Not Your Mama's Mashed Potatoes

Eveyone has a recipe or technique for mashed potatoes, right? But does everyone make a good mashed potato? Not always. I was talking to my mother-in-law once about how she learned how to make mashed potatoes. She said that her mom taught her to just drain the potatoes and then use some of the water from the cooking to mix in, add a bit of salt and that was it. YUCK!! I can't stand mashed potatoes like that. Thank goodness my mother-in-law doesn't make hers like that. But, her's aren't like these. And I bet these, aren't like your Mama's!

Not Your Mama's Mashed Potatoes

4 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and diced
½ cup salted butter
8 oz. cream cheese
1/8 cup heavy cream or whole milk (or more depending on how thin you like your potatoes)
1 tablespoon salt or to taste

Place the peeled and diced potatoes into a large pot and fill with enough water to cover all of the potatoes. Add a bit of salt to the water and boil until tender. When the potatoes are soft, drain the potatoes and place in an electric mixer, adding the butter and cream cheese and mixing until smooth. Add the heavy cream or milk and salt, mix well. Serve warm with gravy of your choice and enjoy! Serves 6-8.

Mexican Rice

Mexican rice has always been something that isn't very easy for me to replicate at home. The rice in restaurants is sort of dry, not sticky at all and has such good flavor. I've been trying to make a good Mexican rice for a long time now and never could get it right. Until one day I just decided to ask the waitress at the local Mexican restaurant how they made the rice. She told me that they fry the rice in oil before adding any liquids. Who knew? So, I tried frying the rice in oil before adding liquid and guess, what? It worked! Here is my version of Mexican rice, give it a try and let me know what you think!

Mexican Rice

3 tablespoons oil
2 cups long grain white rice
½ onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon pepper (not fresh ground)
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 (15 ounce) cans chicken broth
3 tablespoons salsa

In a large pot heat oil over high heat. Add in the rice, onion and garlic and cook, stirring constantly until the rice starts to brown and the onions are soft. Add in the salt, pepper and chili powder and stir well. Pour in the tomato sauce, chicken broth and salsa and stir well. Let the mixture come up to a boil, stirring frequently. Once a boil is reached cover with a lid and reduce heat to low. Cook for about 25 minutes or until the rice is no longer crunchy. Enjoy with your favorite Mexican dishes!

Tostones

Growing up with a mom that is half Puerto Rican and a dad this is part Scottish, we ate lots of different kinds of foods. Puerto Rican foods being my all time favorite! I love a good bowl of rice and beans or some arroz con gandules. Yum! There isn't any better kind of comfort food to me! And whenever we ate Puerto Rican foods you could always find these fried plantains or tostones on the table! Actually they never made it to the table because we'd be standing by the stove waiting for them to be done so that we could grab some off the plate when they were nice and hot! Just one of my many childhood memories, that inevitably had something to do with food. When I was a kid, my mom would make fried plantains like this, or she would shred the plantains and then fry them in little piles, they kind of resembled a fried little haystack or a spider. But, I like my tostones like this the best. This isn't really a recipe, but more of a technique. I hope that you make these, your family will love them!

Puerto Rican Tostones (Fried Plantains)

desired quantity of green plantains

vegetable oil for frying

garlic salt for seasoning

Make sure that when you buy the plantains that they are completely green, no yellow or brown. To peel the plantains cut off the ends with a knife and then cut a line from top to bottom only going through the peel. Then stick your finger under the peel and remove, this can be a little tough, just make sure that you get all of the peel off. Heat the oil for frying. Slice the plantains into big chunks, a little smaller than ½ an inch. Put a few plantains in the preheated oil and fry for about 2 minutes per side or until a nice golden color, continue until done frying all of them. Then once all of them have been fried once, smash the plantains by placing a plate over the plantains and pressing down, you can also use the smooth side of a meat tenderizer to do the job. Fry one more time until crispy and golden. Season with garlic salt and serve immediately. Enjoy.

This is what the plantains look like when you buy them, be sure to get the ones that are completely green, not yellow or brown. You can find them in the produce section of most grocery stores, next to the ethnic fruits, such as the mangoes and papayas. Out here in Idaho I can find them at Wal Mart and at Winco.

