.daring cooks challenge: june.

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

If all of that is not a good reason to eat potatoes, I don't know what else is. Oh yeah I do, they're super tasty! I will say, there is something about being pregnant that brings out potato cravings. Generally though the things people add to potatoes are what make them not the healthiest snack. Fried, covered in mayo or oil, stuffed with butter and sour cream... really takes down the health factor of potatoes. Jami wanted to challenge us to create a healthier potato salad that wasn't all mucked up by all those ingredients that taste really great but don't do anything for you if you're watching your waist line.

I decided to combine potatoes with one of my favorite things: avocado. I thought I would make a creamy avocado "sauce" to go with the potatoes and other vegetables instead of using any other condiments. This turned out so good y'all. The avocado went so well with the other ingredients and, although avocados are high in fat, they are high in healthy fats. They're pretty much nutritional power houses. I also used a little bit of olive oil, which is also a healthier fat when used in moderation.

Roasted Potato Salad serves 4
1 1/2 pounds baby red potatoes, quartered
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 medium avocado
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Handful of chives, chopped, for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Toss the potatoes with a 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Season with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Bake for roughly 45 minutes, or until tender. Towards the end of the cooking time for the potatoes, start to saute the bell pepper, onion and garlic with the addition tablespoon of olive oil until they are tender and the onion is slightly translucent. Season with salt and pepper.

Mash the avocado in a large bowl with the lemon juice until the mixture is creamy. Add the sauteed vegetables and the roasted potatoes. Combine until the vegetables are coated with the avocado. Plate the dish then sprinkle the chives over the top.

For those of you who are interested, here's the nutritional breakdown of the dish. The potato salad went excellently with a grilled pork chop!

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 275 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories  262 Calories from Fat  115

% Daily Value*

Total Fat  12.7g 20%

Saturated Fat  1.8g 9%

Cholesterol  0mg 0%

Sodium  598mg 25%

Total Carbohydrates  35.2g 12%

Dietary Fiber  8.5g 34%

Sugars  4.2g

Protein  4.6g

Vitamin A 22% • Vitamin C 132% Calcium 3% • Iron 9%

Nutrition Grade A-

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Nutritional Analysis

Good points

• No cholesterol
• High in dietary fiber
• High in potassium
• High in vitamin B6
• Very high in vitamin C

XO

.daring cooks challenge: may.

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Now, as delicious as I'm sure those recipes are there is no possible way they could compare with my family's recipe. So, that is what I will be sharing with y'all. It's really not that different from many gumbo recipes. You have a roux, you have some protein, some okra, a few various other ingredients. What makes it stand apart, and what is it's real secret ingredient, is time. No, not thyme, really, time. Lots and lots of time. This is very much a Sunday kind of meal. Or an unemployed housewife all by herself for 3 weeks while her husband is at a training class kind of meal. Yeah. I'm making a huge pot of gumbo all for myself. It's probably best though as this was my first attempt at cooking it! I usually leave it to the pros, my step-mother or Grammy.

There's a chicken in there, I swear

If making a seafood gumbo this would be a one day sort of process since you would add the seafood (shrimp, crab, etc) towards the end of the cooking time (unless you wanted to make your own stock, then give it two days), but I decided I wanted to make chicken gumbo, which is more of a two day thing. On the first day I boiled a whole chicken. Bones, skin, everything. Just boil it in seasoned water. As for the seasoning I used salt and Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning (y'all know I love that stuff!). After the chicken is fall off the bone tender I took it off the heat, let it cool quite a bit, then took all the meat off the bones. This was probably the worst part cause, well... it was icky. Next time I may go the wuss route and just use some chicken breasts instead of the whole thing. I placed the meat in a covered bowl in the fridge and then I placed the liquid from cooking in another bowl, also in the fridge.

Day two is when it really gets fun. You start by making a roux. I used a 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and a little over a 1/2 cup of flour. Put the oil in a large pot (I used my dutch oven) and heat on high until shimmering. Then quickly reduce the heat to low and add the flour, whisk. Make sure to not let the flour burn. Whisk continuously for about 30 minutes, or until the roux is as dark as you want it (but not darker than a mohagony color). Season the roux while stirring. I used more Tony Chachere's and a little bit of salt. I almost thought I had messed the roux up. I gave it a taste, expecting it to... well, taste good. Let me tell y'all, it does not. It tastes like crap. Flour crap. But I kept at it and I must have done something right cause the gumbo turned out absolutely divine!

