Rice and Potatoes

Potatoes With Sauteed Mushrooms
Carrot and Rice Oven Pilaf
Jenn's Potato Kugel
Stuffed Potatoes
Potatoes With Sauteed Mushrooms
This one is easy and can be used as a side dish with any meat, but The Child and I eat this as the entree with a garden salad. The recipe calls for butter, but on the potatoes, I brush them with olive oil to save fat intake.
8 peeled medium potatoes
1 lb fresh mushrooms
8 tablespoons butter
2 peeled minced garlic cloves
1/4 cup chopped parsleyE
1/2 cup dry vermouth (I've also used whatever wine I've had around in place of it)
salt and pepper to taste
 
Rub 1 tablespoon softened butter over each potato, put them in a baking pan, cover, and bake at 375 degrees until tender when pierced. (About an hour) Turning them once after 30 minutes. About 20 minutes before potatoes are due to be done, melt 3 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the washed mushrooms and garlic and cook, stirring often until mushrooms are tender and any liquid has evaporated. About 15 minutes. Add the vermouth and simmer, stirring until liquid has reduced and thickened slightly, (about 2 minutes). Stir in 4 tablespoons butter and the parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove potatoes from the oven. Using the bottom of a sturdy plate, crush each potato just enough to break it without smashing it flat. Transfer potatoes to a platter and spoon the warm mushrooms and sauce over the top. Serves 4 if served as a side dish. Jae
Stuffed Potatoes
You need to do this when you've a bit of time, but once done, they are a quick snack or a quick addition to an entree. These are also called "Twice Backed Potatoes" and I don't measure anything when I make them, but I've tried to give approximate measurements here, but it's a very "forgiving" dish, so if you add more or less to your own taste, you most likely won't mess it up. This is not diet food, but it's real good. <smile>
10 baking potatoes
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk!
3 TBS of chopped dehydrated onion'
1/2 cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1 TBS parsley
2 tsp of garlic powder
2 tsp of basil (optional)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 lb of butter
Paprika (optional)
 
Wash and scrub potatoes with a vegetable brush, and pierce skin both sides of potato with a fork. Bake at 400 degrees in oven, for one hour, turning once after 30 minutes. Remove from oven. (pierce one with a fork to test that potatoes are "soft" inside). Put all ingredients except 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese and the Paprika into a large mixing bowl. Split each potato in half lengthwise. Hold one half of the potato in a paper towel padded hand while cutting around inside edge of skin. Scoop out inside of potato into the large mixing bowl. Set potato skin aside. *Remember* Potatoes are *hot* to hold, so don't be doing it with your bare hand. Once all the "insides" are in the bowl, whip potatoes into mashed potato consistency. Fill each potato skin with whipped mixture and place on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and paprika and place back in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until starting to brown on top. Serve however many you need to with dinner while leaving the others to cool on the cookie sheet. When stuffed potatoes are completely cooled, wrap each one in foil and place in the freezer. These don't take up much room in the freezer and The Child grabs one out for a snack and just removes foil and places in the microwave for a couple of minutes. They can also be reheated in the oven as well for a side dish with future meals.
Note: Since sometimes I can't stand for long enough to scoop those insides out all at one time, the potatoes will sometimes cool and not whip well. I've put the whole bowl into the microwave and reheated it and then whipped them with no difference in taste or texture.
Jae

Carrot and Rice Oven Pilaf
2 tsp olive oil
1 c brown basmati rice ( I've used white rice, too)
2 cloves garlic minced
1 lb baby carrots, halved lengthwise (though if carrots have been tiny
enough, I've just used them as is)
1 can fat-free chicken broth ( about 14 oz of liquid if canned broth
has too much salt for you. I've made a liquid with some water, wine
and spices and also with some water, pineapple juice and spices and
it's been real good both ways)
1/3 cup of golden raisins
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp crushed fennel seed
3 scallions, sliced
3 TBS toasted sliced almonds (optional, but I love them in it)
While you are preheating the oven to 350 degrees, heat the olive oil
in an ovenproof saucepan or small Dutch oven. Add rice and garlic and
cook for 3 minutes, stirring. Stir in carrots, broth, raisins, thyme,
salt, fennel and scallions. Bring mixture to a simmer, remove from
heat, cover tightly and place in the oven. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes
until rice and carrots are tender. Sprinkle on the almonds and serve.
Jae
Jenn's Potato Kugel
What
· Five large Idaho potatoes. Peel the potatoes and remove any discolored flesh.To prevent the potatoes from turning black, leave them immersed in cold water until the onions are ready. Cousin Allyson splashes a little lemon juice over the potatoes to accomplish the same end.
· Two medium onions. Use yellow or Bermuda onions. White onions tend to be sweeter but contain more water and can make the kugel too oniony.
· Potato starch -- about a cup. Have a full cup of potato starch ready, but you may not need it all.
· Five eggs. That's right, five -- go ahead, it won't kill you. And anyway, we're about to produce anywhere from 15 to 25 portions, so a little egg goes a long way.
· Salt and pepper to taste. But go light on the spices. Remember, the potato is king.
· Sugar. 2-1/2 tsp.
· Baking powder. Scant one tablespoon. My mother used to use this expression, “scant� something or other to mean, “just a little less than.� I never heard anyone else use it, but if your mother says something, it must be right, right? Passover kugels should eliminate the baking powder all together, for obvious reasons.
· 1/2 cup soya oil.
How · Grate the onions and potatoes. If you are going to do it the old fashioned way, start with a potato, then an onion, then potato, etc. Alternate also if you will use a blender (it has to have a "grate" position) or a food processor (process in "bursts" to keep the potato nice and gritty) or if the bowl is too small to hold the entire mass of grated onion and potato. You want to do this rather quickly because the starch in the potato will quickly begin to turn black upon being exposed to the air. That is also the reason to alternate between onion and potato -- the juice from the onion helps to coat the potato bits and prevent exposure to air from the darkening of the starch.
· Strain the liquid from the grated mass. Your best bet is to slop the grated potato and onion into a fine-sieve pointed colander called a China Cap or Chinois and pressing out the liquid that way, but straining through any woven cloth will do too . . . even panty hose will work if you are into that sort of thing. Try to get the mass as dry as possible, the more water squeezed out of the potatoes the more potato you will taste.
· Combine the remaining ingredients. In a rather large mixing bowl, combine the strained potato and onion mass with the salt, pepper, eggs, sugar, baking powder, and oil. Shake in the potato starch a little at a time and whip the mixture with a beater. The mass should take on the consistency of loose apple sauce. By the way, if you are enthusiastic enough to taste the batter at this point -- it is supposed to taste horribly bitter. Don't be discouraged, Dora, everything will turn out all right. (Sometimes, just to check the taste, we put a dollop into the microwave for a moment.)
· Prepare the baking dish. Start with a glass baking dish about 9 x 14 or an aluminum pan the same size. Spray with vegetable oil spray or drizzle a little soya oil into the dish and wipe it around with paper towel to coat the bottom and sides. Then fill the dish with the batter to 1/2" from the lip. The middle of kugel made deeper will remain raw even after the exterior burns. If you have batter left over, make another smaller kugel. If you don't have enough, use the batter to make latkes. Don't throw it away, it's a shanda! Think of all the children starving all over the world who would love to have a nice latke now and then. Didn't your mother tell you?
Jenn