, to melt cheese and butter completely. Stir to finish mixing and serve.

Cilantro Parsley Pesto:
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
1 bunch cilantro
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch green onions
3-4 cherry peppers, seeded
1/2 cup olive oil
juice from 1 lime
salt
pepper

In a food processor, process parsley, cilantro, garlic and peppers. I had to do the parsley alone, first to make room. Add green onions, and pulse to a fine grind, adding olive oil and lime juice slowly through the pouring hole in the lid. Season with salt and pepper to taste and blend again.

Can be used as a condiment or a marinade for chicken. We really liked it on the chicken.

Steak Marinade #3:
3 tbsp honey
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup tamari
1/4 c olive oil
salt
pepper

Mix all ingredients together well and marinate steak overnight. Tamari can be salty, I added a little more salt in proportion to the amount of meat, so salt carefully.

Osso Bucco with Saffron Risotto

Braising. It's probably one of the most flavorful ways to cook any kind of meat. The flavors are always deep and complex. This was my first time using beef shanks, it isn't easy to less common cuts of meat in this area. One of my goals has been to avoid getting into a chicken-groundbeef-porkchop rut, so I've been branching out between this year and last. The carrots were some monsters from my weekly share, everything else was just pantry staples.

Osso Bucco:
4-6 beef shanks
1 tbsp lard or oil
salt
pepper
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, halved, and sliced
4 large carrots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
 1 can stewed tomatoes
1 cup red wine
chicken broth

Preheat oven to 325. In a pan with fat or oil, brown meat 4-5 minutes, each side over high heat until brown and seared, working in batches, so as to not over-crowd the pan. Transfer to lidded roasting pan (you could use a crock pot, too) and in the same pan. Cook chopped vegetables with salt and pepper about 5-6 minutes. Add vegetables to roasting pan with meat and tomatoes and de-glaze skillet with wine, add to meat and vegetables. Add enough chicken broth to ensure the meat is 2/3 covered. Cook at least 3 hours or until tender on 325.

Saffron Risotto:
1 cup arborio rice
2 tbsp butter
3 cups water or chicken stock
1 cup Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp heavy cream
salt
pepper
crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp saffron powder or threads

Cook rice with butter over medium heat until translucent. Add liquid 1 cup at a time, stirring almost constantly. When most liquid is absorbed add cheese and adjust seasonings. Add saffron and heavy cream, tasting and adjusting seasonings if necessary. Remove from heat and serve.

Steak Tips with Chimichurri, Radish Greens, and Salad

The good thing about this dinner was it used up a lot of our share for the week. The bad thing is that using up the CSA vegetables early in the week means we have to work down our winter stock of frozen (non-CSA and comparatively bland) vegetables. I'll be glad when they are gone!

This menu consists of steak tips, seasoned with salt and pepper, left to rest at room temperature for about an hour, and then grilled, topped with my Cilantro, Lime, and Cherry Pepper Chimichurri. It also included a "salad bar" so that everyone in the family could build their own from the radishes, toasted nuts, carrots, cucumbers, cranberries, lettuce and goat cheese that I laid out. I made a Citrus-Balsamic dressing based on this, but I also added the juice of about 1/2 of a Meyer Lemon. I didn't think I would like it once I tasted it, and the acidity was definitely off, probably the fault of the orange, which is why I had to add lemon juice. Actually, once it was on the salad with the cranberries and the goat cheese it was quite good. The other item on the plate was sauteed radish greens. Finally. I know I've been talking about doing this for weeks! Everyone but me liked them, I found the flavor fine, but they were slightly tough for my tastes. I think kale is tough too, just to be fair.

Sauteed Radish Greens:
greens and stalks of two bunches of young radishes (I'd cut closer to the leaves for older bunches)
1 clove garlic, sliced thin
2 green onions, sliced
salt
pepper
olive oil
1 tbsp water

Heat olive oil in skillet, add garlic and sautee for 2-3 minutes over medium heat. Add greens, salt, and pepper. If the greens seem tough, add a small amount of water to lightly steam. When the leaves are wilted, removed from heat and serve.

Beef and Noodles the Ultimate Comfort Food

Beef and Noodles served over mashed potatoes. Not just any potatoes, these are the storage potatoes from my CSA. Although they are stored, I might guess that they are still fresher than potatoes I have purchased at the grocery store on a few occasions. I grew up eating this, I've always loved it but I have not made this in years. In fact, none of my children ever remember me rolling out the egg noodles, let alone eating this for dinner. This isn't a very carb-conscious dinner but it does put my potatoes to good use.

Beef and Noodles:

Beef:
2-3 lbs pot roast of your choice
4 cups broth or stock
2 onions, sliced
salt
pepper
oil or fat of your choice, I used bacon drippings

 Season with salt and pepper, brown beef on both sides in stock pot with 2-3 tbsp oil or fat. Add onions and cook 3-5 minutes. Add stock and simmer 2-3 hours until tender. Cool and remove roast to shred. Add shredded meat back to pot and set aside.

