Hard to get healthier than this!

After a weekend of over-indulgence, I’m always in the mood for something that’s really quick and healthy.

I definitely don’t want anything with meat or cheese in it. For once.

This recipe was inspired by a recipe that was in the most recent Bon Appetit. I say inspired because I changed almost every main ingredient except chickpeas. The original had chicken in it, but I felt like keeping it veggie packed so I nixed the chicken and added in a few potatoes and some kale.

The bonus piece of cutting out the chicken is that it also trims about 20 minutes off of your prep time.

Thirty Minute Chickpea Stew

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small bunch kale leaves, chopped
1 quart vegetable stock
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Crusty bread
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Add olive oil to a large heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add minced garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for a few minutes until fragrant.

2) Add in cubed potatoes, tomato paste, and cumin. Turn the heat up to medium and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.

3) Add in vegetable stock, chickpeas, bay leaves, roasted red peppers, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and simmer until potatoes are soft, another 10 minutes.

4) Stir in kale and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.

5) Break up some crusty bread in the bottom of a bowl. Ladle stew over bread. Serve immediately.

A Basic Stew

I think one of the best things you can learn as an at-home cook is to master the simple veggie stew. Learn how to balance the spices and flavors in a stew and you can usually make a fantastic meal with a few fresh veggies, a few canned foods, and some simple stock and spices.

For this version (and for a lot of stews that I make), these are some of the basics.

Just some basics.

I was worried that by cutting out the chicken, my stew wouldn’t have enough body to be really filling. I’m not sure if that’s entirely true because there’s still bread in the soup also.

But, I decided to add in a few chopped potatoes at the last minute.

I liked the potato addition, but I also think it would’ve worked fine without them.

Gives the stew some body.

Canned chickpeas makes this stew super-quick. It would add on at least an hour to use dried chickpeas and I’m not sure you would get much for your extra work.

Just be sure to drain and rinse the chickpeas well.

I think I’m almost in the market for a new strainer…

Rinse these guys pretty well.

Making the Stew

To start the stew, we need to infuse some oil with two really flavorful things: garlic and red pepper flakes.

Two of my favorite things.

The key to doing this correctly is cooking the garlic and pepper flakes over fairly low heat for a few minutes. If you crank the heat to high, you’ll completely char the garlic.

Instead, just add them to the olive oil over medium-low heat for a few minutes. When it starts to get really fragrant, you know it’s ready to go. The garlic shouldn’t even be browned really.

Low heat is important..

Next, add in the potatoes, tomato paste, and cumin.

This will immediately start to smell amazing. Stir it all together and let it cook for a few minutes. You can turn your heat up a bit to medium at this point.

Already smellin' good.

After a few minutes of that, just pour in the vegetable stock, add the bay leaves and chickpeas, and bring the whole thing to a simmer.

At this point the stew is pretty much done when the potatoes are cooked through which will probably take another 10 minutes or so.

Love that color...

Finishing the Stew

There’s a few ingredients to add to the end of the stew that completely make it in my opinion. First, roasted red peppers. Honestly, I’m not sure that I’ve ever had roasted red peppers in a stew before but they worked great and paired really well with the chickpeas.

Next, I added some chopped kale. You could also use something like swiss chard if you wanted. A leafy, sturdy green really helps the stew out though.

One of the most important ingredients is lemon juice. The acid just makes all the flavors really pop. Don’t forget it!

Gotta toss in some greens.

Once all that stuff is stirred in, just season it with salt and pepper and you’re ready to go.

This stew took me about 30 minutes to make and I was taking photos and stuff. You could probably make it even faster!

Serving the Stew

The stew tastes good as-is, but to really turn it into a meal, just put about 1/2 cup of torn bread into the bottom of your bowl before you serve it. Any super-crusty and slightly stale bread will work great.

Hidden bread!

Then just ladle on the stew with some of the broth and you’re all set.

Hard to beat in my opinion.

Betsy and I devoured this and we had plenty for leftovers also.

Give this a shot this week if you are crunched for time and looking for something healthy and filling!

Anti-Twilight Soup

Only after taking the above photo did I realize that there was a near hole in my bread bowl!

Don’t worry though. The levy did not break.

Ever since it has actually decided to be winter here in Colorado, Betsy and I have been on a big soup kick. Maybe this is because our house has poor insulation and, much like my father would say, I refuse to HEAT THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

So a good warm soup is the best way to ward off the chills on super-cold days.

You might think that this soup is designed to protect from Twilight fans, but it actually has a pretty mild garlic flavor. Mild considering there’s a whole bunch of garlic in it I mean.

But trust me. It’s very delicious especially if you serve it in a big bread bowl.

Roasted Garlic Soup

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 heads of garlic, roasted
1-2 shallots, roasted
1 tablespoon olive oil, for roasted garlic
1.5 pounds yukon gold potatoes, chopped
1 quart vegetable stock (or chicken)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, plus some for serving
2 cups water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup cream (opt.)
Bread bowls (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Immersion blender, food processor, or normal blender

Directions:

1) Slice the tips of of the garlic heads and shallots and wrap them loosely in foil. Drizzle in a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of kosher salt.

2) Roast the garlic and shallots for about 40 minutes until they are fork tender.

3) Let the garlic and shallots cool briefly and then use your fingers to pop the cloves out of the their skin. You can use a fork also, but hands are more fun.

4) Cube potatoes and add them to a large pan with the quart of stock. Also add the roasted garlic and shallots.

5) Cover the soup and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

6) Use a blender to process the soup until it's smooth. Some lumps are just fine.

7) Season with salt and pepper and a dash of lemon juice. Optionally, you can stir in some cream to make the soup more rich.

8) I like to serve this soup in a bread bowl, but you can definitely serve it in regular bowls also.

Recipe loosely adapted from a Body & Soul recipe.