Yellow Squash Casserole

I found this recipe over on The Provident Pantry and let me tell you, this is the best way I've ever eaten yellow squash, in my entire life! Seriously, it was that good! So, if you still have over-active squash plants in your garden and you have a bounty of yellow squash that still needs to be used up, make this recipe! You won't be sorry!! I'm thinking of even slicing and blanching some yellow squash so that I can make this recipe during the winter months! I know my family won't complain about that! I hope you visit The Provident Pantry for more great food storage ideas.

Yellow Squash Casserole

2 pounds yellow squash, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
salt and pepper to taste
1 (6 ounce) package dry stuffing, prepared according to box directions

Boil the yellow squash and onion together in a large pot filled with water, until they are soft. Drain and place in a large bowl. Mix together the soup, sour cream, cheese and salt and pepper. Add the soup mixture to the squash and onions and mix well. In a 3 quart casserole dish, layer half of the stuffing, then pour on all of the squash mixture, followed by the remaining stuffing. Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until hot and bubbly and stuffing on the top is slightly crunchy. Enjoy!

Smashed Potatoes

This side dish is easy and a real crowd pleaser! I'm a huge fan of potatoes, so anything with potatoes in it I'm sure to love. Good thing we live in Idaho! My favorite part of these potatoes are the crunchy bits and pieces, not to mention the cheese! Add these to your menu for something new and different from the same old things you always make.

Smashed Potatoes

6 large red potatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons rosemary or dried parsley flakes
salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup Parmesan cheese or ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
crumbled bacon (optional)

Preheat oven to 425° F.
Place potatoes in a large pot, cover with water, boil until fork tender. Drain potatoes and place on a cookie sheet that has been coated with one tablespoon olive oil. Smash each potato individually with a potato masher once by pressing potato masher down until skin breaks. Drizzle remaining olive oil over potatoes. Sprinkle rosemary or parsley flakes, salt and pepper, cheese and bacon evenly over potatoes. Place potatoes in oven at 425° for approximately 30 minutes or until crispy.

Kicked Up Pintos

These beans are another great food storage recipe that can be completely food storage friendly if you use dried onion and garlic in place of the fresh. I personally keep real cooked bacon bits in my food storage. I buy them at Costco in the large bags and just keep them in a big plastic tote away from the elements. That is exactly what I used in this recipe when I made it. I love those things! They have less fat in them then if you were to fry up the bacon yourself and it's really convenient. These spicy beans are so yummy, any fan of spice will be sure to love them! If you aren't too into spice, just cut down on the jalapeños a bit, but do keep some of them in because they add so much flavor. I hope you enjoy this recipe!


Kicked Up Pintos

1 pound dried pinto beans, cooked and drained
½ cup cup onion, chopped (I used red)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup cooked bacon pieces
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (14.5 ounce) can water (use the empty tomato can)
1/3 cup chopped jarred jalapeño peppers

The day before you want to eat these beans, soak and cook the pintos according to package directions. When done cooking, place in refrigerator overnight. The next day, dump all of the ingredients into a crock pot and mix well. Cook on high for 5 hours or low for 8 hours. Serve with shredded cheese and sour cream. Enjoy!

Creamy Homemade Macaroni & Cheese

You'll never want to eat the stuff out of the box again after making this recipe! My family LOVES this mac & cheese! My husband prefers his macaroni and cheese to not be baked, so that is how I make this recipe. But, I have baked it before and I still think it's great that way too. You can decide for yourself!

Creamy Homemade Macaroni & Cheese

1 lb. elbow macaroni (in this picture I used large elbows)
½ cup butter
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
3 ½ cups milk (evaporated milk works great!)
1 lb. Velveeta cheese, cut into cubes
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded for the top

Preheat oven to 350° F, if you like your macaroni and cheese baked, if not skip this step.
Boil the macaroni noodles according to the package directions. Meanwhile, in a saucepan melt butter over medium high heat. Add flour, salt and pepper and stir until flour is cooked, about one minute. Slowly add in milk and stir with a whisk to ensure that there are no lumps in the sauce. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly and then add the Velveeta cheese and stir until melted. Mix pasta into sauce and enjoy as is for a super creamy mac and cheese, topping each serving with a bit of the shredded cheddar cheese. If you like your mac and cheese baked, pour into a greased 9x13 inch baking dish sprinkling the cheddar cheese on top. Bake in 350° F oven for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Zucchini, again?

