African Potato Peanut Stew

It's been under 80 degrees for like 4 days in a row, so I'm going to go ahead and assume it's finally fall around here. (Please? I have a growing stomach to cover, and sweaters help a ton.) We'll see how it goes, but in the meantime, I'm still going to make cool-weather food and try and coax it along.

This stew is fairly simple, really, with a medium amount of prep, so it was good on a week night. The original recipe calls for it to cook for over an hour, but I checked it after 40 minutes and the potatoes were perfectly cooked...I think I may have chopped them smaller than intended, but the bite size pieces make more sense. So just check it along the way...when they're done, you're done. Easy as that.

Hubby commented that lamb would be a good addition, so if you want to meatify this, go ahead and throw some bite sized chunks of lamb or beef in after the garlic and brown for a couple of minutes before continuing. I did use chicken broth instead of veggie broth, but other than that, I thought it was great as a vegetarian dish. Oh, and you can use all peanuts for this (use up to a cup), I just ran out and liked the addition of the almonds.

I love how colorful it is once you get over it and just stir in the topping. Which you should do, by the way.

African Peanut Stew
1 cup 0% greek yogurt
1/4 cup minced chives
splash of olive oil
half a yellow onion, halved and sliced
1 shallot, sliced (optional)
half a large bell pepper, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup dry roasted peanuts, halved
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 tsp salt
1 minced red chile or 1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 lbs peeled, cubed sweet potatoes (I sliced about 1/2 in thick widthwise, then quartered those)
3/4 lb baby red potatoes, halved or quartered, depending on the size
2.5 cups fat-free broth
28oz can diced tomatoes

Combine yogurt and chives, chill.

Heat oil in dutch oven or stock pot over medium high. Add onion, shallot and bell pepper, saute 2-3 minutes. Add garlic, saute until fragrant, less than a minute. Add peanuts, salt and chile. After a couple of minutes (stirring often), add potatoes, broth and tomato.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover. After about 35 minutes, test every 10 minutes or so to see if the potatoes are soft. When they are, turn off heat and let sit 5-10 minutes.

Top with a dollop of yogurt mix to serve. (Serves 6, roughly 350 cals per serving)

It's only right to labor for Labor Day.

Wasn't I just talking about dishes? It's only 10:45 in the morning, and I have already done dishes three times. Which can only mean that we're about to do some eating today. (Well, and that we didn't finish them from dinner last night-but that was only the first round.)

Luckily, Ramona was there to help.

That's where she has to be when dishes are being done. It's really convenient and helpful, as you can imagine.

But while she wasn't underfoot, I chopped and stirred and cooked and boiled. And with quite the results, I'm hoping.

Hubby asked for muffins, which means I need to stop baking...it's giving him ideas.

But add in some scrambled eggs (with red onion, tomato and jack cheese), and you've got quite a Sunday morning breakfast.

I also have a BBQ this afternoon, so I offered to bring potato salad-I'm supposed to avoid mayo-based salads that aren't 100% refrigerated (blah, blah salmonella), so I made my mayo-free version (just added a bit of dried thyme this time, which was a good call).

Plus, I love the rainbow of veggies in this one. A lot of chopping, yes, but so pretty and so good.

And with that, I'm getting out of the kitchen and into the pool.

Happy long weekend! Eat well!

Is it still spring?

Cause it's hot. But 'it's cooler outside,' so the screen is open and I'm not allowed to run the a/c even though my house is currently 80 degrees.


See? I'm not even exaggerating.

*Note to self. When complaining to husband about how hot the house is, it works best when you didn't make something hot for dinner. I hate when he's right. As he unfortunately often is. He's just so damn cute, which isn't fair. I really need to get better at this 'the wife is always right' business.


Anyway, delicious. If you want to improve on the original recipe, like I did, you should totally go for it. So I'm going to give you my advice rather than a recipe. Use or discard at will. (Use it!)

Corn & Potato Chowder
•I didn't have old bay, so I threw in a pinch each plus of cardamom, paprika, pepper, celery seed, cayenne, a bay leaf, about a tbsp fresh thyme, and a couple shakes Tabasco. And a couple tsp or more of salt.
•Use chicken broth instead of water, enough to almost cover potatoes.
•Throw an immersion blender in the pot at the end for a couple seconds to thicken it up a bit. Leave plenty of chunks.
•Use about 2.5 potatoes. Peel them roughly, and cut them small.
•Fat free half and half is totally as good as full fat.
•Stir in most of the cheese before serving, and just sprinkle a little bit on at the end.

Latkes and other reasons I wish I were Jewish

The secret to making good Jewish food as a non Jew? Using a box (seriously, the Matzo Ball Soup mix is fantastic). Oh, and Google.

I found this Latke recipe on NYCNosh.com, and only made a couple adjustments. They could have cooked longer and at lower heat than I did, so I'm going to include their directions on that part and recommend you do as I say and not as I do. Just call me your own personal guinea pig.

