Celeriac and Potato Mash

Last week at the farmers market, we spotted some celeriac and decided to give it a try. I have read about it before, but never tasted it. We assumed that it would taste like celery, but the person at the farm stand also said that it tasted a little spicy. I looked up a bunch of recipes and we decided to prepare it as a puree. We mixed it with potatoes, butter and cream.

It took some effort to cut and peel the celeriac because it has a tough woody texture (and our knives need some serious sharpening). I cut it into small pieces and and boiled it with the potato chunks. Recipes suggested using a food mill, but we don't have one, so I resorted to the food processor. The food processor worked well. The result was a creamy, flavorful puree.  I don't think it is our new favorite, but we were pleased with results, and we would get celeriac again. I think I like the flavor diluted with potatoes.

What new ingredient have you tried for the first time recently?

Meal Plan Monday
(We only have broad brush strokes because we still have to do our major food shopping for the week.)
Monday - Hamburgers and salad
Tuesday - Soup made with chicken broth
Wednesday - Chicken with seasonal vegetables
Thursday - Spaghetti squash alla carbonara
Friday - Fish with seasonable vegetables

Celeriac and Potato mash
1 head of celeriac, pealed and diced
4 small potatoes, pealed and diced
3 T butter
1/2 C cream
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the celeriac and potatoes. Cook until they are both tender (about 10-15 minutes). Place in the food processor and mix with the butter and cream. Blend until smooth. Salt and pepper to taste.


This post is part of Meal Plan Monday, My Meatless Mondays, Homemaker Mondays, Mouthwatering Monday, Just Another Meatless Monday and Midnight Maniac Meatless Mondays,.

Knockwurst with Sauerkraut, Potato Hash and Red Chard

Sometimes a dinner is tasty because of fancy sauces or special cooking techniques, but sometimes a good meal just lets the flavors of quality ingredients shine through. This meal falls into the latter category (also known as an easy meal). We found some beef knockwurst at the farmers market last weekend and thought it would be a perfect mid-week meal. It was delicious served with some Bubbies lacto-fermented sauerkraut and mustard. I am partial to Kosciusko Spicy Brown Mustard. We first found it at a Polish market in the East Village of New York City, but then we came to realize that it is available everywhere. We served our knockwurst with a potato and onion hash and sauteed red chard.

It's so simple that no recipes are needed. But I will give you a couple of tips:

• Boil the knockwurst for 10 minutes and just cook it in a pan for a few minutes to brown it up. It stayed incredibly moist and juicy. We will always be using this technique in the future.
• Cook the potatoes and onions separately to help the potatoes to stay crispy. My husband fried up the potatoes and got them nice and crisp, and then added the onions. The onions released so much liquid that the potatoes became mushy. I think cooking them separately would solve this problem (unless you would like them mushy).

What's a simple meal that you love to make that let's the ingredients shine through?


This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Frugal Food Thursday, Alphabe-Thursday, and URS: Potato Recipes.

A Downton Abbey Dinner of Roast and Root Vegetables

Have you been watching Downton Abbey? We have become totally addicted. I had never heard of it until it got so many Golden Globe nominations. We decided to check it out on Netflix, and we were immediately hooked. We finished season 1 just in time to watch season 2 on PBS. The only problem is that it's 9:00-11:00 airtime doesn't really jive with my new mother sleep schedule (for me that means a 9:30 bedtime). So the last few episodes we watched on-line on Monday nights from 7:30-9:30 - perfect for my schedule.



When we think of British food, one dish that comes to mind is a roast and root vegetables all smothered in gravy (this perception is at least partly shaped by our trip to England last year). So each week for Sunday supper (sometimes on Monday) we have been having some type of roast and vegetables.

This week we enjoyed a bottom round roast with onions, potatoes, turnips and parsnips and onion gravy. Mmm, mmm good. I love gravy (it's my second post on it in two days), but what sets this gravy apart is that it is pretty sweet. The onions become very sweet after roasting for so long and impart their flavor on the rest of the dish.Now that Downton Abbey has come to an end, I guess we are on the hunt for a new show (and some new dinner inspiration). Any Suggestions?

Bottom Round Roast with Root Vegetables
2 T olive
2.5 lb bottom round roast
3 large onions, cut into thick slices
2 T apple cider vinegar
6 potatoes, chopped
6 carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces
2 turnips, chopped
2 parsnips, chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a roasting pan over medium high heat, and add some oil. Brown the roast on all sides (about 4 minutes per side). Add the onions and vinegar, and put in the oven. Bake for 2 hours. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook for 2 more hours, or until the meat and vegetables and tender. Let meat rest for 10 minutes before carving. Slice into thin slices and enjoy.