Roasting Garlic

As you can see, there aren’t actually that many ingredients in this soup. The two ingredients that bring a lot of flavor to the party are the garlic (obv) and the shallots.

Of course, throwing in two heads of fresh garlic isn’t advised. So, let’s roast them.

Start by cutting of just the tops of the garlic and the shallot.

Ok. Maybe not 100...

Wrap these guys in foil gently and drizzle in some olive oil and kosher salt.

Then wrap them up tightly and bake them at 400 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. This will make your house smell amazing.

This'll smell good.

If you’ve never roasted garlic before, it turns into an entirely different beast. Instead of a sharp flavor, the cloves just melt in your mouth with savory delicousness.

Once the heads of garlic are roasted, let them cool for a few minutes and then you can use your fingers to gently pop the cloves out of the skin.

For the shallot, just peel of the skin and roughly chop it.

You should get a lot of cloves, but maybe 100 is an exaggeration.

Yum.

The Soup Body

While most of the flavor in the soup comes from the garlic and the shallots, the body of the soup comes from two other ingredients: stock and potatoes.

I used a few Yukon gold potatoes and scrubbed them clean and diced them up.

It’s totally fine to leave the skins on for this.

The Yukons!

Add the potatoes, stock, water, garlic, and shallot to a large pot and get it simmering. Cover the pot and let it simmer for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are fork tender.

Blending Options

This is a soup that really needs to be blended so all the flavors meld together nicely. That said, you have a lot of options for how you blend it.

If you’re fancy-pants like me, you might have a stick blender that makes quick work of the job. I love this blender for soups because you can just blend it in the same pot.

Lots of ways to blend...

If you don’t have one of those, don’t worry. You can just as easily use a food processor or even a normal blender.

Once your soup is blended, you’re pretty much ready to go. Just season it well with salt and pepper, grate in some Parmesan cheese, and if you’re feeling like it you can add a bit of cream to make it nice and rich.

Some chunks are just fine.

The Bread Bowl

I love a good bread bowl, but I don’t think all soups are made for bread bowls. I don’t like really hardy soups and stews in bread bowls because it’s just too much.

This soup was made for a bread bowl. The flavors end up being pretty light so it’s nice to have a sturdy side of bread to sop up all the soup with.

The bowl itself becomes this delicious roasted garlic bread. I had no problem finishing all most my entire bread bowl which is a feat!

If you’ve never made bread bowls before, it’s pretty straightforward. You want to find some smaller loafs of bread which you should be able to find at a local bakery without too much problem. I actually found these at the bakery section in my grocery store.

Just cut out the center of the bread bowl and then use your hands to dig out some of the inner bread to form a deep bowl.

Lay these out on a baking sheet and bake them for about 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees while your soup simmers away.

The bread bowl is the greatest invention in food.

Then just ladle in some soup to each bread bowl and grate on some extra parmesan.

It really is tough to beat this on a cold winter night.

A great winter meal.

Of course, the bread bowl is optional. You could just as easily serve this in normal bowls.

If you do that though, I do recommend having plenty of bread or crackers on hand for dipping.

Well, these were good!

A quick brainstorm! Things you could do with leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving:

1) Eat them cold with a spoon.

2) Put them in a bowl and melt cheddar cheese over them in the microwave.

3) Make a mountain out of them.

4) Start a mashed potato fight.

Or you could do the smart thing and make these awesome mashed potato gnocchi!

Mashed Potato Gnocchi

Yield: Serves 2 as a meal.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups mashed potatoes
1 large egg yolk
1 cup all-purpose flour, maybe a bit more
Pinch of salt

Sage Butter Sauce:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon fresh sage, minced
2 tablespoons cooking water from gnocchi
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Dough Scraper

Directions:

1) Mix together mashed potatoes and yolk with a fork until it's well combined.

2) Add in flour and mix well until the flour is incorporated. You should be left with a fairly dry dough. It shouldn't be sticky at all. If it is, add more flour a few tablespoons at a time.

3) Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into 4 even pieces.

4) Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough out into a long strand about 1/2 inch wide in diameter. Try to get it as even as possible, but it's okay if it's not perfect.

5) Use a dough scraper to chop the strand of dough into 1 inch dumplings.

6) Once your dumplings are chopped, use the back of a fork to gently press into the gnocchi and make some grooves.

7) Once all the gnocchi are made, cook them in simmering salted water. They are done when they float, about 3-4 minutes.

8) For butter sauce, melt butter in a large skillet. Once melted, add cook water, herbs, and spices, and stir well. Toss drained gnocchi with the sauce and serve immediately!

You might think that gnocchi are a lot of work, but the fact that the potatoes are already cooked and everything really cuts down on the prep time. Start-to-finish, you can have these guys on the table in about 30 minutes.

The Dough

The tricky part about devising this recipe is that everybody probably has a different mashed potato recipe. This can be a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is that whatever flavors you put in your mashed potatoes (butter, cheese, garlic, etc) will also be in your gnocchi which is great.

The bad news is that the consistency of your dough might change a bit depending on how creamy your mashed potatoes are. So this recipe is a starting point.

Measure out exactly two cups of mashed potatoes and add an egg yolk to them. Easy enough so far!

Just the yolk.

Once that is all mixed together, add a pinch of salt to the dough and stir in about a cup of flour.

The tricky part is that you might need more flour if your mashed potatoes are really creamy. But start with a cup and see where that gets you.

If, after you stir in the flour, your dough is still sticky, then you need more flour.

At some point you’ll end up with a fairly dry dough that you can scoop out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead this a few times just to make everything is combined well.

A starchy dough.

Cutting the Gnocchi

Once you have your dough ready, chop it into four even pieces just to make it easier to work with.

Then use your hands to roll one of the pieces into a long strand of dough. Try to make it about 1/2 inch in diameter and try to make it an even strand. It probably won’t be perfect unless you work in an Italian restaurant and make gnocchi every single day of your life.

