Baked Potato Bites

Seeing as how I have them listed as my favorite food, it’s about time I made something baked potato related.  And with just over a week left until the Super Bowl, I thought I’d make it another fabulous finger food recipe. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4 good sized russet potatoes
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• Cheese
• Sour Cream
• Chives

These come together really quickly, so go ahead and preheat your oven to 400°.  After that, wash your potatoes, scrubbing them thoroughly, dry them, and put them aside.  Melt your butter.  It shouldn’t take more than 10 – 15 seconds in the microwave.  Add the olive oil.  (hint: 4 Tablespoons = ¼ cup, so if you melt your 2 tablespoons of butter in a measuring cup, you can just add olive oil up to the ¼ cup mark) 

Add the salt and pepper.

Stir that all together and pour about a tablespoon of it onto a sheet pan. 

Spread that around to coat the pan. 

Now for the potatoes.  Cut off both ends and discard them. 

Slice the rest of the potato into ½ inch slices. 

Place the slices into a plastic bag and pour over the remaining butter mixture. 

Inflate the bag, and shake until every slice is coated on both sides. 

Dump the slices onto the prepared pan. 

Spread them out leaving a little space between each one. 

Bake them for 15 minutes.  When you pull them out, they won’t be changing on top yet, but they should be just starting to brown on the bottom. 

Go ahead and flip them all over and then it’s back into the oven for another 15 minutes.  They should be looking and smelling fabulous. 

Flip them over again, and top each one with a little bit of grated cheese.  I like to use a really sharp cheddar, but you can really use whatever you like.  Just make sure you don’t get carried away with it.  These are supposed to be finger food so you don’t want them totally covered with melted cheese.  (Is this the part where I admit to being wrong when I said there's no such thing as too much cheese?) 

Back into the oven just until the cheese is melted.  It’ll only take 3 or 4 minutes. 

You may have noticed that I’ve only got 8 slices on the pan for this step.  I put the rest aside to cool and then into the fridge.  You can do the same, and when you’re ready, just pull them out of the fridge and heat them for a few minutes in the oven before adding the cheese. 

Once the cheese is melted, move the potatoes to whatever you’re going to serve them on. 

Top each one with sour cream.  I piped mine on just for that added touch, but a dollop would work just fine. 

Sprinkle on some fresh chives and you have baked potato perfection in a bit size (well, maybe 2 bites) package. 

Crisp and buttery on the outside and lusciously soft within, topped with salty cheese, tangy sour cream and just a touch of oniony chive, it’s everything you love about a baked potato, but easier, faster, and well… better. 

Ravens or 49ers?  Who do you think is going to win? 

Cactus Sorbet

Prickly pear fruit is amazingly magenta.

 

The entire plant is edible, actually. Well, not the prickly parts, but the paddles are; they're called nopales. Those are more of a dinner thing though, and this is dessert.

(and yes, I know this post is a little late, but my lab report was not)

Prickly Pear and Coconut Sorbet

• 4 prickly pear fruits (aka tunas)
• 1 tin coconut milk or cream
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 c sugar

 

Yup, that's it. I know, I know ths sugar is missing. Five ingredients and I still couldn't get them all in the shot.

First thing you have to do is wash the tunas. Wear gloves. Seriously.

The spines have been removed, but there are tiny, hair-like fibres on them still, and those things are practically invisible and are an annoying pain in the thumb if you get one stuck in you.

Keep the gloves on as you cut away the skin.

You're left with red, juicy, flesh that tastes mildly berry-like. Sweeter though. There's none of the berry tartness to these.

Chop them and toss them in the food processor to mash them.

Next we have to get rid of all the seeds. I suppose you could cut the fruit and pick them out one by one, but they're small, round, slippery, and throughout the entire fruit.

Better to sieve them out.

A coarse sieve will work okay. A finer sieve will work better, but takes longer. If you've got the patience (I had all day, but ran out of patience) go for it.

Combine the berry mash in a pot with the vanilla, lime juice, and sugar.

Bring it to a boil then turn the heat down to medium and let it go until you get this sort of pink foam on top:

Combine the sweetened, reduced berry mash into a bowl with the coconut milk.

Now is when you should use the ice cream maker, if you have one. If you don't, and I don't, you can still do this, you'll just need to pay attention to it for a few minutes at a time for the next little while.

Pour it into a pan and put it in the freezer. After about 45 minutes, take it out and give it a stir, then put it back in the freezer.

After about 40 minutes, do it again. Then 35... then 30...

What you're doing in the stir part is breaking up the ice crystals that are forming. That's what the paddles in ice cream makers do. At first, it takes a while to get the water in the sorbet to freeze (hence 45 mins) but once the crystals are there, they propagate quite nicely (hence the reduction in freezer duration each time).

So, yes, it will take a bit of time, but if you've got a Sunday afternoon for puttering about the house, it's an easy thing to add to the putter.

And you get a beautiful coco-berry sorbet out of the deal.

And you can tell the kids they're eating tuna ice cream!

Even better with chocolate sprinkles.

What's your favourite pink food?