I know, your probably all sick of zucchini, right? I swear, our plants are growing like crazy this year. We are getting so much zucchini I can barely keep up with it! Here is another way that I've made it this year. I usually just saute it in some butter with salt and pepper, but I decided to get a little more creative with it. This turned out really yummy! The bacon and mushrooms give it a nice flavor and this was a nice way to use up part of a purple onion that I had. You could use any color onion though. Enjoy!

Zucchini, again?

4 slices bacon, cut into strips
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
4 cups sliced zucchini
½ onion, sliced (any color)
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon dried parsley

In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Add in the remaining ingredients and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are soft. Enjoy!

Fried Green Tomatoes

I made these babies a week ago or so after walking through my garden and getting a little excited for all of my tomatoes. I picked three of them, which were hard and green and brought them in the house dreaming of fried green tomatoes. I don't live in the south, nor have I ever even visited the south, but the night before I was watching a show on the travel channel that was talking about fried green tomatoes and I just had to make some! So, that is how this recipe came to be. I'll have to admit that I'm the only one in my family that really appreciated them, my kids ate the fried batter part and left the tomatoes and my husband ate one but wasn't too excited about them. So, don't expect that your family is going to go gaga over these, they might not. But, if you serve them with a side of ranch dressing, they might really like them too! So, if you have lots of tomatoes that are still green out in your garden, go pick a few and fry them up! You might like 'um!

Fried Green Tomatoes

1 cup buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
4 green tomatoes, sliced thick about 1/4"
2/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon Cajun season salt
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
oil for frying

In a bowl mix together the buttermilk and egg until combined. In a separate bowl combine the flour, cornmeal, Cajun seasoning, kosher salt and ground black pepper. Heat oil over high heat in a large skillet. Take the slices of green tomato and dip in buttermilk mixture and then into the flour mixture, repeat dipping back into buttermilk mixture and then back into flour mixture. Place into hot oil and cook until a nice golden color on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. When done cooking, transfer to a paper towel lined plate and let cool a minute or two before eating. Serve with ranch dressing if desired.

"The Gourmet Hillbilly" Potatoes

If you love potatoes of any kind, then you'll love this recipe! It's rich and decadent and oh so good! I adapted this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, her recipes all look so delicious! I mentioned that I was making baked chicken a couple of days ago, if you want to see what I seasoned it with read this post. I baked the chicken on a foil-lined cookie sheet in the oven along with these potatoes for about 40 minutes. Bone-in chicken breasts are so much better for baking than boneless skinless. They stay tender and juicy and the best bits are the pieces that are in between the bones. I always leave the skin on while I'm cooking and then take it off when I'm eating it, this helps to keep the meat juicy too. If you don't want to leave the skin on, then pulling it off would be just fine. I hope you all make these sometime soon, you won't be sorry!

"The Gourmet Hillbilly" Potatoes

8-10 large red potatoes, cleaned and cut into small bite-sized pieces
1 small yellow onion, cut into small pieces
½ cup cold butter, sliced
½ pint heavy cream
kosher salt to taste
fresh ground pepper to taste
paprika to taste
dried parsley flakes to taste

Cut eight squares of foil. Evenly divide all ingredients among the foil squares as follows; potatoes, onion, butter, salt, pepper, paprika, parsley and heavy cream. Making sure to season to your liking. Fold each piece of foil into a packet and place on a cookie sheet. Bake in a 425° F oven for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. To serve, place a packet on each plate and let everyone open at the table. Enjoy!!

Savory Zucchini Pie

This is another yummy way to use up some of your zucchini, after all we all know that zucchini grows better than weeds! This savory zucchini pie is a sort of quiche, made with a tube of crescent rolls. I found the idea on recipezaar.com and modified it to my likings. You could use the reduced fat crescent rolls and reduced fat cheese in this recipe to make it a bit more healthy. It sure is yummy though and my kids gobbled it up! Enjoy!