Once you get the strand rolled, then just chop up the strand into individual dumplings! I like to use a dough cutter to do this. It makes quick work of the job.

This really isn't hard, people.

Once your gnocchi are chopped up, use a fork to put the signature grooves in each dumpling. These just help the gnocchi hold on to the sauce.

Plus they are pretty.

Groovy!

Once you do one strand, you’ll get fast at this. You should be able to pop out a plate of gnocchi in no time.

I’m well aware that my gnocchi aren’t 100% perfect or even the same size.

I have to ask though… who cares?!

Pretty things.

Cooking the Gnocchi

When you’re ready to cook the gnocchi just get a large pot of salted water simmering. A good ratio is 1 Tablespoon kosher salt for each gallon of water.

It’s really important that your water is just simmering and not boiling. A rough boil could just rip your soft little gnocchi into bits.

After simmering for a few minutes, the gnocchi should start to rise to the top which means they are done!

These will cook really fast. Must faster than pasta.

Float when they're done!

The Sauce

These guys are good with almost any sauce you can think of. If you’re looking for something lighter, you could definitely serve them with a light tomato sauce. The simple tomato sauce I made for my homemade trial would be a good one.

I made a quick butter sage sauce though because it just seemed like the right thing to do. I just melted a few tablespoons of butter in a large skillet and then stirred in a few tablespoons of cooking water from the gnocchi. The salt and starch from the water will help the sauce really come together. Then I added in some fresh sage and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Once my gnocchi were done, I just tossed everything together!

Delicious!

Can't go wrong with butter and sage.

The Full Story

Ok. I can’t lie to you guys. The truth is that the gnocchi that you see above was actually my second attempt to make some sort of dumpling out of leftover mashed potatoes.

At first I thought it would be easier to make a spaetzle, which is similar to gnocchi but smaller.

I failed miserably at this project and made possibly the most unappetizing thing of food ever.

I knew I was onto something though because even though these didn’t look great, they actually tasted pretty solid.

So I just worked on the dough consistency a bit and figured that gnocchi might be easier than spaetzle.

If you have some leftover mashed potatoes after tomorrow, try out some gnocchi!

Or make a mountain. Your call.

There's squash in there!

One of my favorite breakfasts or brunch dishes regardless of how many beers I’ve had the night before is some sort of hash.

I’m a starch fiend. What can I say?

While I’m normally happy enough with just a potato kind of hash, sometimes I like to change it up based on the season. If I posted every hash version I made, this site would be dedicated to nothing but hash brown recipes which, for the record, is not a bad idea at all.

Sometimes though I land on a version that’s just too tasty not to post.

That is this and this is that.

Winter Squash Hash

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups winter squash, grated
2 cups russet potatoes, grated
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
4 large eggs, over easy
1 teaspoon butter, for eggs
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme, garnish

Directions:

1) Use a large chef's knife to peel the winter squash. I find it easiest to cut off the top and bottom and then carefully slice down the side of the squash. Once it's peeled, quarter the squash and scoop out the seeds. Then grate the squash.

2) Peel and grate potato as well and mix potato with squash. It should be about even parts potato and squash.

3) Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large skillet or griddle over medium-high heat. Add hash in an even layer. Cook for 5 minutes and flip.

4) Cook for an additional 5 minutes on the second side. If at any point the hash looks very dry, add another drizzle of olive oil.

5) Cook hash browns until they are browned nicely, then turn the heat down to low and keep them warm until the eggs are done.

6) For eggs, melt butter in a small nonstick pan or on a griddle over medium heat. Crack eggs and cook for about 2 minutes until the whites are mostly firm. Flip the eggs and cook for just 15-20 seconds on side two.

7) Serve hash with two eggs on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and sprinkle on some fresh thyme.

The Squash Options

Normally, this time of year there will be a large bin of random gourds and squashes in most grocery stores across the country. While these squash all have slightly different tastes and colors, I don’t feel too bad about lumping them all together and calling them “winter squash.”

This includes things like butternut squash, acorn squash, or pumpkin all of which you could use for this recipe.

The particular gourd I picked out on this day resembled a small pumpkin but it wasn’t a pumpkin.

While it wasn’t labelled, I’m pretty sure the squash I picked out on this day was an ambercup squash. (Check out the winter squash wikipedia page for more info.)

Some potato doesn't hurt.

I decided to do a half and half mix of squash and potato just to keep some of the classic hash texture.

Prepping the Squash

Most winter squash that you’ll find will be very hard to peel. This is unfortunate, but worth the work.

What you can’t do is peel them with a veggie peeler. Their skin is just too thick for that to work.

What I do instead is use a large chef’s knife to chop of the top and bottom of the squash so it will sit flat and then carve off the skin from top to bottom with my knife.

Not easy to peel...

You’ll lose some squash in this process, but it’s the easiest way that I know to peel a squash like this.

Once you get it peeled, cut it into quarters. Your squash will most likely have some sort of seed and guts situation going on which you can scoop out with a spoon.

These are easy to scoop out.

Then just grate up each quarter of squash with a box grater!

It’ll look like cheddar cheese, but it’s much much healthier for you.

Get it?

Mix the grated squash with some grated potato and you’re ready to cook!

I recommend a mix of about half potato and half squash. Honestly, I kind of just eyeballed it.

Looks like cheese.

Cooking the Hash

You can cook this awesome mix either in a large skillet or on a griddle. I used a large nonstick skillet that I have. It works great for stuff like this.

Just add a good drizzle of olive oil to your pan over medium-high heat and then add your hash in a nice even layer in the pan.

Easy enough.

Let this cook for 4-5 minutes on the first side and then give it a flip.

If you’re feeling confident, you can try to flip it all at once or you can chop it up into servings with a spatula and flip them individually.

I was able to pull off the full-pan flip on this day.

Good and crispy!

If you’re hash browns are ever looking really dry, drizzle on a bit more oil.