Chicken and onions!

Then add the liquid from the the day before. You will have to scrape off the layer of solids from the top first. Keep your whisk handy for this, the cold liquid coming in contact with the roux will immediately cause it to start bubbling. Add as much liquid as you like, I added about 10 cups. Keep any liquid that's left, as you might want to add more later. Let this boil, then lower the heat again and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

Add 1 to 2 onions, chopped, to the liquid. Let this cook for another 30 minutes. Season with your choice of seasoning. Now add the chicken. I added all of the chicken, and it really filled up the pot. You could use less if you would like, but I like lots of chicken. I also added an extra cup and a half of liquid here, as it was becoming quite thick. Let this cook for another 30 minutes.

And the okra joins the party!

Once the time is up from the last step add your okra. You could use a bag of frozen okra or fresh okra if you have it. Let this cook for another 30 minutes. Depending on what type of rice you are going to use you will probably want to start cooking it when you put the okra in the gumbo, or even sooner if it takes longer than 30 minutes. Once everything is done taste and adjust the seasoning as you prefer.

Steaming hot and ready to eat!

Pour the finished gumbo over the rice and enjoy! Even though the rice provides a carb for the meal I also really like rolls or biscuits with gumbo as well. An added bonus is that gumbo freezes excellently! So I popped a couple of servings into tupperware and into the freezer for the next couple of weeks.

I loved this challenge because it finally got me motivated to learn to make a great family favorite! I was also super proud of how it turned out. Completely delicious! I probably won't make this much in the next few months since Georgia will be hot as balls (that's a technical term) but as soon as fall and winter weather come back this will be on the menu much more often.

XO

.daring cooks challenge: april.

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

Since I am, so predictably, late on this month's challenge I'm not eligible for voting. But, hopefully I will be for the Daring Bakers challenge. Y'all know I'll let you know. Ha.

On to the challenge though. Edible containers. WOW. This was a really fun challenge. The first thing I thought of was the obvious bread bowl. This would have been delicious, fun, and truly a challenge for me but I didn't feel like it was "thinking outside the plate," so I nixed it and thought harder. One of the few things I remember my father cooking when I was a child were potato pancakes. They were kind of his "thing," and man are they delicious. I decided to try to make potato pancake cups and fill them with sausage and eggs.

I started with a grated potato and an egg. I was going to use two potatoes but, I'm not going to lie, I hate grating potatoes and I got sick of it after one so, there you have it. I preheated the oven to 350, sprayed a muffin tin with some pam, and put the potato and egg mixture into as many muffin slots as I could. I probably used roughly 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of potato mixture per muffin cup. I baked this for 22 minutes.

What came out was.... well.... not exactly what I was going for. Ha. They were more like small potato pancake discs. After placing very little sausage and egg mixture into them and taking the top picture, the man and I just loaded up our plate and chowed down. The meal itself was very tasty, but the potato cups were not as "container-ey" as I wanted them to be. You live, you learn, n'est pas?

XO

.daring cooks challenge: january.

 Better late than never, right? So, yes, I am a bit late on the challenge this month. I have been having some events that have kept me out of the kitchen quite a bit. Or at least from making anything interesting. I suppose I could show you all my fruit and PB&J sandwiches that I eat. I'll put it on the consideration list.

Leek Confit

Our January 2011 challenge comes from Jenni of The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley, Sage, Desserts, and Line Drives. They have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn how to make a confit and use it within the traditional French dish of Cassoulet. They have chosen a tradition recipe from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman.

Mirepoix

Deer Sausage, mmm

Y'all totally know I didn't use those recipes though, right? I'm pretty predictable when you get right down to it. I decided to go with a vegetarian version of the confit and Cassoulet because I really just couldn't see myself cooking anything in 4 cups of duck fat. Sorry. But I couldn't. I'm sure this dish, if done the proper French way, would be absolutely delicious, and if I ever see it in a restaurant I may order it, but I personally don't like to cook like that in my own kitchen.