Savory Zucchini Pie

4 tablespoons butter
4 cups zucchini, sliced and halved if large
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded & divided
2 eggs, beaten
1 (8 ounce) tube crescent rolls
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 375° F.
Melt butter in a large skillet. Add the zucchini, onion and garlic and cook on medium high heat for 10 minutes, or until onions are translucent and zucchini is soft. Mix in the parsley flakes, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning so that the vegetables are coated well with the seasonings. Turn off the heat and let sit while you prepare the pie plate. To prepare the pie plate, take a large 9 or 10 inch pie pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray and line it with the crescent rolls so that there are no holes, you may have to stretch out the crescent rolls and cut them up to make it fit. Once the crescent rolls are covering the bottom of the pie plate, spread the Dijon mustard evenly across the crust. Now stir in one cup of the cheese and then pour the beaten eggs into the zucchini mixture and pour everything into the prepared crust. Sprinkle with remaining one cup of cheese and place in the oven to bake for 20-25 minutes or until no longer runny. Let cool a few minutes before slicing into it and enjoy!

Authentic Refried Beans

Here is another great food storage recipe! To make it completely food storage friendly, you could use dried onions and garlic, both of which I keep in my food storage. Just be sure to rehydrate them before you make the recipe. With these refried beans, now you can have the delicious restaurant style refried beans that you love, right in your own home!! Since moving to Idaho I've had to teach myself how to recreate some of my favorite restaurant meals that I grew up eating in California, a good authentic refried bean recipe being one of those. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!

Authentic Refried Beans

1 pound dry pinto beans
¼ cup finely chopped onion
1 Tbs. chopped garlic
3 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil
Salt to taste

Soak beans over night in water. In the morning rinse and put beans into a large pot. Cover beans with water. Cook on medium heat uncovered until boiling. Cover and reduce to a simmer, continue cooking until beans are soft, about 2 ½ hours. Drain beans, but reserve the water that they cooked in. In the same pot melt lard, cook onion and garlic until soft. Add beans and a small amount of the reserved water. With a hand held blender, blend the bean mixture until it is nice and smooth. If you need more liquid, add more of the reserved water. Add salt to taste and enjoy. Serves 6-8.

Just Like Olive Garden Salad

Salads are a great lunch or side dish in the summer, or anytime!! If you love the salad at the Olive Garden, I'm sure you'll love this salad! You can use the dressing on any salad, but if you really want the salad to taste like Olive Garden's you'll want to mix in some red onions and olives! MMM!!!

Just Like Olive Garden Salad

1 large bag of romaine lettuce salad mix or desired amount of lettuce
1/4 red onion, sliced thin
1/2 can black olives, drained and refrigerated
10 peperoncini pepper rings
1 tomato, cut into slices
1/2 cup croutons (optional)

1/2 cup garbanzo beans (optional)
desired amount of dressing (recipe below)

Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl, tossing until everything is coated with the salad dressing. Serve and enjoy!

Just Like Olive Garden Salad Dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup white vinegar
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
3 tablespoons corn syrup
4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon dry Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix all ingredients in a blender until well mixed. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Summer Yellow Squash Fritters

We have a few yellow squash plants in our garden that are just growing like crazy and I needed to come up with a new way to cook them. Something that my kids might actually eat too, so I thought about fried squash and then got to thinking that they could probably still tell that it was squash if I just sliced it and then battered it and fried it. So, I was looking online and got the idea for these fritters. I combined a few different recipes and came up with this one that is really really yummy. My kids even ate them up! Dip them in ranch dressing or fry sauce and they are just too good! If you have lots of yellow squash in your garden, be sure to make these soon!

Yellow Summer Squash Fritters

1 cup yellow squash puree
1 egg
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning salt
½ teaspoon onion powder
vegetable oil for frying

Combine the yellow squash puree (to make, boil sliced yellow squash in water until soft and then drain and puree in blender or food processor) and egg in a large bowl with a whisk. Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, Cajun seasoning and onion powder, mixing well until there are no lumps in the mixture. Heat oil over high heat until hot and drop batter into hot oil by the tablespoon. Fry one to two minutes on each side, or until a nice golden brown color is achieved and the fritters are cooked through. Drain on a paper towel lined plate and enjoy!