craveytrain

First off, this is not my recipe. However, I found this to be some of the best mashed potatos I have ever had. The fresh herb taste and chunky texture helps offset the natural heaviness of mashed potatoes. I love my roasted garlic and cheese mashers, but these right here I will stack up against any I have ever tried.

First, let me give out appropriate props:
This recipe is from Good Deal with Dave Lieberman. The recipe is hosted by Food Network. Now, normally I would just link to their recipe, however, their recipes tend to disappear over time, so I wanted to keep this for posterity. Plus, I did make a few adjustments as I have found appropriate.

• Prep: 5 mins
• Cook: 35 mins
• Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 lbs red-skinned new potatoes
• .5 cup heavy cream
• 1 stick (8 tbsp) butter
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh chives
• 3 tbsp chopped basil leaves
• salt
• ground black pepper

Prep

Wash the potatoes and quarter them. Place them in a stock pot and enough water to cover them by 2 inches. Add 3 tbsp salt.

Cooking

Bring the water to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender when poked with a knife, about 25 minutes.

Drain the potatoes and return to the pan. Add the cream and butter and let the whole pot sit over very low heat until warmed through and butter is melted (3-5 mins).

While potatoes are warming, chop basil and chives.

Add chives and basil to the pot with the potatoes and mash the potatoes coarsely. Season with salt and pepper.

Serving

The idea is to have the potatoes still chunky, not completely mashed up. Simply plate and eat.

This is just a simple Key Lime Pie recipe. I actually use some store bought stuff here (such as the pie crust, whipped cream and not necessarily squeezing the key limes yourself). Your perogative, but honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the effort.

Note, this leaves the pie pan not very full, so I filled up the rest pan with whipped cream. I will be readdressing this recipe to see if I can fix the quantites to fill up the pie pan more. However, I wanted to post what is tested to taste good. When I try the revision, I will post those results.

• Prep: 5 mins
• Cook: 15 mins
• Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 3 egg yolks
• .25 cup key lime juice
• 1 (9-inch) graham cracker pie crust
• Whipped cream (Cool Whip or the likes)

Prep

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

In a mixer, blend the milk and egg yolks at low speed until smooth. Add the key lime juice and finish blending.

Pour the mixture into the pie crust. Spread it around to even it out.

Cooking

Cook for 15 minutes in the oven. Once the pie has semi-setup (it will congeal when it cools), take it out and let it cool for 15 minutes or so before covering and putting in fridge.

Let sit in fridge for at least 1 hour.

Serving

Lather a thick layer of whipped cream on top of the pie after it has cooled.

Cut pie into 8 wedges (start by cutting the pie in half, then cut perpendicular to the first cut, finally, split the quarters). Serve ‘em up.

At the request of a friend, I thought I would publish my recipe for jello shots. It’s nothing special, the difference is in the details.

Ingredients

1 small pkg. Jell-O brand instant gelatin (any flavor, not sugar free)
1 cup boiling water
1 cup chilled citrus vodka
18-24 1oz cups

Actions

It’s just about as simple as it sounds. Wisk the jello and the boiling water for 2 mins or so, making sure to not leave any sediment. Stir in the chilled vodka and start dishing into serving cups. I get the little 1oz plastic cups from the local party store. It will fill 18-24 1oz cups, depending on how full you fill them. Place the cups on a sheet or pan of some sort and put into the fridge.

These should chill for 2-4 hours in the fridge. For less time to “solidify”, use less boiling water and chilled vodka. Do not drop below 3/4 cup of each.

Tips & Tricks

• Vodka doesn’t freeze at typical freezer temperatures, so keep the vodka in the freezer. Let sit in freezer at least an hour or 2 before making the shots.
• In drinks of this nature, it is not necessary to get good vodka, as there are strong flavors to overpower it. I usually get Gordon’s for this in the cheap plastic bottle. Be sure to get citrus. Berry flavors do not mix as well with an array of flavors and does not mask the cheap vodka as well. This is one of the very few instances I will advise getting cheap liquor (or cheap anything for that matter, I’m a bit of a brand whore).
• In order to keep the sides of the little cups from getting sticky, rather than scoop the cups into the liquid gelatin, set them out on a tray/cookie sheet and use a turkey baster to fill the cups.
• Consider buying throw away foil pans to stack to carry these in. No one wants to wash pans at a party or bring back sticky pans in your car.
• Cut out the front of the jello boxes and place them on top of the shots that they represent. This helps identify which flavors are which (instead of by color). The party guests usually get a kick out of this.
• Unless you are a closet sorority girl wanna-be, you will only be making these for parties, so in large quantities. This means several batches (my last session I used 7 packages of jello). Put a big pot of boiling water on the stove, use a separate mixing bowl to mix the gelatin mixture. This way between different flavored batches you only have to clean 1 bowl (and your wisk).

French toast is one of those things that everyone has a recipe for, but few make them truly good. So I thought I would offer up what in my humble opinion is the best french toast recipe. This my first recipe post, so I thought I would start simple. I am still playing with the format.

Ingredients

• 1 slice of texas toast (or 2 slices of regular bread)
• 1 egg (room temperature preferred)
• 1 oz of milk
• .5 oz of orange juice
• .5 tsp of vanilla
• ground cinnamon
• chopped fresh fruit (optional)
• dab of butter

Cooking

A note about the bread. Stale is better. We are not talking moldy. But stale bread makes better toast in general. These quantities are intentionally broken down to the lowest common denominator. They can easily be multiplied by any factor needed.

Heat non-stick skillet with butter in it to medium-low temperature.

Beat egg thoroughly. It helps if it has been sitting at room temperature, but not necessary. Add to egg the milk, oj, and vanilla. This is best done on a plate with walls, but a bowl will suffice. Your mixture should not be too thick. Many people’s batter is too eggy. This makes for a very heavy, dense french toast that makes my girlfriend nauseous. She doesn’t do egg, but loves french toast. So she was actually the perfect critic for this dish.

Place a slice of the bread in the batter and push it to the bottom to allow it sop up as much batter as possible. Then flip it and hold it down for a few seconds. Pick it up with the spatula and sprinkle the top of the battered toast with cinnamon. Flip into pan so that cinnamon side is down. Sprinkle the now exposed side with cinnamon.

Cook for 2 mins and then flip. It should look somewhat toasted, but not terribly brown.

After 2 mins more, take out and plate. Rinse and repeat with another slice. Top off with chopped fresh fruit. If your fruit isn’t quite ripe, put it in a bowl already chopped up and mix it with a tbsp of sugar. This will help sweeten it and take some of the tartness away from it.

Finally, cover in syrup. You may be saying, that’s a lot of syrup. Yes, yes it is. That’s what makes it good. Sure, you could put confectioner’s sugar on it, but the maple flavor is so much better especially with the citrus, berry, vanilla and cinnamon flavors. Very in the season.

That’s it, and don’t knock the plates. They are… well… they were clean.