Onion Gravy
2 T butter
2 T flour
1 C of juice released from the onions, meat and vegetables

Method
Heat the butter in a skillet and slowly stir in the flour. Cook the butter and flour for 5 minutes over medium heat. Slowly add the liquid and stir constantly. Cook until the gravy reaches the desired consistency.

We have been avoiding grains, but I still use flour in the gravy (it's my little cheat). I like the thickness from the flour, and it reheats nicely.

This post is part of Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tasty Tuesdays, Tasty Tuesday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, Beauty and Bedlam, Allergy Free Wednesday, and Real Food Wednesday, Works for Me Wednesday.

Cottage Pie and a Plan

We are heading to England on Thursday. This is our first international trip in our 2.5 years of marriage, and we are really excited. In honor of our upcoming trip, my husband came up with the idea of some shepherd's pie for dinner. I looked up a a recipe in Joy of Cooking, and learned that traditional shepherd's pie is made with chopped lamb. When you substitute beef, the name changes to cottage pie. The traditional recipe includes 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 celery stalk, 1 lb of ground beef, some beef stock, rosemary, thyme and several potatoes mashed up for a topping. That sounds delicious for a cool fall day, doesn't it? We had to make a couple changes for what we had on hand (our recipe is below). For example, I looked through the cabinet to discover we were out of rosemary and thyme.

Our plan for the rest of the week is:

Monday- Chicken Scampi

Tuesday- Leftover Cottage Pie

Wednesday - Fried Rice with vegetables

Thursday - Off to England





Cottage Pie inspired by Joy of Cooking
2 potatoes, chopped
3 small salad turnips, chopped
2 leeks, whites sliced in half, and cut in thin slices
1 carrot, chopped
6 medium radishes, chopped
1 lb ground beef
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 T flour
2 t Old Bay
1 C Cheddar cheese, grated
olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Add the potatoes and turnips to a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender. Meanwhile, chop the other vegetables and add the leek, carrot, and radishes to a hot frying pan with oil. Cook until tender. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the ground beef to the pan. When it is almost cooked through, add the tomatoes, flour, and Old Bay. Cook until the tomatoes are softened. Add the leek, carrot, and radishes back in, and stir to combine. Mash up the potatoes and turnips, if necessary add a bit of liquid. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish, and top with the potatoes and turnips. Bake for about 15 minutes. Add the cheese to the top and cook for 15 more minutes.

The traditional recipe does not call for turnips, radishes, leeks or tomatoes. I think this is a very flexible dish that allows you to substitute any vegetables you have on hand.

Joy of Cooking suggested baking it in a pie plate, but I didn't think our pie plate was deep enough to fit everything. We cooked ours in a 9 x 11 pan, so I guess ours was less like Cottage Pie and more like Cottage Cake.

This post is part of Monday Mania and Menu Plan Monday.

Potato and Leek Frittata

I am participating in the Foodbuzz Project Food Blog challenge. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking on my profile in the right sidebar and following the directions. Voting ends on Thursday evening.

I love leftovers. I love being able to eat leftover dinner for lunch the next day, and I love it when they can be transformed into something new and different at the next meal. We had leftover scalloped potatoes (from yesterday's post), we mixed them with some eggs, and cooked up a delicious frittata. So easy and satisfying.


After mixing the eggs and potato mixture, pour it into a hot, lightly oiled cast iron skillet.


Once the eggs set around the edge, add some slices of cheese, place under the broiler and cook until golden.


Slice and enjoy.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday, Things I Love Thursday, Ultimate Recipe Swap, Pennywise Platter Thursday, and Tasty Traditions.

Steak with Scalloped Potatoes

I am participating in the Foodbuzz Project Food Blog challenge. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking on my profile in the right sidebar and following the directions.

The other day my husband asked me, "How many apartments do you think we have seen since moving to New York City?" The answer is somewhere between several and A LOT. When we moved here two years ago, we sublet an apartment off craigslist that had beautiful photos. We were told it was furnished with cable TV, internet, and a fully stocked kitchen. It sounded great! When we arrived, we found a mattress on the floor, a TV without cable (which means we only got NY1), no internet, a bathtub coated in mildew, and a kitchen that was far from fully stocked. Although, it was so dirty that I didn't want to do any cooking in there anyways. Luckily we had only rented it for five days, and after seeing it we were bound and determined to have a new apartment at the end of that five days.