Latkes
3 large or 4 medium potatoes, peeled
1 onion
2 eggs, well beaten
1.5 Tablespoons matzoh meal (or flour-I used Bisquick)
large pinch salt (a little less than a tsp)
1/4 tsp pepper


Cut half of the potatoes into small chunks. Boil in salted water until tender (about 20 minutes) and mash. Sprinkle flour on top of this.

In a large bowl, shred the onion. Then shred the other two potatoes into the onion, and mix. Get a clean kitchen towel or cheesecloth, place the shredded potatoes and onion in the middle, then squeeze as by twisting until no more liquid can be extracted. Return to a dry bowl and add egg, pepper, and salt. Add the mashed potatoes and mix.

Form into palm-sized patties that are about 1/2 to 3/4 inches high. Fry these patties in 1/4 to 1/2 inches of corn oil (do NOT use olive oil) . The patties will need to cook for about 5 minutes on the first side, so if they do more than go slightly brown after a minute or two, your oil is too hot. Flip after five minutes with a spatula and fork and cook on the other side for about 2 minutes, or until dark golden brown. Drain thoroughly on paper towels. Serve with applesauce, salt, and sour cream. Makes approximately 10 latkes.

But damnit, I will try.

The worst part about having a blog like this is that I'm under constant pressure to make things not only taste good, but also make them look good-or at the very least, edible. And having both occur at once happens less frequently than I would like.

As if I'm not hard enough on myself, the idea of other people judging me is not exactly fun. I understand that coming from Mrs. McJudgerson, this is highly hypocritical. Yes, I'm hard to impress. It's not my most endearing quality, but we're all stuck with it. Moving on.

Last night was one of those disappointing nights. I'd never made oven fried chicken before, but this photo on Cooking Light looked so good I was inspired to try. I don't know exactly what I did wrong-it could have been a number of things-not enough butter, discovering my oven wasn't hot enough halfway through, too much buttermilk, gluten-free substitutions-but it came out looking a hot mess. (Daddy, if you're reading this and this is one of those examples of you having no clue what I'm talking about...here)

The hubby was incredibly sweet and kept telling me it tasted good (and he was correct), but...sigh. Luckily, the potato salad was colorful enough to keep me from being a pouty-pants all evening. I always forget about this salad (Yes, Ag, it IS a salad even though it has no lettuce in it), but it's quite good, and a lot lighter than regular fat kid potato salad. Plus there's no mayo, which makes it a good picnic alternative. If, you know, you're into that sort of thing.

Light and Fresh Potato Salad

1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
About 1 tbsp olive oil
large pinch each salt and pepper

About 2 lbs red potatoes, cubed into bite sized pieces
Salt and pepper
Half a cucumber, peeled and chopped
About a cup (one basket) cherry tomatoes, sliced
One orange bell pepper (or any color), seeded and chopped
Large handful of chopped green onions
Small or medium can of sliced black olives, drained

In large bowl, mix together vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Set aside.

Place potato and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 8 minutes or until tender; drain.

Add potato to dressing in bowl, tossing gently to coat; let stand 15 minutes. Stir in cucumber and remaining ingredients; toss well. Cover and chill.

(Recipe tweaked from one of the winning Cooking Light side dish entries, so I am using their nutritional info-mine has more olives but less oil, so I figure they even out)

About 6 servings. 180 cals, 6g fat, 4g fiber, 4g protein, 30g carbs

Oktoberfesting.

I'm not sure what all the fuss about Oktoberfest is about. Does anyone actually like German food? Maybe I just don't get the whole sausage and sauerkraut appeal, but it's always seemed a little bizarre. Maybe if I dressed up like the St. Pauli's girl when I eat it...

Either way, the husband and I like to make holiday-specific meals for this type of occasion...corned beef and cabbage for St. Paddy's day, Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo, Thai Tom Ga soup for the Lakers' playoffs (I'm sure we'll get to that one day)...we're very equal-opportunity celebrators like that. And so we decided to put our German heritages to work and BBQ some beer brats and make mashed potatoes this weekend for Oktoberfest.

As usual, we're all about the condiments. He was excited for sauerkraut, I was happy about spicy mustard from Philippe's, and we even considered getting the mini keg of German beer for a little longer than we should have,eventually deciding Sam Adam's Octoberfest (for him) and vodka/diet tonics (for me) would suffice in the beverages department.

My potatoes, however, were the best part of the meal. Hands down. They may not be German, per se, but omg, they were good. If you don't like horseradish, leave it out, but we thought it added something yum to them.

I don't want to get all Rachel Ray and called them smashed potatoes, so we'll take the bagel route and call them my Everything Potatoes.




Everything Potatoes
5 red potatoes, peeled and chopped/cubed
1 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup pre-grated 2% cheddar cheese (or mexican blend)
4 tbsp light sour cream
2 tsp horseradish (optional)
2 green onions, chopped
1 tbsp bacon pieces
Salt and Fresh pepper to taste

Cover potatoes with water, then boil til soft, about 10 minutes. Drain almost all the water out(leave just a splash in the pan), mash, and add remaining ingredients. Mix. Eat. Makes 4 big servings.
About 200 cals, 6g fat, 35g carbs, 4g fiber, 9g protein.