Potatchos (Potato Nachos)

A new invention perhaps: potatchos!

If you’ve ever visited with Rob, you’re likely to have had Rob’s Famous Baked Nachos, and, if you’re lucky, you’ve been able to watch as Rob prepares them. It’s a great treat, watching as Rob pulls out the special nacho pan, spreads the chips just so, then starts in on deciding on the toppings for that particular batch. There are always some items that are standard, some that change depending on availability, and a variance in the amounts of each. The nachos are never the same twice, but, they’re always great.

Now, we, being scratchers, rarely make baked nachos at home — we’d have to make corn tortillas, then slice and deep fry them to make chips, then finally put together nachos for the oven. But, we have come up with an alternative that we think will satisfy anyone’s craving for nachos. Trust us, we had to have them twice in one week; they were that good.

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Potato Frittata (Frittata di Patate)

With just a few staples: dinner!

When we get back from a trip, our cupboard is pretty bare. Before we leave, we try to eat all the fresh produce and anything that might spoil while we’re gone, so, when we get home, there’s very little in the refrigerator or on the shelves to make a dinner. At times, we think that maybe we should just order out a pizza and worry more about making meals later. But, during our travels, we’ve been eating out most nights; the last thing we want to do is get some sub-par takeaway food. With a little thought, we come up with something that will keep us filled and fueled.

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Vegetable Pot Pie a la Thomas Keller

vegetable pot pie

vegetable pot pie
One of the best pot pies we’ve ever had!

We lucked out at a used bookstore a few weeks ago and picked up a copy of both Ad Hoc at Home and The French Laundry Cookbook, both by Thomas Keller. We’ve tried a number of the recipes before and found them to be nearly perfect. They do take time and care, but, they’re great for those days when you’d love to spend the afternoon in the kitchen, sharpening your cooking or baking skills, and wowing people around the dinner table. This recipe is perfect; it took us several hours to prepare, then another hour-plus baking time. In the end, we thought it was worth it.

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Potato and Pea Samosas

potato and pea samosas

potato and pea samosas
Nearly as tasty — without deep frying!

Often, when we go out to dinner at an Indian restaurant, we order a sampler appetizer, consisting of pakoras, samosas, and the like. Sometimes we like these even better than the meal; not surprisingly, because they’re usually deep-fried. Well, we don’t deep-fry here in the Scratchin’ It Kitchen, mainly because of dealing with all that oil, so, we figured, why not bake samosas instead?

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Lefse (Scandinavian Potato Flatbread)

cooking lefse

cooking lefse
Fresh lefse, right from the hot griddle!

This is what we wanted you to save leftover mashed potatoes for: lefse. We’ve wanted to make these for a while, but we never seem to have leftover mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are just so good that we generally eat them all the same day we make them. But, this time we planned ahead, and made more mashed potatoes than we could eat. All so we could make lefse the next day. Want to see how to make lefse? Just follow along.

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Yukon Gold Potato Blini

perfect blini

perfect blini
Perfection on a plate!

Okay, let’s get this straight from the beginning: if you’re going to make one recipe from this blog, this is it. And, no cheating. Make it exactly as we describe, because it’s perfect. Eating these will change your life, or at least make you think that you can make some really, really fantastic food, from scratch.

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Twice-Baked Potatoes

twice-baked potatoes

twice-baked potatoes
Ah, potatoes. Delicious!

We’re not really sure when we last had twice-baked potatoes. Definitely many years ago, and most likely at some restaurant, long since forgotten. But, then, just a few weeks ago, when we were at a farmers’ market, one of the sellers mentioned that she’d made twice-baked potatoes from those tiny fingerling potatoes, and that they were a great hit at Thanksgiving. Never wanting to let an idea like that go to waste, we figured, hey, we can make twice-baked potatoes, too. While we don’t have fingerling potatoes, we do have little Yukon Gold potatoes that’ll work.

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