Ultimate Cheesy Potato Recipe

This recipe is a staple at my husband aunt's house. I'd say she serves it 7 out of 10 times when she has company over. I finally made it myself and found out it's super easy!

Ingredients;
1 bag of hash browns, cubed (the Southern Style hash brown)
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz sour cream
8 oz mild cheddar cheese, grated (or more!), divided
Pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan. Mix  soup, sour cream, pepper and half of the cheese together in a bowl. Add hash browns and stir. Pour into pan and cover with the remaining cheese. Bake for one hour.

Tip: It's ok for the hash browns to be frozen when you cook this dish but if they are a thawed a bit, it's easier to mix up. 

These are great with dinner, but I also ate the leftovers with breakfast and they totally work!

Next time you're asked to bring a side, I suggest these!

"Faux"-tatoes? (and easy Parmesan chicken!)

A couple weeks ago, I came across a dinner recipe I knew I wanted to try: Parmesan chicken and "faux"-tatoes.

The "faux"-tatoes were made from cauliflower. I had visions of fluffy, creamy mashed potatoes made with a less starchy and presumably more healthy vegetable (which my kids might not eat as readily).

You steam the cauliflower in the microwave, then you're supposed to be able to mash it with a potato masher.

This is where I should have figured out my dreams were not going to come true. My potato masher has a round, flat bottom, and didn't do anything to the cauliflower. I resorted to the food processor pretty quickly.

I added the recommended sour cream and pepper into the food processor, and while it tasted good, there was something missing. (In addition to any resemblance to potatoes.) I thought of real potatoes and added milk, butter, and salt, and continued food processing. It did get smoother and fluffier.

The last step is to mix in some cheese (I used shredded Parmesan), put it into a casserole dish, top with more cheese and bake until warm and golden brown.

It looked perfect!

It tasted like little tiny bits of cauliflower in a tasty sauce. Which is tasty enough, but my poor dreams of healthier "faux"-tatoes were sadly shattered.

The Parmesan chicken turned out pretty well, however, and because this is a recipe on the Internet, I made it with a few changes ;) . Which is to say, I did whatever I wanted. (Wayward, hello?)

I mixed some breadcrumbs with a spice mix we got at the North Carolina state farmer's market and dredged the chicken in them, then broiled them for a couple minutes. After I flipped them, I added shredded Parmesan on top and broiled them for a couple minutes again.

For the sauce, I used a can of diced tomatoes with sweet onions. I poured about half the 14-oz can into a 8x8 baking dish, added the remaining breadcrumb/spice mix and some minced garlic and stirred.

Once the chicken was ready, I placed the pieces in my sauce, poured the rest of the tomatoes over the top and topped with mozzarella. Bake until the chicken is cooked through and enjoy!

We really liked the texture of the diced tomatoes instead of a traditional pureed marinara, and the flavor had a great kick.

What wayward or wonderful recipes have you tried lately?

Irish Potato Candy!

I like St. Patrick's Day for two reasons--and neither of them is my Irish heritage:

1.) When I was in college, I spent Thanksgivings with my aunt. Randomly one year when we got up silly early for Black Friday, we began speaking in an Irish accent. These things only make sense before 5 AM.

2.) I've written some novels, featuring a character from Ireland. I'm currently in the process of editing the sequel, which features even more characters from Ireland, so I'm up to my neck in Irish accents and slang and culture. I've spent approximately 1,000,000 hours on it ;) .

That being said, until Ireland began capitalizing on the tourism aspect of St. Patrick's Day in the last decade or two, it was mainly a religious holiday in the "Old Country." St. Patrick's Day is way more about celebrating Irish heritage outside of Ireland.

But since I'm outside Ireland, I'm down with that.

It's okay if they crack

First up, I went for an authentic Irish treat: Irish Potato Candy. Yes, apparently they really do make this in Ireland.

The recipe is relatively simple: boil ONE potato (I did two; bad idea) within an inch of its life. Peel and mash it until very smooth (um, wayward? Yeeeeah... I just mashed it.). Mix in powdered sugar until a dough forms.

Now, right here, this sounds pretty improbable. I mean, we've all squished up boiled potatoes and they seem pretty dry, right? But this amazing thing happens as you add sugar. It's hygroscopic, meaning it draws water to it, so it draws all the water trapped in the potatoes--and you're stirring a sweet potato soup for quite a while.

You can add food coloring now if you feel so inclined. Green's my favorite, so I did :) .

It took about four pounds (yes, pounds) of powdered sugar to get to the dough stage. I kneaded the last bits in by hand.

Divide the dough and cover the dough you've set aside. (It may still dry out; I patted a little water on the surface and that seemed to fix it.) Then roll it out quite thin and spread peanut butter on it. If you missed it before, I'm wayward, so I rolled it out until I got tired of rolling. Spreading the peanut butter was the easy part :) .

Then you roll the candy up. I had a handy kitchen blade that I used to encourage any stubborn bits up. To slice the candy into spirals, I used a serrated blade and a gentle sawing motion. The bottom part of the roll always forms corners as you press down, but you can reshape those with your fingers.

Unfortunately, that first batch of spirals only took about a third of my potato dough, so from there, I went for a faster method: the peanut butter potato sandwich. Spread peanut butter over the whole thing, cut down the middle and flip over. Then cut into squares or rectangles (a kitchen blade or a pizza cutter work well for this!). I like to call these "Potato pillows."

Next time, I'd want to try dividing my sugar potato soup into two batches, one white and one green, and either roll them together, alternating with peanut butter, or layer them several times for the pillows (Oh, and roll them a lot thinner). The peanut butter looks like the orange from the Irish flag, and then you've got a great tricolor theme!

Either way, they were surprisingly tasty! (But a little grainy because I didn't mash them as much as I should've. Live and learn!)

How do you like to celebrate St. Patrick's Day?