Potato squash mash

Butternut squash

Potato and pumpkin mash.

2-4 persons

30 mins prep time.

Potatoes: 8-10 mid-size. Peeled and cubed

Butternut pumpkin: 1 small. Peeled and cubed

Onion: 2 small, red and white. Chopped

Red pepper: 1 chopped grilled (opt.)

Cheese: 100-150 gr. Chopped or grated

Butter: 50 gr

Skimmed Milk: ½-1 mug.

Olive oil: 2-4 tablesp

Parsley: 1 tablesp

Chives: 1 tablesp

Basil: 1 tablesp

Italian mix herbs: 1 teasp

Sweet chili sauce: 1 tablesp (opt.)

Salt: to taste

Pepper: to taste

Boil your peeled potatoes while you peel and cut your pumpkin. I prefer Butternut squash, but any other will do. For easy peeling, make unpeeled, half-inch slices of your pumpkin and then cut off the peel per disk. Goes way faster.

Bake your cubed pumpkin in the olive oil together with the herbs and the chopped onions (and red pepper, if you opted for that). Mid-high heat and keep stirring so it doesn’t burn until the cubes become soft. Add a splash of milk, and the cheese and continue to stir until your cheese has melted. Turn the heat low. By this time your potatoes should be ready for mashing. Drain of water. Add the butter and remaining milk, then your pumpkin mix and Chili sauce (if you decided to add it) and bring to taste with salt and pepper while you either mash it to one lumpy mass (my preference) or use an immersion blender to make one smooth mash.

Serve with a bit of butter/gravy on top, and meat/salad of choice and enjoy.

Bon apetit!!!

3 Color Mash

Carrot Potato Mash

This is very good filler on cold Autumn, or winter evenings. High on the beta carotene, pre-biotics, potassium, vitamin E, vitamin C, antioxidants, and of course fiber. I just like it, and in the end that is all that matters.

4 servings

Potatoes: 3 mid-size, cubed

Purple potatoes: 6 small, cubed

Sweet potatoes: 3 big, cubed

Purple carrots: 3 big, sliced

Yellow carrots: 3 big, sliced

Orange carrots: 3 big, sliced

Onion: 1, chopped

Leek: 1, chopped

Basil: ½ teasp.

Chives: 1 tablesp.

Parsley: 1 tablesp.

Thyme: (optional) 1 small pinch

Rosemary: (optional) 1 small pinch

Salt: 1-2 teasp. (to taste)

Chili pepper mix: ½ teasp.

Broth cube: 1

Honey: 1 tablesp.

Sambal Oelek: (optional) 1 tablesp.

Butter: 3 tablesp.

Milk: ½ cup

Peel all your potatoes and cut them to cube of an inch in diameter. Boil them with your broth cube, a dash of salt and a pinch of your chili pepper. You can either boil them until they fall apart, or until you can easily cut them with a knife. 12-15 mins of boiling in most cases. Drain water from the potatoes in a sieve and return them to your pan (make sure it is big enough). Mash the potato mix roughly, you want it a little lumpy, not an equal mass, and add the milk and half the butter.

Wash your slices of carrots well. Melt half of the butter and throw in the carrots. Stir frequently. Add the onion and leek. Stir. Add the herbs, salt, honey, pepper and sambal. Keep stirring frequently, keep on medium high fire until the slices get soft to the touch, and start to get slight crusts.

Once your carrots are “done” (as in soft enough to easily spear with a fork) add them to the potatoes and use the hand masher to roughly mix them all together. I prefer to have it all lumpy, it gives it all a nice texture, but you can also use an immersion blender to mash it all into a smooth paste.

Serve with a small blob of butter on your plate, or gravy, or some bits and pieces of bacon, if you think you need your meat. Any leftovers are perfect for the next day in an oven dish with grated cheese on top and grilled until the cheese has melted to a fine brown crust…or better yet, you can serve it this way the first time around.

Enjoy.

Great High Iron Meal.

Fresh Spinach

I am an extremely picky eater, and getting sufficient amounts of iron in is always a task for me. So I came up with this dish which truly works like a charm, considering Spinach is one of the best sources of iron…remember Popeye? Not that it necessarily holds that much iron, it is just that the kind it holds is the sort your body can work with really well. Considering I add a whole bunch of other stuff to it, like Parsley, which is high in iron as well, only makes the meal more nutritious, and I love that it is so easy to make.

Spinach potato mash:

3-4 persons.

Spinach: (frozen is easiest) 1 kg

Potatoes: 6 mid-size. Diced

Sweet potatoes: 2 mid-size. Diced

Purple potatoes: 4 mid-size. Diced

Leek: 4-6 inches. Chopped

Onion: 1 mid-size. Chopped

Butter: 150-200 gr.