We looked at several apartments in Cobble Hill, several in Chinatown, several in the Lower East side, and finally ended up just North of Little Italy in Manhattan. Last year, we thought about buying an apartment and we looked at a bunch of places. We ended up deciding against buying a place. Once our lease was coming due, we thought about renting a bigger apartment. We looked in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but our landlord decreased our rent and then nowhere else could compete. This year we have looked at apartments in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, and the time for a decision is almost here. We love our little apartment in NoLIta (North of Little Italy), but it is really small and we would love to have more space. We will let you know what we decide.


The other night we had steak, scalloped potatoes and salad for dinner. It was our totally local dinner. The steak was amazing. My husband declared that it was the best steak he had ever eaten. It was a local, grass fed rib steak and it had a great beefy flavor. We don't have a grill, so we just cook steak in a cast iron pan on the stove top. Warm up the pan, add a drizzle of oil, and add the steak that has been generously sprinkled with salt and pepper. We cooked it for 5 minutes per side, but cook yours until it's to your liking. We had a simple salad with greens and cherry tomatoes from our farm share and our house vinaigrette. Here is the recipe for our take on scalloped potatoes:

Scalloped Potatoes
2 leeks, whites finely sliced and rinsed
2 medium red potatoes, scrubbed and thinly sliced
1 T oil
2 T butter
salt and pepper

Heat up a large skillet, add some oil and add the potatoes and leeks. Add a quarter cup of water and cover. Cook until the potatoes are tender. Uncover and let the rest of the water evaporate. Remove from the heat and add the butter. Salt and pepper to taste.

I used cultured butter and Himalayan sea salt. The butter had a delicious rich flavor. I used Himalayan sea salt because it is full of beneficial nutrients. They are both new splurges.

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Works-For-Me Wednesday and Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.

The Feast

I am participating in the Foodbuzz Project Food Blog challenge. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking on my profile in the right sidebar and following the directions.

In our neighborhood, The Feast refers to the Feast of San Gennaro. Imagine a county fair on a narrow street in downtown Manhattan. It's wild. Lots of stands selling sausage and peppers, deep fried oreos, zeppoles and pizza. There are even some small rides on the side streets including a mini-ferris wheel and parachute drop. There is a stage with live entertainment, and each night we are serenaded by a band playing Italian American classics such as the Rocky Theme Song, New York, NY, That's Amore and more. Oh, and it lasts for 10 days. Here are few photos:


This is the view from our front door.


Here is a view down our block with one of New York's finest.


Another angle of our block and one of the many t-shirt stands.

We thought we'd have dinner inspired by The Feast. We had some spicy sausage with potatoes, red pepper, garlic and kale.


This is an imprecise recipe. We used 1 lb of spicy sausage, 3 potatoes, 1 red pepper and 1 large bunch of kale. I cooked the sausage and potatoes for 30 minutes at 300 degrees, and then added the red pepper and kale and cooked it for another 15 minutes. It was piled high in a cast iron pan, and it cooked down nicely. Enjoy your own feast.

This post is part of Hearth 'n Soul Blog Hop at A Moderate Life, Top Ten Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, and Tuesday Twister.

Brisket with Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

The weather suddenly feels like fall here in New York City. It's making me crave roasts and baked vegetable dishes. It's a great change of pace after spending a hot summer eating lots of salads and planning meals around cooking as little as possible. I thought I'd make another meal plan this week to make sure we eat up all our farm share vegetables.

Monday - Fresh ham baked with maple and mustard sauce, brown rice cooked in chicken stock, boiled corn, and sauteed kale.

Tuesday - Hamburgers with tomatoes, oven roasted beets, and sauteed beet greens.

Wednesday - Leftover ham, baked corn, and kale salad.

Thursday - Baked Chicken with kohlrabi and leeks, and a tomato salad.

Friday - Steak with fried onions, corn on the cob, tomato, radish and salad turnip salad.


Last night we had brisket with mashed potatoes and vegetables. I heated up some oil in my dutch oven, browned the brisket, and set it aside. I then quickly browned some onions and garlic, and added the rest of my ingredients. Once I had everything in the pot, my husband shared that he thought mashed potatoes would be really good with the meal. I had to agree that some mashed potatoes with gravy would be delicious, but I already had the potatoes stewing in the pot with everything else. But then we decided to try something new, we would cook the potatoes in the dutch oven with the brisket and broth soaking up flavor, and then pull them out after 30 minutes and mash them. It worked really well. We ended up with really flavorful potatoes, and only used one pot!