Mashed Potatoes:
12-15 medium-small potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/4 c. heavy cream or half and half
salt and pepper

I don't know why I am telling how to do this but anyways...
Boil potatoes until they fall off fork, drain, add all other ingredients and mash by hand or with hand mixer. Do not use boxed or instant mashed potatoes or you will ruin this recipe, your life and break my heart.

Egg Noodles:
2 eggs
2 scant cups flour
salt pepper

 Make sure your beef and broth are at a low boil or close and that your potatoes are almost done before beginning this step. On cutting board or counter, make a mound of flour, add a little salt and pepper, make a hole in the middle of the mound. Crack eggs in the middle, and with a fork or your fingers work the egg into the flour in a circular motion until combined. Knead it gently together, flatten with hands and roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/8 of an inch. Using a sharp knife cut it into strips, separate and add to broth gently. Egg noodles take less than a minute to cook. Stir gently to ensure they are fully cooked. Also note that the broth will thicken quite a bit at this step.

Once the noodles are cooked, adjust seasonings and serve over mashed potatoes.

Props to Dad for teaching me this recipe. Still, this was the first time I ever got the noodles thin enough.

Big Mouth Beef, Carrot, and Potato Stew

The potatoes and carrots in this dish are storage crops from our CSA and I really just wanted to make something to use them up before they began turning back into plants with leaves again. I bought the beef already cut up, labeled as stew meat, at Costco so I decided to keep everything else roughly the same size. Soup bones are getting harder to find and my storage space is pretty limited for freezing broth. I do make my own broth! Really! But... I also keep a lot of chicken stock in my pantry. Some people, like the three people who are going to read this, may wonder why I use chicken stock instead of beef. There are several issues with beef stock, and what is legally allowed to be called beef stock. You can find a good introduction here. I just fill up my pot with what I need to use up and go from there.

Big Mouth Beef, Carrot and Potato Stew:
Lard or rendered saved fat of your choice (Yes, you can use olive oil, too)
2-3 lbs stew meat
carrots, peeled and cut in half (10-20 small-medium carrots)
potatoes, quartered (8-12 small-medium)
onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic, sliced
4-6 cups chicken stock or broth
2-3 pieces Parmesan rinds
salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar

Brown meat with fat in pot. After meat is browned, add carrots, onions, rinds, broth and garlic. Cook over medium heat until carrots are slightly softened, add potatoes, cook until potatoes are done, seasoning to taste with salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar. I usually use about 2 tbsp. balsamic, I like that it adds a bit of acid to the dish.

St. Patrick's Day Dinner Menu

 Quite a few years back, we had a little disaster with corned beef, I took it out of the package and roasted it like a regular brisket. The trash was quite full that night. I'd actually never heard of corned beef and cabbage until my adult life, I suppose my family chose to embrace the Italian side because the food is better. However that may be, a little variety never hurts and I have actually learned to make corned beef. Next year, my goal is to prepare the brine myself. And before you freak out about that, you can easily order juniper berries online.

So here is my menu:

The whole spread

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Soda bread, Kerrygold Irish Butter, and Kerrygold Dubliner cheese

I used the bottle to make a centerpiece

Bailey's Irish Cream flavored buttercream, my piping skills have no effect on the tastiness

The cake that changed my mind about chocolate cake

This really isn't a difficult dinner to make. For the corned beef, I either order it or just buy it at Costco. The key thing is to rinse the brine off the beef before cooking, and then it is pretty much just covering it with water and gently boiling until tender. I set it aside once it it tender and add my vegetables, boiling for about half and hour. You can add whatever vegetables you like but I had a whole cabbage, quartered, a large onion, quartered, about a dozen baby reds and some carrots in mine. I just fill up the pot with all the veggies that can fit.


Soda bread could not be easier, I found this no fail recipe at Brown Eyed Baker. I just follow it to the letter, I can easily whip up two loaves in under 15 minutes. If you don't usually like soda bread, this will make you a fan. I served it with Irish butter, which made it even better, and some good Irish cheese.

The Guinness cake comes from the same website as the soda bread but with a variation on the frosting. I'm not much of a drinker, so I just buy a small nipsized bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. I beat 3 sticks of butter in my mixer until it s fluffy and add about 4 cups of powdered sugar, 2 tsp. vanilla, the bottle of Bailey's and a pinch of salt, if I am using unsalted butter. I tint it to the right color and spread it on the cake. For the piped frosting I just use the same method (no Bailey's though) with 1 stick of butter and a scant cup of powdered sugar, and more food coloring. If you need to thin the frosting, you can always use milk or half and half, I usually add the powdered sugar gradually until I have the consistency that I want. One last thing, the directions for this recipe say about 35 minutes for the cake, I found that I went closer to an hour. Make the cake! You will never regret it!


The centerpiece is just the bottle from the stout that I used for the cake. I ran out of green food coloring, otherwise the carnations would have been green, but it still looked nice. If your guest brings Australian wine, like mine did, you can imagine it was made by the descendants of the transported Irish. I have a Pandora station on my TV so I set it up to play Irish music while we dine, if you wish to do the same, search for Wolfetones, The Irish Rovers, or Paddy Reilly. Afterwards, you can play cribbage. I don't know if that was ever an Irish thing, but all of the old Irish guys around here know how to play.


Happy St. Patrick's Day!