Milk: ¼ cup

Cheese: 100-200 gr (mix of sheep/goat/cow is nicest, but any other melt cheese will do) Grated

Parsley: 1 tablesp. (dried)

Pepper: 3-4 turns (2 knife points)

Salt: 2-3 teasp. (to taste)

Sweet chili sauce: (optional) 2 tablesp.

Peel your potatoes and cut them all about the same size. Cubes of about an inch and a half. Put them all together in a pan and just barely submerge in water. Add a teasp. of salt and a turn or two of your pepper mill, and boil until you can stab a fork into any of them and slide it right out again. Drain of water. Use a fork or hand masher (you can use an immersion blender, but I like it better when the potato mash isn’t all that smooth) to mash the potatoes with half the butter and milk until you have a lumpy paste.

Use a large skillet or wok for the Spinach. Melt the remainder of the butter (or use olive oil, if you prefer) and put in the frozen spinach. Mid-heat and frequent stirring will quickly defrost your spinach. Add your leek, onion and Parsley and keep stirring. The spinach will be best if you actually bake it, so increase the heat if you think it is going to slow. Add some Salt and pepper and the Chili sauce if you opted for that and when the spinach is completely defrosted, stir the cheese through it. Let it bake for a bit longer, until the cheese has melted properly and clumps through your spinach a bit. Turn off the heat.

Spoon your spinach mix on top of your potato mash and stir firmly until you have a colorful mash.

Serve with a small triangle of butter on top, allowing it to melt on the mash. I tend to serve this as a main dish, but you can serve it with a hamburger and/or a salad on the side.

Asia with a twist

Take your pick

Stir-fry for two.

You get home from work, you’re tired as a dog, and yet you want something to fill your stomach that won’t make you feel like you’re living on fast food. This is a really easy one that’ll see you through a meal with mostly left over veg that you find in your fridge (hopefully anyway). If you don’t have one or two of these ingredients, leave it out, or see if you can substitute it with something of a similar substance. I.e. you don’t have carrot, try some parsnip, or cauliflower, pumpkin, sweet potato…or if you’re very adventurous, red beet. (Careful with Broccoli, it has a very dominant taste. Same goes for Brussels sprouts.)

Opted for dried herbs again. It’s winter and my herb garden is more than struggling…It’s dead. *sigh* Need to get some new ones. Remember that if you use fresh ones, double, or triple the amount indicated below. All these veggie ingredients are fresh, if you don’t have them, aim for frozen and only in extreme emergencies resort to canned.

Sweet & Salty potato-veg stir fry

Potatoes: 6-8 small ones. Cubed to half an inch. Unpeeled

Onion: 1 small. Chopped

Leek: 3-4 inches. Chopped

Carrot: 1 small. Quartered and sliced

Bell Pepper: ¼. Chopped

Green beans: 4-6. Chopped

Zucchini: 3 inches. Chopped

White Cabbage: Thin strips. Handful

Olive oil: 3-4 tablesp.

Milk: ¼ mug

Peach jam: 1 Tablesp.

Sweet chili sauce: 1 teasp.

Oregano: ½ teasp.

Basil: ½ teasp.

Parsley: ½ teasp.

Italian mix: 1 pinch

Salt: ½ teasp. (to taste)

Cayenne pepper: 1-2 pinch (1-2 knife points)

Use a big skillet or wok. Heat the olive oil for about thirty seconds and throw in your chopped potatoes. The beauty of this recipe is that if you get the sequence right, you can basically cut your veggies above the pan, saving loads of time. Stir frequently and turn the fire to medium when you notice that your potatoes begin to crust a bit. Add onion and leek. Keep stirring. Add your herbs, salt and cayenne. When onions begin to become transparent a bit, add carrot slices. Make sure they’re thin. About three minutes on medium fire needs to pass before you add the sweet chili, milk, and the jam, keeping a steady stir going. If you don’t think the mix is baking properly turn the fire higher again. If you look at your veggie list, that is basically the sequence in which you should gradually stir the remainder of the veg through your potatoes, leaving the cabbage strips to last. Once your cabbage begins to turn soft, glassy almost, you’re done.

This recipe can be served as a full meal, or a side dish to noodles or rice. If you need to stretch it for more people, you can add half a kilo (2-3 mugs) of boiled lentils to the mix. Or serve just the stir fry with French bread, pita, naan or a meat of choice…cubed chicken filet will go well with this. Make sure to bake the chicken crispy in olive oil with pepper and salt and a pinch of rosemary. If anyone dares to make it with fish (baked in olive oil with some sage), I’d love to hear how that worked out.