Brisket with Vegetables, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
2 T oil
1 (2 1/2 lb) brisket, with "fat cap" (do not trim)
3 tablespoons sweet paprika
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus for brisket
Freshly ground black pepper
2 medium yellow onions, cut into thick slices
12 - 16 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 c cooking sherry
4 c chicken broth
2 T fresh sage, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled, and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 turnips, peeled and chopped
8 red potatoes, cut into large pieces
2 T butter
1/4 C flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until beginning to smoke. Season the brisket generously with the paprika, salt, and pepper. Place fat side down in the Dutch oven and cook until brown, turn and continue to brown on all sides, about 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the meat to a plate and set aside.

Add the onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until starting to brown. Pour in the sherry and cook until reduced by about half. Nestle the brisket into the onions and garlic fat side up, add the broth and sage; bring to a simmer and place in the oven to bake, covered, until the brisket is fork tender, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Uncover, scatter the carrots, turnips and potatoes around the brisket and cook until they are tender, about 30 minutes more.

Fish out the potatoes, and place in a mixing bowl. Mash the potatoes with a fork or masher. Add broth from the brisket until they reach the desired consistency.

Transfer the brisket to a cutting board, thinly slice the meat across the grain.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables from the broth, and set aside to serve with dinner.

For a Pan Gravy: Melt the butter in a skillet and slowly add the flour. Make sure the four is entirely integrated with the butter before adding more flour. Cook until golden brown, and then starting adding broth ladle by ladle. Stirring until smooth, and then adding more broth. Once the gravy has reached the desired thickness, pour into the gravy boat.

Save the rest of the broth for another dish. We plan to use our for cooking rice this evening.

This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist and Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Sausage and Peppers

When I got home from work today, I flipped on the TV and listened to a news program while I tried to figure out what to make for dinner. Have you noticed how they advertise the upcoming news segments with shocking titles? This one was something like, "What in your dining room is making you fat?" When they finally aired segment after several teasers, they reported that blue is the best color for plates, dining room walls, tablecloths, etc. Why? Because supposedly when people eat surrounded by the color blue, they eat less. The worst colors are yellow and red. One group of people ate dinner in a blue room and another in a yellow room, and the group in the blue room ate 30% less. I'm not sure about the quality of scientific research, but it's intriguing.

Have you noticed the color of our plates that play a supporting role in all of our food photos? They are mustard yellow! (They came with my husband. I like the style of them. The color, well, it is tolerable. The best thing about them is that they are almost indestructible.) Are we overeating every day because of our yellow plates? Maybe we should start using salad plates for dinner...


Last week, we had a hearty dinner served on salad plates. Sausage and peppers cooked with kale, tomatoes, onions and potatoes. I don't think I had ever made sausage and peppers with potatoes until I met my husband. He's Italian-American (among other things), and it's a family classic. His dad usually makes it with sausage, vinegar peppers and potatoes. It's FABULOUS! It's amazing how simple, classic meals are so good - no wonder they have stood the test of time. We added some extra veggies, and cooked it in our dutch oven on top of the stove. It was great - we got some oven fresh taste without heating up our apartment.

Sausage and Peppers with Kale, Tomato and Potatoes
1 lb Italian sausage, cut in half
1 lb potatoes, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 peppers, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 bunch kale,chopped
oil

Drizzle oil in the bottom of the Dutch oven. Add the rest of the ingredients, and stir to combine. Cook over medium heat stirring occasionally. Cook until the desired crispness is achieved, about 1 to 1.5 hours.

We served it on small plates because it is so filling.

This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist.

Frittata

I forgot to mention the contents of this week's share in yesterdays post. (It's hard to recognize everything in the photo.) We have a nice selection to work with including: salad turnips, radishes, salad mix, braising mix (mustard greens, Asian greens, kale, and frizee)broccoli raab, garlic scapes, bok choy, wild food selections (mint, lambsquarters and purslane). I'm especially excited about the wild foods.


I think a frittata is one of the best ways to use up leftover vegetables. This morning's breakfast used up some left over sauteed greens with garlic and potatoes. Here is my basic recipe for a frittata:

Basic Frittata
1-2 eggs per person, beaten
1 cup of cooked vegetables per person
1 clove of garlic per person (or onion)
Some cheese to sprinkle over the top
olive oil or butter

Use a cast iron skillet, or another pan that can go under the broiler. Pre-heat the broiler. Place pan on the burner to warm, and add olive oil. Add the vegetables to the pan and warm through. Add the eggs. Cook until the eggs are firming up around the edges (about 5 minutes). Place under the broiler until golden (only 1 or 2 minutes). Slice into wedges and remove from the pan. It's important to remove it from the pan because it holds the heat and will continue to cook.

Within the formula there is lots of flexibility. Red peppers, broccoli, garlic and feta. Spinach, cauliflower, onions and emmantalier. Whatever you have in your fridge will work.


I chose to eat it with toast. Delicious!