When the hash browns are browned on both sides, turn your heat down to low to keep them warm while you work on…

The Egg

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of a good fried egg. For a dish like this I consider the over-easy egg to be an essential component.

I like to fry my eggs in butter. You just need about a teaspoon in a good pan. Melt the butter over medium heat and once it’s melted, crack in the eggs!

Eggs cooking!

Let these cook for about 2 minutes on the first side until the whites are almost completely set, then flip and cook for just 10-15 seconds on the second side.

If you want your yolks set completely, just keep cooking them into submission I guess.

Serving the Hash

Serve the hash browns with one or two fried eggs on top. Give the whole thing a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and a pinch of fresh thyme leaves.

The thyme is a small detail but it actually works well with winter squashes so give it a shot.

As you can see, these were crispy and delicious!

Chomp!

This is pretty much the perfect breakfast in my opinion.

If you wanted to amp it up, you could serve it with some bacon on the side also. Betsy and I went the fruit route on this day though.

This would be a great quick breakfast for family members during the upcoming holiday weekend. It’s pretty easy to make, has some great winter flavors, and people are always impressed by homemade hash browns.

Always.

I guess like a farm house would make?

Let me preface what I’m about to write with the fact that I’m an enormous Cook’s Illustrated fan. I love their magazine and cookbooks and all their recipes are almost always surefire.

That said, when “Farmhouse Veggie Soup” won the poll last week, I was expecting to read a recipe involving slow-simmering stocks and farm-raised veggies.

After all, I have a hard time calling a recipe “Farmhouse” unless it’s actually cooked in a farmhouse. Or at a minimum it should use all fresh ingredients.

When I think of a farmhouse veggie soup, I imagine an old grandmother slowly stirring a pot of stock that’s been simmering for hours. She carefully stirs in hand-picked veggies from outside her back door while her lazy dogs lounge around the kitchen.

What doesn’t come to mind is a test cook in a cooking laboratory mixing soy sauce and powdered porcini mushrooms to get the same deep flavors that the grandmother gets.

It’s not to say that the later version isn’t completely delicious (it is), but calling it “Farmhouse” makes me feel icky.

So I’m renaming it Cheater’s Veggie Soup. Because that’s really what it is.

Cheater's Vegetable Soup

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon dried porcini mushroom powder
8 Sprigs fresh parsley + 3 Tablespoons chopped
4 Sprigs fresh thyme
1 Bay leaf
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Large leeks, 1/2 inch slices
2 Carrots, peeled and diced
2 Ribs celery, diced
1/2 Cup white wine
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
6 Cups water
4 Cups vegetable stock
1/2 Cup pearl barley
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 turnip, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 green cabbage, diced
1 Cup frozen peas
1 Teaspoon lemon juice

Serve with:
Crusty Bread
Lemon Thyme butter (1 stick butter mashed with 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme, zest from 1/2 lemon, and a pinch of salt)

Helpful Equipment:
Dutch Oven

Spice Grinder

Directions:

1) In a spice grinder, grind a handful of dried mushrooms for 25-30 seconds until they are powdered. Measure out a Tablespoon of the powder.

2) Use kitchen twine to tie together parsley and thyme sprigs with bay leaf.

3) Melt butter in a large, sturdy pot (dutch oven works well) over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots, celery, white wine and soy sauce, plus a big pinch of salt. Cook until liquid is evaporated and veggies are soft, about 10 minutes.

4) Add water, broth, barley, mushroom powder, herb bundle, and garlic. Increase heat and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes, partially covered.

5) Add potatoes, turnips, and cabbage. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes.

6) Remove soup from heat and stir in peas and chopped parsley. Remove herb bundle. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with crusty bread and lemon-thyme butter.

Adapted from a Cook's Illustrated Recipe

Some Whacky Ingredients

This recipe is kind of wild, but with good reason. Most cooks know that the way to make the best homemade soup is to start with a really good homemade stock. Without this, you’re already playing catch-up.

But this recipe ingeniously compensates for the lack of a homemade stock with a few ingredients that have a delicious, savory flavor: dried mushrooms and soy sauce. Just a small amount of both of these gives the soup a really deep flavor so you can actually use store-bought stock and still end up with a fantastic soup.

The first ingredient, porcini mushroom powder, is a bit weird. Luckily, it’s actually really easy to make. Just stick a few dried mushrooms in your spice grinder and pulse them for about 30 seconds. BAM. Mushroom powder.

Mushroom powder is strong!

Soy sauce and white wine also give the soup some great flavors.

Normally, when you make a good stock, you let some herbs simmer in the stock, but for this soup, we’ll just throw the herb bundle straight into the soup when we add the store-bought stock.

Herb bundles are smart.

Starting the Soup

Most of the actual vegetables in this soup are pretty straightforward. One thing I was really happy to see was the substitution of leeks for onions. Onions can quickly overpower a soup so the leeks are a great change. They have that same flavor profile, but aren’t quite as strong.

The key part to remember about chopping leeks is to make sure you cut them in half horizontally and run them under water to clean the dirt out between the layers of leeks. Then you can just dice them up.

Don't be intimidated!

Also dice up some celery and carrots and you’re ready to get started on the soup.

Starting the soup...

Using a heavy pot, like a dutch oven, melt some butter over medium-high heat and then toss in your leeks, carrots, and celery. Also add in the white wine, soy sauce, and a big pinch of salt.

Cook this until the liquids all evaporate and the veggies are starting to soften.

Then go ahead and stir in the water, mushroom powder, herb bundle, stock, garlic, and barley.

Stock and water!

The barley is especially important. As it plumps up, it really thickens the soup nicely.

Action shot!

Bring this to a simmer and let it simmer for about 20-25 minutes so the barley can start to cook.

