Potatoes Romanoff

Potatoes are a common comfort-food theme for a lot of people, and make an appearance as a side dish on a lot of dinner tables:. They can be roasted, fried, mashed, boiled, and of course, baked, and they can be as humble as oven-roasted potatoes or as elegant as Potatoes Dauphinoise.

Another fancy-sounding potato side dish is my version of Potatoes Romanoff, also a quick and easy way to use up leftover baked potatoes. I almost never have leftover baked potatoes, but it is criminally easy to bake a russet and then chill it, so I don't let the lack of an extra baked potato hanging around in my fridge stop me from making this dish. Since my kids are not potato fans, I did have to scale this recipe back a bit, but it's just as easy to make this for one person as it is for 8 or 16.

Potatoes Romanoff 

Serves 4 as a reasonable side dish, or 2 generously and 1 gluttonously

Ingredients:

• 1 large russet potato (about 11 oz.)
• 1/4 cup shallots, minced
• 3/4 cup extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (about 3 oz., moderately packed down)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried dill
• 1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon sea salt 
• pinch of cracked black pepper
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• grated cheddar
• chopped scallions

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 F. Scrub your russet potato and pierce with a knife or fork in several spots. Wrap it in foil and set it right on the racks and bake for about an hour. Take out, unwrap and let come to room temperature and then chill in the fridge for a few hours.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a small casserole dish or 2 small gratin dishes.
3. Take the chilled baked potato and grate it, skin and all, with a box grater. 
4. In a large bowl, mix together the shallots, grated potato, salt, pepper and dill, taste to adjust seasoning.
5. Fold in the sour cream and 3/4 cup of grated cheddar and combine well.
6. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish or gratin dishes and top with more grated cheddar and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
7. Sprinkle with chopped scallions and serve.

Notes:

• This doubles, triples and quadruples easily if you need to serve more people.

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts

I'm back on Phase 1 of the South Beach diet for a while, so that means no carbs for the foreseeable future.  It means plenty of fresh vegetables and lots of creativity so that I don't end up eating the same 5 dishes over the next several weeks.

I try to get in as many cruciferous veggies as I can when doing South Beach: slaw mix with tuna makes a great chopped salad, raw broccoli and cauliflower florets with hummus or a white bean puree is a favorite snack, kale tossed into a lentil soup or cut into ribbons and braised is another popular side dish. Then there are brussels sprouts.

Like many people, I used to hate them. I'd only ever had them boiled into an unrecognizable mushed-up mess of flatulence-inducing leaves until I stumbled across a recipe for roasted, salted sprouts. Roasting them brings out some sweetness and also adds some crunch, while the salt really boosts the natural flavor.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. Brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Shaved parmesan

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and line a roasting pan with foil.
2. Toss the brussels sprouts with olive oil and salt liberally - trust me, the more salt, the better with this dish
3. Roast for 20 minutes, take out the pan and shake them or flip them over. Add a bit more salt and some pepper and roast for another 15-25 minutes until they are nicely browned and some of the outer leaves are crisping up.
4. Add a touch more salt to taste if needed and top with the shaved cheese.

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Mustard-glazed Carrots

Like many moms out there, I am always on the hunt for a vegetable side dish which is easy to fix and palatable to kids', well, palates. Bonus points go to a dish which is also somewhat healthy. Sure, you can batter, deep-fry and then serve a vegetable smothered with some fake-orange cheese sauce made from canned cheese soup and then watch in horror as your kids devour it, but that does not make it the best choice for a veggie side dish. An easy choice, yes, but not the healthiest.

I often set out a platter of fresh, raw vegetables cut into strips and small bowls with hummus, Ranch or Italian dressing. My kids' favorites are red bell pepper strips and chunks of zucchini, while I love the cherry tomatoes and Persian cucumbers. In cooler weather, once summer's fresh vegetables are just a fond memory, we're left with the root vegetables and winter squashes. My kids love carrots, but get tired of the standard raw carrot sticks. I tried this recipe out last week and, color me delighted, my older daughter went for seconds of this, saying, "Gee Mommy, these carrots are pretty good."

High praise, man. Gotta love it. ;-)

Mustard-glazed carrots

Ingredients:

• 4 large carrots, peeled (I ended up with about 3 cups of carrot slices)
  
• water
• 2 tablespoons butter or vegan margarine
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions:

1. Slice the carrots on a diagonal, creating long, elliptical carrot slices.
   


2. In a large saucepan, bring carrots and enough water almost cover the carrots to a boil.
   


3. Reduce the heat, cover and let simmer for 10 minutes or until tender to your liking. Drain and set aside.
   


4. In the same pan, melt the butter until it is foamy. Add the brown sugar, mustard, and ginger, cooking over medium heat until the sugar and ginger are dissolved. Add the carrots back to the pan, tossing to coat.
   


5. Serve, adding salt & pepper to taste.
   

Notes:

• You may argue with me about how healthy this is, since the glaze includes some butter and brown sugar, but I don't think that a little butter now and then is a bad thing. It has GOT to be better than a platter of french fries, tater tots and fried mushrooms as a side dish. :D
  

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Cauliflower Gratin

Another one of the dishes from Christmas Eve, and one which was gone before I could get the chance to take a photo, this is a great vegetable side dish which I make quite often: It's easy, requires few ingredients and the kids eat it.

That right there makes it golden.

Cauliflower Gratin

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower
• ½ cup mayo
• 1 T whole grain mustard (I like Maille)
• a few dashes of Franks Red Hot Pepper sauce
• ½ cup freshly grated parmesan
• sea salt
• cracked black pepper
  

Directions:

1. Clean the cauliflower very well, removing the leaves and cutting off some of the thick stem, but keeping the head intact.
   


2. Par-boil or steam the cauliflower until a knife-point can slide into one of the florets without a lot of resistance - about 7 - 10 minutes, depending on the size of the head of cauliflower.
   


3. Drain and plunge into a cold-water bath to stop the cooking process.
   


4. Preheat the oven to 350.
   


5. Put the cauliflower in a baking dish.
   


6. Mix together the mayo, mustard, hot sauce, salt and pepper and the grated cheese. Coat the cauliflower with the mayo mixture.
   


7. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the topping starts to turn golden.
   


8. Serve hot.
   

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Steamed Green Beans with Walnut Vinaigrette

The forgotten dish from the sauerbraten dinner the other night. I've been making this for years. Sometimes I add some raw onion if I have a really mild, sweet onion like vidalia, but lately I just have the green beans and the walnuts.

This vinaigrette really improves after sitting a day or three. I'd take a picture (I'm eating it right now... yes, at 2 :30 am) but I don't have any daylight for the photo. Maybe tomorrow.

If I don't eat it all, that is. ;-)

Edit: Here it is, right before I devour the last of it for lunch.

Steamed Green Beans with Walnut Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds green beans
• ½ cup walnut pieces
  

Basic Walnut Vinaigrette:

• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 heaping tablespoons crushed walnut
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 T finely minced onion, paper-thin
• 1 small clove garlic, finely minced
  
• ½ cup walnut oil
• 2 T canola oil
  

Directions

1. Wash and sort through the green beans, trimming off the ends and cutting them into 1 or 1½-inch pieces.


2. Steam them for 7 minutes, then immediately submerge in an ice-water bath to stop from cooking further. Refrigerate.


3. Make the vinaigrette by mixing all the vinaigrette ingredients together, shaking well to mix thoroughly.


4. Add the vinaigrette to the green beans a bit at a time, tasting until you've got the amount you'd like.


5. Toss in the walnut pieces, put the cover back on and shake, mixing well. Refrigerate for an hour or eat right away.
   

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