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Category Archives: Potatoes
Dinner Tonight: Red Lentil and Sausage Soup
I’ve been really into the crock-pot recently. It’s so nice to come home and know that dinner is ready with just a little preparation the evening before. Plus, it’s one pot so it makes clean up a snap (for Sean since I rarely do dishes.)
We’ve also been trying to pare down our pantry and use ingredients we already have. In this case, we had a bunch of lentils and a bunch of potatoes, carrots, and kale from our Boston Organics boxes. And we recently stocked up on spices at Penzey’s so we had plenty of flavor agents. We only needed to purchase chicken stock, canned tomatoes, and sausage for this super healthy, filling, and tasty meal.
In my experience, you just never know how something will actually turn out in a crock-pot. It’s a bit of a roll of the dice (did I put in enough liquid? too much liquid? will everything disintegrate to mush? will the beans still be crunchy?) This recipe came out awesome! On a scale of 1-10, I gave it an 8 1/2; Sean gave it an 8. The lentils broke down during the cooking which made the consistency super creamy; the potato and carrot were perfectly tender without being mushy and the sausage kept its integrity and flavor. Coming home after our 2 mile walk with the dogs to a huge bowl of this soup made the end of the day a happy one.
Red Lentil and Sausage Soup
Serves 6-8
Comfort food that's *really* good for you!
1 medium onion, diced small
2 large carrots, diced small
5 cloves garlic, minced
4 small potatoes, diced small
1/2 lb. ground sweet Italian sausage.
1 bunch of kale, cleaned, stemmed, and chopped
2 cups dried red lentils
1, 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1, 28 oz. can water
1 quart chicken stock
2 tbsp. smoked Spanish paprika
2 tsp. dried basil
2 tsp. dried thyme
Salt, to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
Crushed red pepper, to taste
In a large crock-pot, combine the onion, carrots, garlic, lentils, potato, and kale. Make mini-meatballs out of the ground sausage. I was able to purchase bulk sausage, but if I couldn’t find that, I would remove the casing of sausage links and make that into meatballs. Add the meatballs to the crock-pot. Add the tomatoes, water, and chicken stock. Add the paprika, basil, and thyme. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Taste and add salt to your liking. Serve in large bowls and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones
Last year, we had a St. Patrick’s Day bash at our condo. My favorite part about throwing parties is creating a menu. There’s nothing more traditional in this part of the country than corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. I wanted to include it on the menu, but I had to think of a way to make it portable and easy to eat at a party.
The solution: I created this recipe that stuffs the usual corned beef and cabbage dinner ingredients into a calzone — with a delcious tangy, mustard dressing. Everyone seemed to really enjoy these calzones.
They are a bit of work, but if you’re only going to make them once a year or for a party, they are well worth it. And you can actually do a lot of the prep work ahead of time*.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Calzones
2 lbs. of your favorite pizza dough (I’m partial to this recipe — or you can get it at your grocery store.)
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
3 large carrots, medium dice
3 medium red bliss potatoes, medium dice
2 lbs. corned beef, cooked and medium dice
1 medium onion, minced
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup grainy mustard with horseradish
1 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
All of my veggies chopped and ready to go.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Add shredded cabbage. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until cabbage is cooked but still al dente. Drain and rinse with cold water until cabbage is cooled. Dry in a salad spinner or between paper towels. Set aside.
Put the carrots and potatoes in a medium pot. Cover with water (about an inch over the vegetables) and bring to a boil. Cook until fork tender. Make sure that when you dice the carrots and the potatoes, you keep them even in shape so that they cook at the same time. Drain and set aside.
In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until the onions are soft, but not browned — about 10 minutes. Add the diced corned beef (should be roughly the same size as the carrots and potato) and cook another 2-3 minutes.
Add cider vinegar, mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper (to taste). Stir and toss in the cabbage and coat with the dressing. Add the carrots and the potatoes and stir to coat with the dressing. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Divide your dough into 10 equal portions**. Roll into balls and allow to rest about 10 minutes.
