Tag Archives: Potato

Hardcore Hobbit: Mince and Taters

Posted on May 24, 2013 | 1 comment

What a lovely Scottish dish this one is, some of you might know this better as mince and tatties. In LOTRO you make this comforting food using leek stock, carrot, taters, herbs, and beef. Like the description says this is a simple and extremely satisfying meal. A traditional approach to this tends to be a bit of a…well…rustic presentation. I’m going to pretty it up a little but I feel it’s still rustic and so tasty. I played around a bit with my usual gravy recipe too, instead of flour I worked with potato starch. A very successful experiment, I have to say as a thickener, potato starch is pretty awesome and of course, gluten free for those who worry about that.

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  • 1 lb extra lean ground beef
  • 1/2 cup grated carrot
  • 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 small onion, diced
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp mustard powder
  • salt and pepper
  • 4 red potato
  • 2 cups leek or beef stock
  • 2 tbl potato starch
  • 2 tbl light butter
  1. In a bowl combine beef, carrot, onion,worcestershire sauce, cloves, mustard powder, salt and pepper. Form into small, slider sized patties about 2-3 oz each.
  2. In a med-high heat pan sear each patty for 2 minutes on each side. Set aside.
  3. In a sauce pan melt the butter.
  4. Add the potato starch and stir to create a roux.
  5. Whisk continuously as you pour the stock slowly in.
  6. Allow the gravy to come to a boil for 2 minutes then lower the heat to a simmer. Season gravy to taste. Add the patties and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.
  7. Meanwhile wash and cube potatoes. Bring water to a boil in another pot. Add potatoes, cook until fork tender (about 10-15 minutes). Drain, add a bit of stock and mash.
  8. Serve your mince patties, with a mountain of tatties (having a close encounters moment like I did is not required), and gravy. Enjoy!

Makes 6 patties, a whole bunch of potatoes, and more gravy than you actually need…I’m a gravy eating monster and I couldn’t finish it. Each patty contains 142 calories, 9.7 grams fat, .4 gram carbohydrate, 0 fibre, and 10.6 grams protein. Each 1/2 cup of potato contains 117 calories, .1 gram fat, 26.7 grams carbs, 4.1 grams fibre, and 2.9 grams protein. Each tbl of gravy contains 12.5 calories, .8 gram fat, 1.4 grams carb, 0 fibre, and .1 gram protein. *phew* That was a lot of math today. You know what would finish this dish even better? An english pea puree. That is another story though.

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Colcannon

Posted on March 19, 2012 | 4 comments

While not a hardcore hobbit recipe this is definitely one every hobbit should know. Oh it is so nummy! I’m a bit funny about cabbage sometimes, it’s one of those veggies that I keep forgetting I actually like. I will wrinkle my nose at it but then I remember all those dishes it plays a role in that I love…okonomiyaki, that tasty katsu dog at Japadog, cabbage rolls, moshu, the list goes on. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that colcannon would join that list of favourites once I sat down and had it. Fact is, it is just a creamy cloud of tasty on a plate. Let’s get to this healthier version of it!

  • 2 medium potatoes, I used red and did not peel, I like the colour, cubed
  • 1 cup green cabbage, chopped
  • 1/2 cup evaporated skim milk
  • 2 tbl light butter
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 green onion, sliced thinly
  1. Place the potatoes, cabbage and some salt in a pot and cover with cold water.
  2. Bring to a boil, cook until potatoes are fork tender, usually about 15 minutes.
  3. Drain and return to the pot, add the milk, butter, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Mash until desired texture achieved.
  4. Serve with green onion sprinkled on top.

Serves 2 generous portions. Each serving contains 275 calories, 6.4 grams fat, 47.9 grams carbs, 5.7 grams fibre, 9.8 grams protein. Great special occasion dish, although I’m thinking adding a bit of sliced ham to this would make an amazing main dish. Yum!

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Hardcore Hobbit: Wild Mushroom Soup

Posted on October 26, 2011 | 4 comments

To make up for not posting for so long I have made it a double hardcore hobbit recipe week. Am I forgiven? How about after you taste this soup? It is delicious! It is exactly what I needed after a busy day. I paired it with some light havarti stuffed buns. Omnomnom! In Lotro this soup is made using mushrooms, mixed herbs, and leek stock. Fantastic! The soup was nummy nutritious velvet in a bowl. With the large serving size it was incredibly filling, a great dinner course all on it’s own. What hobbit would protest a dinner with mushrooms as the star? Shall we?

  • 5 cups Hardcore Hobbit Leek Stock
  • 4-5 cups various mushrooms, sliced (I used shiitake, portobello, and crimini)
  • 2 tbl soy sauce
  • 1 tsp white pepper
  • 1 fl. ounce dry sherry
  1. Combine the ingredients in a crockpot. Do not worry if the mushrooms seem to over power the amount of stock, they will cook down and provide their own liquid.
  2. Cook for 8 hours on low (or stovetop simmer 30- 60 minutes)
  3. Using a handblender or blending in batches process the soup until it is blended. I went with a texture that was blended but not smooth. I liked the variations in colour and texture. That is personal taste, go with what you like! Season with extra salt or pepper as needed. Serve.
  4. Want a tasty variation? My husband topped his soup with fat free sour cream. He even made a ghost on top to celebrate the season. Isn’t it cute? I tasted his variation and it is indeed nummy!!