So, I opted for a leek confit recipe by Molly Wizenberg (who runs Orangette, by the way) that can be found at bonappetit.com. Then I used a vegetarian Cassoulet recipe by Melissa Roberts that can be found at Epicurious. And because the Man and I do love meat, I added some recently caught and processed jalapeno and cheddar deer sausage. Add a quick cornbread mix and this was really one hell of a meal. And a Sam Adams for the Man.

Cooking this meal was fairly straight forward, although it did take a bit of time. It took roughly an hour and half from start to finish. I think if I make it again I will just use onions instead of leeks. Also, while I was cooking it, the smell of garlic was quite overpowering. I was worried that I had added a bit too much. I did what any good wife would do- I made the Man taste it first. Bwahaha. He actually claimed it was a little bit bland. Since we were adding the spicy and flavorful deer sausage though I left it like that and the two combined exceptionally. I would say if you're not adding any sausage (vegan or real) to liven up the flavors you would probably want to add some extra seasoning. I also read on the super secret Daring Cooks forum that some people used chicken stock to simmer the cassoulet and I think that would add a good kick of extra flavors as well.

I feel like this really does the trick as a great cold-weather recipe and can be adapted for many different tastes.

XO

.the daring cooks challenge: december.

Jenn and Jill have challenged the Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. They chose an Eggs Benedict recipe from Alton Brown, Oeufs en Meurette from Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan and Homemade Sun-Dried Tomato and Pine Nut Seitan Sausages (poached) courtesy of Trudy of Veggie Num Num.

Eggs Benedict was the recipe I decided to try, mostly because it was the one I was most familiar with. I have never made it, nor have I ever poached an egg. I thought, hey how hard can it be?

Well, turns out it's freaking super hard. I decided to just attempt the poaching and not the Hollandaise sauce, and really the dish was fine without the sauce. The poached eggs, however, well.... they didn't really work out so great for me.


I attempted the first egg.

Hot mess.

I attempted the second egg.

Hotter mess.

I attempted the third, and final egg.

Hottest mess ever recorded.

So, I did manage to salvage the second egg, as seen above, then I just pan-fried 3 more. Yeah. Y'all should know by now that's how I was going to roll. So we wound up with an English muffin, topped with some sliced ham, and a fried egg. It was pretty dang good. Not Eggs Benedict good but poached eggs are not my forte. I highly doubt I will ever even try to make them again. It just isn't worth the stress of seeing that egg white break apart as soon as it hits the water.

Some people turn out awesome poached eggs though, so if you're one of those people, I am very impressed now.

XO

.daring cooks challenge: november.

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose soufflés as our November Daring Cooks' challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordan Ramsay's recipe found at the BBC Good Food website. Being difficult, as I'm prone to do, however, I decided on a crab and cheese soufflé recipe I found here.

I was extremely glad I did. But I'm also now eager to try so many more flavor variations.

The rumor near and far is that soufflés are complicated. They are said to be the diva of the culinary world. I think the truth is as far from that as possible. Yes, making the soufflé was a little bit complicated, you have to do everything in the correct order. You have to make sure the roux thickens just so. The egg whites needs to be perfectly stiff. You have to fold everything ever so delicately. Really though, I didn't handle any of the ingredients with kid gloves. I just got in there and made it happen.

As a result, I got 4 beautiful and petite soufflés.

And then I had so much extra mixture I got this little fella out of it too! Bonus buy.

One issue the man and I found was that the first tiny soufflés didn't have much crab in them. My guess is that I just got a lot of the egg mixture in my scooper when I was doling those out. Then the larger soufflé had a ton of crab in it, which was quite tasty. Also, because of the different sizes, there were different cook times. I put everything in the oven together, on a baking sheet, then after 25 minutes took the smaller ramekins out of the oven and continued to cook the larger dish for another 15 minutes. This did the trick and everything came out delicious, done and didn't collapse! I was pretty thrilled with myself, truth be told.

The man gave me a fist bump and told me I done good.

Next up: a chocolate soufflé!

XO