To assemble the calzones, flatten a pizza dough ball into about a 6-inch round (the dough should be about 1/4 inch thick). Fill with a healthy 1/2 cup of the corned beef filling. Fold the dough over to create a half-moon shape. Crimp the edges of the dough to close the calzone. Repeat for the rest of the dough balls.
Transfer to a baking sheet (or better yet, a pizza stone you have warming up in the pre-heated oven.) Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the calzones are GBD (golden brown and delcious!)
Enjoy with a Guiness, Harp, or Magners!
* You could create the filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to stuff your calzones — will probably last a couple of days in the fridge.
** Play around with this recipe. For a party, you could make mini-calzones to feed more people! You’d just need to divide your dough into smaller portions and put less of the corned beef mixture into each calzone.
Andouille & Crawfish Potato Casserole
And we’re back from Vegas. Our trip was a whirlwind tour (like all trips to Vegas should be), and now I’m back to adding post-Thanksgiving recipes.
I wanted to add something else with a creole flavor to our Thanksgiving dinner since we were having the turducken. The original idea was to twice bake these potatoes, but a trick I learned in one of my classes lead me to turn the original idea into a casserole. It reminds me a bit of potatoes au gratin with a kick. Yeah, it’s definitely a little rich, but it’s worth it.
I bought the crawfish tails online at cajungrocer.com with the Turducken and andouille sausage. You could certainly substitute cooked shrimp, crab, or lobster chopped into small pieces if it’s easier to find. You can also substitute chorizo, linguica, or another smoked sausage for the andouille if you’d like.
Andouille & Crawfish Potato Casserole
6 large red bliss or russet potatoes, sliced lengthwise into 1/4 inch ovals
3 tbsp. olive oil
3 tsp. butter
1/2 large onion, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb. smoked andouille sausage, diced small
1 tbsp. cajun seasoning (such as Joe’s Stuff or Tony Chacere’s or, yes, even some Essence of Emeril if you must.)
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1, 14 oz. can petite diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 lb. crawfish tails, cooked
1 tbsp. flour
1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 1/4 cup 2% milk
Salt & Pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of butter in a large skillet until hot. Add about 1/3 of potato slices and brown on both sides (don’t over crowd the pan — if you don’t have a large enough pan, just brown in more batches.) Move browned potato slices to a cookie sheet. Add more olive oil and butter as needed and continue browning the potatoes in batches until all are browned on both sides.
Once the potatoes are browned, remove or add oil/butter until there’s 1 tablespoon remaining. Add the onions and a pinch of salt. Sweat for 2-3 minutes or until onions are soft. Add the garlic. Cook for another minute. Add the chopped andouille and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sausage is gets a bit brown and crispy.
Add the cajun seasoning, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes. Cook for about 2 minutes or until the tomatoes start to lose some moisture. Add the crawfish. Cook for another 2 minutes. Sprinkle the flour into the pan evenly over the food. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
Pour in the chicken broth and milk. Add salt and pepper to taste (definitely taste before adding the salt — different cajun seasonings have different levels of sodium so you might not even need salt.) You could also add about 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper here if you’d like.
Bring to a simmer and cook until thick and bubbly. You’ll know you’re in good shape when the sauce can coat the back of a spoon.*
Grease a 9×13 inch cake pan with nonstick spray or a light coating of oil. Add a layer of the browned potatoes. Add a layer of the crawfish and andouille mixture. Add another layer of potato and another layer of the crawfish and andouille mixture. Repeat one more time. You’ll end up with a final layer of crawfish and andouille.
Cover with foil and place in a 400 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165.
It would be best to let this stand for about 15 minutes after it comes out of the oven so it will set up and be easier to scoop out of the pan.
* If your sauce is looking too thin at this point get yourself a slurry of cornstarch (equal parts corn starch and cold water) and add this about a tablespoon at a time, letting the mixture come to a simmer for a minute before adding more of the slurry, until it thickens.