Shepherd's Pie

Source: My favorite not-particularly-easy recipe to make. Every time I make it I change something or other, so it's quite malleable. Just make sure to use lots of mashed potatoes for the top! Comfort food at its best.

Rating: Very Favorable

Notes: This time I put a spinach layer in between the mushroom gravy and the potatoes. I'd forgotten to freeze tofu in advance, so I used soy crumbles instead. And I didn't add the coriander.

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INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 cake tofu
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander
• pepper
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 lemon, juice of
• 5 tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 large potatoes
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 pound mushrooms
• 1 1/2 cups hot potato water
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch, dissolved in 1/2 c. water

METHOD:

1. Freeze, thaw and shred tofu (make sure to freeze a day ahead of time). Saute onion in 1 tablespoon oil with thyme, coriander, and some pepper. Add walnuts and shredded tofu. When heated through, add lemon and 2 tablespoons soy sauce.
2. Peel, cube and boil potatoes and mash with butter and milk. Save the potato water!
3. Saute mushrooms, 3 tablespoons soy sauce and some pepper in 1 tablespoon oil. Add hot potato water and bring to boil. Stir in cornstarch water. Stir until thick.
4. Oil a casserole dish and put the tofu mixture in the bottom, then the mushroom gravy, and then the potatoes. Dot the top with butter and bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

Winter Vegetable Hash

Source: This is adapted from an allrecipes.com recipe, in my search for yet more yummy things to do with kale. I'd call this hearty peasant food that uses up a lot of food laying around or languishing in the freezer. It's even better with an egg on top.

Rating: Favorable

Notes: I didn't have any more fresh squash, so I bypassed it. I'm sure it's even better with it, although I'd use butternut before I'd use acorn. I also didn't have any fresh shiitake, so I used the rest of my button mushrooms and the rest of my dried mixed mushrooms from By the Pound.

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INGREDIENTS:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 pound potatoes, diced
• 1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 small winter squash, acorn or other
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 pinch pepper
• 1 cup kale, chopped
• 4 sprigs sage

METHOD:

1. Place oil and butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Melt butter and mix in potatoes, mushrooms, pepper, squash, shallot, and kale. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Cover and let saute and steam, about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender.
2. Add sage to skillet. Continue cooking 5 minutes.
3. Optional: fry an egg to place on top.

Potato Pancakes

Source: I remember watching Julia Child as a teenager and being as amused by her as the rest of the nation. One important thing, though? She really, really could cook. I got this recipe by watching her old PBS videos and scrambling to take notes as she cooked. Naturally there's a lot of "and perhaps a little more butter...," and for this recipe it's essential. I could eat this every day. Then I'd be a whale, but a very happy whale.

Rating: Exceptional

Notes: As I say below, you gotta squeeze as much water as you can out of your shredded potatoes. Otherwise, your pancakes are going to fall apart and it will be a sad dinner. Use any hard cheese you'd like. We used a leftover chunk of probably-too-hard manchego. And I recommend the whipped cream cheese over the bar of cream cheese. It'll make your mixing much easier.

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INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups potatoes, shredded
• 4 oz. whipped cream cheese
• 1/4-1/2 cup hard cheese, shredded
• 1 egg
• salt & pepper

METHOD:

1. After shredding the potatoes, squeeze the water from them. This is essential! Mix all the ingredients together well until it looks like cole slaw.
2. Add butter & oil to a large frying pan. Make sure there's plenty of fat in the pan for frying, at least 1/8 inch. Make pancakes by adding 1/2 cup of the batter to the pan for each pancake, and patting these down into disks. Fry each side for about 5 minutes. They should be nicely brown on each side, not golden brown.
3. Makes about 9 pancakes.

Spinach and Leek Gratin with Roquefort Crumb Topping

Source: I haven't a clue who this one is from. (Why don't I write this information on the top of the scrap of paper? That's a very good question.) Don't be put off by the fancy title, it's actually quite a simple recipe with very few ingredients. Again, perfect for using what you worked so hard to put up for the winter.

Rating: Very Favorable

Notes: This felt a bit like grabbing whatever I had handy, although I didn't actually make any substitutions.

• I used whatever blue cheese was in the fridge; I'm fairly certain you don't have to use Roquefort.
• My spinach and leeks came from the freezer, as mentioned, pre-cut, pre-wilted, etc.
• I only used 1/2 cup heavy cream. You can even use less, probably.
• My breadcrumbs were from some Paesano-type bread hiding at the back of the fridge.
• Don't sweat not having horseradish Dijon mustard. Just mix about 1/2 teaspoon of horseradish to the mustard.

It's a bit spicy, with that horseradish in it, but that's probably 50% of the reason we liked it so much. The other 50% is that cream, I'm sure.

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INGREDIENTS:

• 5 tablespoons butter, divided
• 3 1/2 tablespoons horseradish Dijon mustard
• 2 1/2 cups bread crumbs, fresh from French bread
• 1 cup Roquefort cheese, crumbled
• 3 9 oz. bags spinach
• 1 medium leek, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced crosswise (about 3 cups)
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

METHOD:

1. Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a medium skillet over medium high heat. Mix in 2 tablespoons of the mustard, then the breadcrumbs. Saute until golden, about 5 minutes. Cool briefly. Mix in the cheese.
2. Toss 1 1/2 bags spinach in large pot over high heat until wilted (with a little water if not a non-stick pot). Wilt for 3 minutes. Transfer to sieve. Repeat with remaining spinach. Press on spinach to drain. (You can also do this in the microwave.)
3. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter over medium high heat in skillet. Add leek and saute for 4 minutes. Add cream, remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons of mustard and the spinach. Toss until thick and blended, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Transfer spinach-leek mixture to a medium casserole or baking dish. Top with breadcrumb mixture and bake until bubbling, about 15 minutes.

Scalloped Kale and Potatoes

Source: A colleague gave me this recipe about, um, 2 years ago. It's from "Quick Vegetarian Pleasures." One of my new year's resolutions this year was to make some of the things in my overstuffed clippings folder (and create a blog to talk about them), and there's a heck of a lot of Tantre Farm kale in the freezer and wrinkled potatoes in a box in the basement. So...

Rating: Very Favorable

Notes: What can go wrong when you use a ton of butter, garlic and Calder Dairy milk?

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INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pound kale
• 5 medium/large potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 cups grated cheese (cheddar is good, others may want swiss)
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut into bits
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• pepper
• 1 1/4 cups milk

METHOD:

1. Rinse the kale and shake off extra water. Pull the leaves from the stems, discard stems. Stuff the kale into a medium pot and add 1/2 c. water. Cook 7 minutes. Drain and cool and squeeze out extra water. Chop kale and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 425. GENEROUSLY grease a large casserole or medium baking dish. Spread half the potato slices on the bottom, spread on all the kale, then sprinkle the garlic, and half the cheese, butter, salt and pepper. Top with the remaining potato slices, cheese, butter, salt and pepper.
3. Carefully pour the milk in and gently shake the dish to distribute. Bake 50 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and the top is browned.