The Starchy Stuff

While that’s simmering away, you can prepare the starchy stuff in the soup: potatoes, turnips, and cabbage. Ok. Cabbage isn’t exactly a starch, but you add it with the starchy stuff so it gets lumped in for purposes of this soup.

The starch business.

Once your soup has simmered for 20 minutes or so, then you can stir in those veggies.

Love these flavors.

Continue to simmer the soup until the veggies are all tender and the barley is cooked. This will probably be another 20 minutes or so.

Finishing the Soup

To finish off this soup, once all the veggies are soft, kill the heat and stir in some frozen peas and fresh parsley. Now would also be a good time to taste the soup for seasoning. It might need another pinch of salt and pepper.

Some green stuff.

Serve this up immediately with some really crusty bread.

Crusty bread is key.

It’s a perfect soup for the fall and you can actually make it on a week day thanks to some of the shortcuts in the recipe.

I’m not sure that I would exactly call it “Farmhouse”, but I would call it a keeper!

It's all about the hash!

I had a few friends in town from New York City a few weeks ago and they really only requested two things in the meal department:

1) A good Tex-Mex dish. (post coming soon)
2) A great brunch dish.

I don’t think I disappointed on either, but I thought the brunch dish was especially good. Granted, I’m biased because eggs benedict happens to be one of my favorite things ever.

I rarely order it at restaurants though because I become irrationally irate if it isn’t perfect. Luckily, when I make them at home, I can normally pull off a pretty solid version.

For this version, instead of switching up the middle layer between the egg and the bread, I switched up the bread by using a really crispy layer of hash browns!

It was a huge hit.

Hash Brown Benedicts

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

4 large russet potatoes, grated
1/4 Cup vegetable oil for cooking hash browns
8 large eggs
8 slices crispy bacon (or a filling of your choice: spinach, ham, crab, avocado, tomatoes, etc.)
1/2 Cup vinegar for poaching eggs
Salt and pepper

Hollandaise Sauce:
2 large egg yolks
3 Tablespoons water
1 Teaspoon vinegar
1 Teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 Teaspoon salt
10-12 ounces clarified butter (made from one pound butter)

Directions:

1) Lay out bacon on a wire rack over a sheet pan. Cook at 350 degrees in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the bacon is really crispy. Remove and turn the oven down to 250 degrees.

2) Grate potatoes and dunk them in ice cold water. Keeping them in water will keep them from discoloring.

3) When ready to cook potatoes, dry them off on a few paper towels. Add to a hot skillet or griddle over medium-high heat with a few Tablespoons of oil. Cook potatoes in batches and as they cook, shape them into 8 bundles. They will take probably 10-12 minutes to get really crispy.

4) Add cooked bundles of hash browns to a sheet pan and store in the warm oven until ready to use.

5) For sauce, mix yolk, water, lemon, salt, and vinegar in a large bowl. Place bowl over simmering water bath. Be sure bowl doesn't touch water.

6) Whisk until egg mixture is frothy and hot. It should at least double in volume and be slightly steaming.

7) Slowly whisk in clarified butter until it forms a smooth sauce. If the sauce gets to thick, add a bit more water and whisk.

8) Poach eggs in water with added vinegar. Cook them for 90-120 seconds.

9) Plate hash browns topped with bacon while eggs cook. Then immediately top with eggs and sauce and serve right away!

Prepping the Base

The thing that can really go wrong with hash browns is discoloration. Potatoes will oxidize really quickly when they are grated and turn this horrible dark purple brown color that is in no way appetizing.

The only way I know of to prevent this is to dunk the hash browns in cold water as soon as you grate them. This will keep them looking nice and fresh.

Shredded and soaking.

When you’re ready to cook the hash browns, pull out a few handfuls from the water and press them on some paper towels to dry them out. Then add them to a large skillet with a good amount of oil over medium-high heat. They’ll hiss and complain for a bit, but that’s good.

While the hash browns cook, use a spatula to kind of portion them out into small segments. Ideally, you are looking for eight hash brown chunks if you are serving four people. The hash browns will probably take 10 minutes total to get nice and crispy.

Once they are done, you can put them all on a sheet pan and keep them in a warm (250 degree) oven until you’re ready to use them.

Nice and crispy.

The Sauce

In my opinion, there are three tricky parts to making a good benedict: timing, eggs, and sauce. We’ll get to the first two in a second, but let’s handle the sauce first since I think that’s the trickiest of the three.

Hollandaise sauce is a lot like homemade mayo, except instead of oil, we’ll use clarified butter. It’s also a warm sauce which makes it a bit easier to mix actually, but you run the risk of over-cooking the eggs which isn’t good.

There are lots of ways to make this sauce and I’m sure there’s an official cooking school way that I don’t know. What I do know is that my way works… so whatever.

Start with two egg yolks in a bowl. To this bowl add all your other ingredients except the butter.

sauce basics.

Whisk everything together and then put the bowl over a pan with simmering water. You want to be sure that the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the water. You just want it to steam.

Whisk the bowl pretty continuously as the yolk mixture starts to heat up. It’ll be a bit runny at this point, but that’s fine. Keep whisking for about 3 minutes and eventually your mixture will at least double in size and turn really frothy. This should also be hot to the touch at this point and very lightly steaming.

Steamy and frothy is good.

One common mistake that I’ve seen people make when they try to make hollandaise is just to melt butter and whisk it in. This might work, but you won’t get a great sauce with it because butter is about 20% solids which is going to mess up your sauce.

So, even though it’s kind of a pain, if you want to make a really good sauce, you need to clarify your butter before mixing it in with the sauce. I did an entire post on how to clarify butter a year or so ago, so just check that out.

My clarified butter was far from perfect for this version, but it’s still way better than just melted butter. I got about 12 ounces of clarified butter out of 1 pound of butter and I used it all for this sauce.

Not perfect, but it'll work.

Once your egg mixture is frothy and hot, start slowly whisking in the clarified butter. Start slowly and whisk furiously!

