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.

Baked Winter Squash Soup

Source: I've actually made this one over and over again every winter because it is so creamy and scrumptious. Without adding an iota of cream. It's from The New Basics Cookbook: an oldie, but goodie, one of the first to use fancy ingredients for everyday cooking (this one does not, though). The recipe uses up random squash from Tantre or the Farmer's Market easily whether those are butternuts, buttercups, pumpkins, hubbards, you name it. Today? Everything that wasn't going to last another week in the basement.

Rating: Very Favorable

Notes: I have to plug Rapunzel vegetable bouillon cubes here. So many reasons to like these: they are delicious, they come in both no-salt and salt varieties, and they allow you to use as much stock as you like instead of scrambling to use it before it molds in the fridge. Also, they're vegan, if that's helpful. I've found them at Whole Foods, the Coop and sometimes By the Pound.

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INGREDIENTS:

• 4 medium winter squash
• 1-2 tablespoons butter
• 4-5 carrots, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 vegetable bouillon cubes
• 7 cups water (add more if necessary)
• 3/4 teaspoon ginger
• pinch cayenne
• salt & pepper

METHOD:

1. Roast the squash (cut into halves or quarters) skin side down in a pan of water at 425 for 40 minutes. Let this cool, and then scoop the squash pulp out of the skins.
2. Saute onions and carrots in the butter in a large soup pot. Add the spices, bouillon cubes and water and saute a bit longer. Add the squash, cut into smaller pieces if needed. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Puree the soup in batches in a blender.

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.

Freezer to Oven Chocolate Chip Cookies

Source: This one is from my mother-in-law, also from ages past. I'll admit I'm not the hugest chocolate chip cookie fan, but my hubby is and I liked the whole freezer-to-oven aspect of it. A quick dessert when needed? Perfect.

Rating: Favorable

Notes: These are fairly airy and light when baked, not the dense, chewy kind (which I prefer, when I prefer chocolate chip cookies). But they're quite tasty. Probably all that butter in them. They don't spread out much, but I might not have pre-heated the oven enough-- hard to tell with a toaster oven. You'll also likely want to roll these into balls because it makes them a heck of a lot easier to freeze. I'm enamored with the new cookie dough baller my mom got me for Christmas, though, so I went that route instead.

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INGREDIENTS:

• 1 3/4 sticks butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 12 oz. chocolate chips

METHOD:

1. Melt butter in microwave, covered.
2. Add butter to large mixing bowl with brown sugar. Stir in the eggs. Add flour, salt, baking soda and vanilla, and stir. Mix in chocolate chips. (Can mix this all, except the chocolate chips, in a stand-up mixer.)
3. Chill the batter, but not for too long (about 20 minutes). Using cookie dough scooper or your hands, place 1-inch mounds on a cookie sheet and freeze for a couple hours. Transfer to a ziploc baggie.
4. When needed, place on an ungreased cookie sheet in a preheated 325 degree oven for 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.