Home from vacation. I'll share the trip with you another time. Right now, I want to share with you the clean up the kitchen for two dish I made for dinner tonight. We had some Yukon Gold potatoes that were getting a big long in the tooth. And, there was bacon in the fridge to use up. I could either add the bacon to the panzanella salad or I could add it to the potatoes... You see, we also had half a loaf of kalamata olive bread we'd bought at Pike Place Market and stashed in my canvas tote to bring home. That and the end of some of the veggies from the garden and an Eggland's Best contest determined the panzanella salad. For about three minutes I felt guilty about serving bread and potatoes in the same meal. Then, I got over it. It was either that or go to the grocery. Pragmatism won.
My mom makes killer twice baked potatoes. Never had any better. I decided to make some in casserole form since the Yukon Gold's don't have skins that are amenable to stuffing. The potatoes got trimmed, roughly chopped and tossed in the cooking water. I turned my attention to the panzanella salad. The zucchini and yellow squash and onion got grilled. The bread was chopped. The cherry tomatoes were halved and smooshed at bit. The dressing got made. About that time the diced bacon was nice and done. Not crispy but just happy. I drained the potatoes into a colander then tossed them in a bowl with butter. Cream, thyme and shredded cheddar followed. Cream because that's what we had. I didn't feel like the tang of sour cream or yogurt. And, the milk was old. Cream it was. Then, I walked into the dining room. There on the table was the truffle oil. The same truffle oil that we'd used on the potato chips last night. You want to hear about those? Ok, hang on. I had to put a bit in the potatoes. Everything got mashed together, put in a casserole and topped with bacon. Then, I put it in a warm oven until the salads were ready...
What did we think? Connie says I can pretty much put truffle oil in anything. Ice cream maybe? Fruit salad? Those might be a bit out there! At any rate, we loved these potatoes. The cheese was present but didn't stand out. The truffle oil was the same. Ditto the bacon. In other words, everything played really well together.
Now, before I give you the rough draft of the recipe, let me tell you about the chips... Our first two days in the Pacific Northwest we stayed with our friends Helene and Cath on Vashon Island. Cath bought us a little bag of housemade chips from Thriftway. I tucked them in my bag and forgot I had them until it was time to repack for the trip to come home five days later. When we got home we were both tired and it was pretty late. A tomato, cucumber and Swiss chard salad from the garden was in order. Along with some salumi from Salumi (owned by Mario Batali's father...) and some gruyere cheese. Then, I realized I had the chips too. Those got tossed in a warm oven with a drizzle of truffle oil and a sprinkle of truffle salt. OMG they were GOOD!!!!
Truffled Twice Baked Potato Casserole
Ingredients:
5 large Yukon Gold potatoes or 10 mediums
2 T butter
1/4 c cream
4 oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated (we use Cracker Barrel)
2 t fresh thyme
1 t white truffle oil
4 slices bacon, diced and browned
Directions:
Cook and drain the potatoes. Mash them with the next five ingredients. Top with the bacon and serve.
We've had a couple of really fun cooking adventures recently. Actually, I've had more than Connie. He played bridge while my friend, Stacy, and I fixed a German meal. But, that's not what came first. The truffle came first.
It'd been another of those killer weeks. Monday I was sick. Like come home from the office at 10:30 and go to bed sick. Tuesday I had to feel better since I was teaching a Social Security class in the evening. By the time everyone left the office about 9pm I was ready to collapse. Fortunately, we'd taken along Cobb salad fixings so we'd had a good dinner before class. I'd used my favorite blue cheese dressing which I discovered, much to my consternation, was not on here. Now, we first made this in 2006 long before I'd thought about blogging. Consequently, there's an image of a recipe with no attribution. And a REALLY old photo... So, here it goes:
Blue Cheese Dressing
Ingredients:
2/3 c crumbled blue cheese
1/3 c sour cream
2 T mayonnaise
1 T milk
1/2 t Worcestershire
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1/4 t ground mustard
1/4 t garlic powder
Directions:
The original recipe calls for whirring all of the above in a food processor. I prefer to take about 1/4 c of the blue cheese and hold it out so I get nice, chunky dressing. I also tend to double/triple the ground mustard, Worcestershire and garlic. This is so easy to make and so much better than the jarred/bottled stuff!!!
Back to our adventures...
Wednesday it was time to meet our friends Pete and Shirley for dinner. Pete had decreed that he wanted us to try his favorite brew pub - BJ's Brewhouse. Neither of us was excited. It's a chain, after all. And, it's in a mall. But, it was Pete's turn to choose so we showed up at the appointed hour. Were we ever wrong!!! We had about the best mac and cheese ever. A little chipotle and bacon and a perfect sauce.
And, the pulled pork sandwich was almost as good. That's turkey club in front of the pulled pork. It was good but not worthy of a special trip.
Let me tell you, if there's time that mac and cheese is going to be lunch when I'm in my Greenwood office!
Thursday was a wine dinner at Chef Joseph's. We got to sit with our friends, Steve and Colleen so had a lively conversation and great time. Joseph did his usual amazing dishes. The most incredible was dessert. Goat cheese flan with lemon and pink peppercorns. Yeah, it was beautiful and tasted amazing. The evening was also a fund raiser for Little Red Door. They offer loads of services for cancer patients. We wound up with tickets to Theatre on the Square and a gift basket of wine and beer to go along with some beer signs and such.
Friday night after work we headed downtown to Goose the Market to pick up our truffle. We splurged and spent $23 on a fresh truffle. Home it came. Wrapped in a paper towel in a sealed container. We opened it and took photos and sniffed.
Didn't smell much like truffle. So, I shaved off a little piece. Kind of like eating a little nibble of wood. Not much flavor and very dry. Hmmm, maybe it'd be better cooked... So we made steaks with a cognac/truffle sauce and mushroom risotto with shaved truffle on top. Again, not much truffle flavor.
So, we tried again Saturday evening and made truffled scallops and crabmeat over butter lettuce and roasted beets. This time I put truffle oil and the dressing and viola we had truffle flavor.
Sunday we were meeting Chef Joseph and his partner, Juan, for lunch at the Lockerbie Pub. Time for some pub grub. Here are two photos from a couple of months ago when we flew by the Lockerbie and picked up tenderloins to go:
I took along what was left of the truffle along and handed it to Joseph. Was it good? Well, this time of year they are hard as rocks, he said. If you want to get some real flavor out of it, soak it in some brandy. Ok, now I know.
Sunday evening we were both still stuffed from our pork tenderloin sandwiches. I put some short ribs from Goose in the dutch oven and let them simmer away. I'd planned to make truffled mac and cheese but decided plain old smashed potatoes would be better. We nibbled at the short ribs and left most of it for lunch later in the week. That's ok. It'll reheat REALLY well. And, with the leftover hangar steak for another lunch and the leftover sauerbraten for yet another, we'll be having some fabulous lunches!
It looks like I'm running out of time and creating a monster post before even talking about our German feast So, let me say to be continued...