As your butter incorporates, the sauce should get really nice and thick.

It’ll be a delicious thing.

Pretty solid if I do say so myself.

You wouldn’t want to make hollandaise sauce way before you serve the meal, but it will keep fine for 15-20 minutes. If it cools down, just put it back over the heat and add a few drops of water. It should loosen up and return to a nice hot sauce without a problem.

The Timing

More than any one ingredient, the timing of eggs benedict can throw some people off. This is the general schedule I used for these:

1) Make bacon in oven
2) Cook hash browns (and hold in hot oven)
3) Put large pot of water on to boil for eggs later
4) Make Hollandaise sauce
5) Poach eggs
6) While eggs poach, lay out each plate and make sure your sauce is hot.
7) Plate and serve right away!

Baked is the only way to go.

Doing this schedule means that the things that are most time sensitive (the eggs and the sauce) are the very last to be prepared.

If you wait more than about five minutes between when the eggs are done and you eat the darn thing, the eggs will be cold and the sauce won’t be great. This is why it’s a hard dish to pull of in a restaurant.

Stack it up!

The Eggs

I haven’t talked about poaching eggs yet and that’s because I find them to be pretty easy to do honestly. Using this method, I can poach four eggs at a time and have about a 95% success rate with the eggs. (You’re bound to lose one occasionally though so have extras ready.)

Get a large pot of water simmering and add about 1/2 cup of plain white vinegar to the water. The acid in the vinegar will make the eggs stick together really nicely.

Give the water a stir with a slotted spoon to create a small whirlpool. Crack the egg in a bowl. Don’t crack it straight into the water. Gently pour the egg into the simmering water from the bowl. Do as many as you feel comfortable with. I used to do two at a time, but these days I can handle four. How many also depends on your pot size.

Set a timer for 90 seconds. Once 90 seconds is up, start checking the eggs. Use a slotted spoon to carefully scoop one out and gently poke it. It should feel firm in the white sections and liquid in the yolk. As the eggs finish, move them to a plate with a paper towel to drain slightly.

Top each hash brown and bacon stack with one egg and a good drizzle of sauce.

Egged and sauced!

To be honest, I’m not sure I would recommend the hash brown method if this is your first benedict ever. Stick with the english muffin just because it removes an element of cooking.

But if you’re feeling ambitious or an eggs benedict expert, this was a freakin’ awesome variation. The potatoes do a great job of sopping up all that delicious sauce and egg mixture. Obviously, if the bacon is too heavy for you, you could use something lighter like tomatoes, spinach, or even crab cakes!

Grillin' is good.

Ever since I discovered my deep love for homemade mayo, I’ve been on a mad hunt to shove it in as many dishes as possible.

Besides the quickest application (spoon –> mouth), I thought immediately of potato salad.

Potato salad can be a bit too creamy sometimes for me. I don’t like it gloopy. I like my potato salad to have tons of flavor and lots of good crunchy textures in it with just enough dressing to hold it all together. I figured it could only be improved with homemade mayo.

Oh. And grilling the potatoes to make them crispy. That kind of takes this salad to the next level.

Grilled Potato Salad

Yield: Serves 4 as a side.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and halved
2 stalks celery, diced
3 scallions, minced
1 dill pickle, minced
Handful of parsley, minced
1/2 Cup mayo, homemade is best
1/4 Cup Greek yogurt
2 Tablespoons olive oil (for potatoes)
Salt and pepper
Pinch of cayenne (optional)

Directions:

1) Peel potatoes and cut in half. Toss with olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.

2) Grill potatoes over medium heat for 25-30 minutes until they are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Turn them occasionally.

3) Chop other ingredients and add to a large bowl.

4) Let potatoes cool slightly and chop as well. Add to the bowl.

5) Stir in mayo and yogurt and taste for salt and pepper.

6) Serve immediately or chill. Will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

Cooking the Potatoes

I wasn’t entirely sure how this would work. I normally grill potatoes in foil with butter and garlic, but for this salad I wanted them to be really crispy.

I kind of just winged this, but it worked out great. I peeled my potatoes and cut them in half, then tossed them with some olive oil and salt and pepper.

Basic potatoes.

Next I heated my grill up to a medium heat and then added my potatoes straight to it!

Wasn't sure about this...

It’s important to keep the lid closed while these are cooking so they get some good general heat.

After about 7-8 minutes you can start turning the potatoes. I kind of just flipped them around every few minutes to make sure they weren’t burning on any one part.

Mine took about 25-30 minutes to get nice and crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Lookin' good!

The Other Stuff

Have I mentioned how much I love homemade mayo?

I mixed up another batch for this salad. I did it by hand, but as a number of people pointed out in my post on Monday, you can do this in a blender also and save yourself the forearm workout.

Don't forget the mayo!

Next I added some pretty standard potato salad ingredients. Really fresh, crunchy veggies are very important in my opinion.

Good textures!

Dice up all this stuff pretty finely and add it to a large bowl.

Diced and minced.

When your potatoes come off the grill, let them cool a bit and then dice them up also.

These tasted awesome. I knew I was onto something when I tried these guys.

Perfect.

Add the potatoes to the veggies along with the homemade mayo (you won’t need all of it if you make a full batch) and some Greek yogurt or sour cream.

Taste it for salt and pepper and you’re all set!

Perfect summer side!

This has a way different texture than a standard potato salad. It’s not too creamy but the mayo that’s there is really flavorful.

The salad will easily keep for a week in the fridge and gets better on day two and three. Mine didn’t last longer than that though…

Frankly, it might be my new favorite potato salad recipe!

I like my pizza over easy.

I’m pretty sure that I could count on one hand the things that aren’t good on a pizza. Ok. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration (or Nickxaggeration as Betsy would say), but it’s not too far off.

I had some pizza dough left over from my grilled pizza this week so I figured I would use it with a fun pizza idea I’ve been carrying around in my back pocket for a while.

It’s pretty basic: Take all your standard breakfast ingredients. Stick them on a pie. Add cheese and sauce. Consume immediately.

As it turns out, I like my pizza over-easy.

Breakfast Pizza

Yield: 2 pizzas

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes + dough time

Ingredients:

Dough: (From American Pie)
This is enough dough for four pizzas actually, but you can freeze any leftovers.
5 Cups (22 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 Teaspoon instant yeast (or active dry yeast, dissolved)
3 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 3/4 Cups room temperature water

Other Stuff:
1 Cup Tomato Sauce
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes (sauce)
1 Tablespoon dried oregano (sauce)
Pinch of salt and pepper (sauce)
6-8 ounces bacon
2 Russet potatoes, cubed
6 eggs, 3 per pizza
10 ounces pepper jack cheese (you could use more or less to your tastes)
Handful of spinach, roughly chopped

Helpful Equipment:
Pizza Stone
Pizza Peel

Directions:

1) To make dough, combine water, oil, sugar, salt, and yeast in a mixing bowl. Stir together and let sit for 5 minutes to make sure yeast is active. It should bubble.

2) Stir in flour until it’s well-incorporated and forms a ball. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Then mix either with your hands or with a stand mixer. If using hands, repeatedly dip one hand in water and work the dough vigorously until it’s smooth, about 8 minutes. If using a mixer, mix with dough hook until smooth, about 6 minutes. If at any point, the dough is very sticky, mix in more flour.

3) Cut dough into 4 even pieces, coat with olive oil and add to a large plastic bag. Let rest for 20-30 minutes.

4) Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but ideally overnight.

5) Remove from fridge at least an hour before making pizza.

6) Wash and cube (or shred) potatoes.

7) Slice bacon into chunks and cook it over medium heat in a large skillet. After about 10 minutes or when bacon is just turning crispy, remove bacon.

8) Cook potatoes in bacon grease for 10 minutes until they are cooked through and slightly crispy.

9) Prepare other ingredients: chop spinach, shred cheese, mix sauce.

10) Roll out pizza dough an add it to a peel lightly dusted with flour or cornmeal. Add a thin layer of sauce.

11) Add ingredients: cheese, potatoes, bacon, spinach leaving small holes for the eggs in the center.

12) Crack eggs onto the pizza being careful not to bust the yolks.

13) Bake pizza for 12-14 minutes in a preheated 500 degree oven on a pizza stone.

14) Remove and let cool for a minute before slicing and serving.

The Dough

I’m not going to go into detail on the dough in this post because I just used leftover dough from my grilled pizza dough. It’s a pretty standard pizza dough though, but you could use any pizza dough for this guy really.

Besides some dough, you’ll need some breakfast ingredients!

Breakfast!

I knew that I wanted to pre-cook the potatoes and bacon a bit because they won’t have time to get really crispy on the pizza.

I just roughly cubed up my potatoes to make for easy cooking. Nothing special. In hindsight, I realized that it might have been fun to shred them and do a kind of hash brown pizza thing.

Makin' hash...

I also roughly chopped up the bacon and cooked it in a large skillet for about 10 minutes over medium heat until it was just turning crispy. Then I removed all the bacon and cooked the potatoes in the same pan using the bacon grease.

Here’s all my ingredients ready to go!

All set for some pizza!

Making and Baking

I did my traditional oven cooking for this pizza which meant heating up my oven and pizza stone to 500 degrees. I let it preheat with the stone in for about 30 minutes normally to make sure it’s good and hot.

Then I rolled out my dough, put it on my pizza peel dusted with cornmeal, and added a thin layer of sauce.

Gettin' sauced!

Next, all the toppings: cheese, bacon, potatoes, and spinach.

Notice that I kind of made three little holes using the toppings. I bet you can guess what’s going in these guys.

Notice the holes...

I was worried that if I didn’t leave little spaces for my eggs, they would overflow and run all over the place which I think is right.

As is though, they kind of just nestled right into the holes perfectly.

If you want runny eggs on your pizza (good idea), then try not to break them. If you break a yolk, it’ll cook completely in the oven.

I know this because I broke one of mine!

Try not to break them...

When you’re sliding this guy into the oven, be gentle. The eggs will want to slide right off the pizza which would be very bad. I found that it helped to use a spatula in my free hand to kind of lift the pizza a bit as a slid it off the peel. If you’re careful you should be able to get it safely on the hot pizza stone with minimal issues.

Bake it at 500 degrees for 12-14 minutes. The eggs will take the most time to cook. They should be set, but still runny in the center.

Then pull it out and let it sit for a minute before slicing and serving!

Pretty!

Here’s the thing about this pizza: It’s delicious. But it doesn’t keep for anything. It’s basically awesome right when it comes out of the oven and an hour later it’s not so hot.

It doesn’t store well and doesn’t microwave or reheat well. So it breaks a lot of the normal pizza benefits in that respect. But as long as you have a few people to help you eat on it, it’s a fantastic breakfast dish!

Potatoes are my favorite.

I was a bit shocked that fingerling potatoes won the poll last week. It was a very close race though. Tomatillo salsa took a very close second and I might just make it anyway since it’s what I wanted to win.

I wasn’t so impressed by this recipe when I read it. I mean you just roast some potatoes, spin some chives in a food processor and you’re done.

I was skeptical.

But I can tell you this. Betsy went back for seconds. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but trust me. It is. She’s not really a “seconds” person. She’ll usually save dishes for leftovers the next day, but will very rarely hit up the same dish right away.

Not the case here. As soon as she finished serving one she said, “I need more of those potatoes.” I was right behind her!

Roasted Fingerlings with Chive Pesto

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds fingerling potatoes (that's the size of bag they normally come in)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Big pinch of salt and pepper

Chive Pesto:
1/2 Cup fresh chives
1/2 Cup fresh flat leaf parsley
2 Tablespoons almonds or pine nuts
1 large garlic clove
1/2 Cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Food processor (mini one works well also)

Directions:

1) Slice potatoes in half and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

2) Lay potatoes out onto a baking sheet in an even layer.

3) Bake potatoes at 425 degrees for 35-40 minutes, turning every 10 minutes or so.

4) Meanwhile, add all pesto ingredients except olive oil and lemon juice to a food processor. Pulse a few times to combine.

5) Drizzle in olive oil and continue to pulse until it's a coarse paste.

6) Stir in lemon juice and set aside.

7) When potatoes come out of the oven, add to a bowl and toss with a few tablespoons of pesto.

8) Serve with extra pesto on the side!

Roasting the Fingerlings

If you aren’t familiar with fingerlings, they are just a varietal of potato that seems to be very popular these days. They are long and skinny and really perfect for roasting. They cook quicker than normal potatoes and get really nice and crispy since they have more surface area.

They are more common in the Fall actually, but are pretty much available throughout the year.

To prep the potatoes, just slice them down the middle and toss them with some olive oil and salt and pepper.

Oil. Salt. Pepper. Done.

Lay these out on a baking sheet and bake them at 425 degrees for about 35 minutes. Give them a turn every 10 minutes to make sure they are cooking evenly.

Chive Pesto

Normally pesto uses basil, but chives work equally well. This is the first time I’ve made a chive pesto, but it won’t be the last. The flavors were really good.

Seriously Chivin'

Once you have all your ingredients, add everything but the lemon juice to a food processor and pulse them a few times. Then drizzle in the olive oil and continue to process until the pesto is a coarse paste.

Once you’re done processing the pesto, stir in the lemon juice and you’re all set.

This still will smell bright and fresh.

All mixed up.

Finishing the Dish

When the potatoes come out of the oven the should be really nicely browned all over. Honestly, these are good just like this!

Perfect!

Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl and toss them with about two tablespoons of the pesto. You’ll probably want to add more, but its’ a good idea to start light with the pesto.

People can always add more later.

Go light to start.

Serve these up in a nice big bowl!

Here’s a good close up shot. Man these hit the spot!

So good.

These were very crispy and delicious and the chive pesto was very light and tasty.

I’ll be honest, Betsy and I almost finished off a pound and a half of these by ourselves!

Potatoes and Cheese? Yes Please.

Last weekend Betsy and I had one of those lazy weekends. We normally try to get out and go for a hike or something, especially now that it appears to be officially Spring.

But last weekend was dreary and rainy. So we did pretty much nothing. Well, let me rephrase that.

Betsy did lots. She worked and cleaned and was generally a productive member of society.

I did nothing but watch streaming Netflix. I’m halfway through the entire Battlestar Galactica series (DORK ALERT) and I simply can’t be bothered with much else until I finish it.

Oh. I also managed to eat almost an entire casserole. This casserole was pretty heavy though and lifting it in and out of the fridge had to burn a fair number of calories. At least that’s what I told myself.

Hash Brown Casserole

Yield: 8x8 dish

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

5-6 Cups shredded potatoes, 4-5 medium sized russet potatoes
1/3 Cup mayonnaise
1/3 Cup sour cream, or greek yogurt
4 scallions, whites and greens chopped
8 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 Teaspoon cayenne pepper
Butter or nonstick spray, for dish
Pinch of salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
A good box grater!

Directions:

1) Peel potatoes and run them through a box grater. Grate the potatoes on a few paper towels. Add a few more paper towels on top and press out as much liquid as possible.

2) Chop scallions and grate cheese. Add to a large bowl with potatoes and other ingredients.

3) Combine well and add to a casserole dish that's been lightly buttered or sprayed with nonstick spray.

4) Bake dish at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Then broil on high for a minute to crisp up the top of the casserole.

5) Serve immediately!

Prepping the Potatoes. I prepped these potatoes in the same way that I would if I was making a more standard hash brown. Start by peeling all the potatoes and removing any large bad spots that they may have.

A quick peel.

Then just run them all through a box grater! This isn’t hard really but just be careful not to zone out and accidentally box grate your finger. I’ve done that on more than one occasion…

Lay down a few paper towels before you shred them. When you’re done shredding, press the potatoes between a few more paper towels to soak up as much liquid as possible. You’d be surprised how much liquid comes out of the potatoes and if you don’t get rid of it, your casserole might end up a bit watery.

Lots of moisture in these actually.

The Other Stuff. Besides a boat load of shredded potatoes, you’ll need a few staples for any good casserole. I used sour cream for my version, but you could use Greek yogurt also. They provide the same tangy creaminess to the dish.

You don’t need to put any butter in the casserole (although I suppose you could). I just used the butter on the dish itself to make sure the casserole didn’t stick.

The trinity!

Chop up the scallions (use the whites and greens) and shred the cheese. Yes. There’s lots of shredding going on here.

Then stir everything together in a large bowl. Don’t forget the cayenne pepper. You could substitute paprika or chili powder, but something a bit spicy kind of makes this dish.

Lookin' good already.

Once this is all stirred together really well, add it to a buttered casserole dish. You could also just spray the dish with some nonstick spray if that’s more your style.

Butter the thing.

Bake this guy at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes. It’s takes a while to cook a potato casserole like this. You want to make sure the potatoes are cooked through.

At the end of the cooking, I flipped on my broiler and broiled the casserole for just a minute so the crust got nice and browned.

Delicious.

Let this cool for a few minutes and then serve it up! It’s great with ketchup (although I don’t like ketchup) or hot sauce.

The corner pieces are especially valuable due to their maximum crunchy edges.

The corner pieces are like gold.

This is almost a lazy man’s hash brown. You kind of just throw all this stuff in a dish and bake it and it’s almost certainly going to be delicious.

Whether you’re feeding a crowd or feeding yourself on a dreary weekend, it’s hard not to like this dish.