Makes 5 generous and filling servings. Each serving contains 205 calories, 5 grams fat, 35 grams carbs, 4.7 grams fibre, and 5.9 grams protein. A great fall day treat. Using local mushrooms makes the flavour of those mushrooms sing! When selecting your variety of mushrooms you might want to check out what is local to your particular shire and in season. Every hobbit deserves the best mushrooms they can find.

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Posted in Comfort Foods, Crockpot Creations, Dinner, Lunch, The Hardcore Hobbit

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Hardcore Hobbit: Leek Stock

Posted on October 24, 2011 | 6 comments

My first weekend at yoga teacher training was a crazy one but a great one! I met a whole bunch of awesome new people AND I worked a couple of really tasty recipes on the side. Epic win! I made this mostly in the crockpot while I was away at training, so it’s perfect for you other busy hobbits out there. In LOTRO leek stock is made with leeks, water and shire taters. I love the smell of this stock, it certainly picked up my spirit when I walked in the door. Look at all those beautiful leeks!

  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 medium onion, diced
  • 2 tbl butter
  • 3 medium leeks, thinly sliced, white/light coloured parts only
  • 4 small potatoes, cubed
  • 5 cups water
  • salt and pepper
  1. Heat a pan to medium high. Add the butter, swirling it around to coat the pan.
  2. Add garlic and onion. Cook until onions begin to caramelize.
  3. Add the leeks, cook for about 1 or two minutes. Stirring constantly.
  4. Pour into a crockpot.
  5. Add the potatoes and water. Heat the crockpot for 8 hours on low. You can do this faster by just adding the ingredients to a stock pot and heating over the stove for 30-45 minutes on medium high. Make sure the potatoes are tender before serving.

Makes 5 super generous servings. Each serving contains 180 calories, 4.9 grams fat, 32 grams carbs, 4 grams fibre, and 3.7 grams protein. This is a great soup base! A great departure from the same old veggie soup base that most vegetarians can get stuck with. You can use lighter butter substitutes for this soup but I found that full fat butter really helped those leeks along flavour wise.

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Posted in Comfort Foods, Crockpot Creations, Dinner, Ingredient, Lunch, The Hardcore Hobbit

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Hardcore Hobbit: Full Breakfast

Posted on August 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

This is a nice and easy hardcore hobbit to get back into the swing of things. Apparently when hobbits say full breakfast, they truly mean FULL breakfast! This makes a great meal for a busy day when you might not have time to stop for a full lunch. You certainly will not be hungry by lunch time….you might not even be done eating your full breakfast by lunch time. In the game a full breakfast includes mushroom, egg, tater, bacon, pork sausage and chives to make it epic. Yes, we got it all in there, with healthy alternatives! Want to see?

  • 2 chicken or turkey sausages ( I suggest visiting your local farmers market or butcher for some really unique flavours. The one we have here is a chicken, pineapple, curry, and cheese sausage from market on millstream)
  • 1 cup egg substitute (like egg creations, etc.)
  • 2 tbl chopped fresh chives
  • 4 slices of canadian bacon
  • Hardcore Hobbit fried mushrooms
  • potato pancakes
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  1. Prepare the sausage and canadian bacon to taste. We did ours on the bbq. Who said the grill is for lunch and dinner only?
  2. Prepare the fried mushroom and potato pancakes and plate.
  3. In a medium heated pan scramble the eggs and plate.
  4. Plate the sausage and canadian bacon and garnish with the chopped chives.

This is another one of those recipes that a nutritional calculation cannot be done for since it all depends on your sausage choices in the end. Choose wisely young hobbits and enjoy a full breakfast!

Is it just me or is that breakfast kind of smiling at us?

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Tonkatsu

Posted on June 17, 2011 | 2 comments

Another one of my favourite ways to enjoy pork. Our trip to Vancouver to once again enjoy a tonkatsu japadog just won’t come fast enough so I had to make some here at home. So nummy, so easy, and really not that bad for you. Avoiding the deep frying really does that. I also modified the breading so that we get more fibre out of it. It’s been so busy and hectic over here, with japanese being my comfort food I guess it comes as no surprise that here is another japanese style recipe to share. Hehe. I love the crunch of this dish, it tastes and sounds like naughty! Being a huge ketchup lover that tonkatsu sauce is nothing but epic win for me.

  • 1 tsp dry mustard
  • 3 tsp dry sherry
  • 1/4 cup ketchup
  • 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
  • 3 tsp soy sauce
  • 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp hoisin sauce
  • 12 oz pork tenderloin chops or stirfry strips (I went with the strips)
  • 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
  • 1/4 cup potato flakes
  1. Combine the first 8 ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
  2. Combine the panko and potato flakes in a plastic bag.
  3. Add the chops or pork strips to the bag and shake to coat.
  4. Arrange the coated pork on a baking sheet and bake at 450F for 20-30 minutes.
  5. Serve with a drizzle of the sauce you made.

Serves 4. Each serving contains 244 calories, 7.9 grams fat, 13.9 grams carbs, 2.4 grams fibre, 26.2 grams protein. Great on a nice sticky rice or shredded cabbage.

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Posted in Comfort Foods, Craving Buster, Dinner

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Hardcore Hobbit: Complete Hobbit Breakfast

Posted on June 6, 2011 | 3 comments

Lotro tells us this delicious breakfast is full of potato, egg, bacon, and mushroom. Really, who could ask for more? This one came to us by accident sort of. Weekend breakfasts are my husband’s domain. Lately though he has been strapped for ideas. He told me he was in the mood for eggs though. So we talked it out and concluded that we should poach said egg and place it on a tasty potato pancake. Then he asked if I wanted bacon. To which I countered “you know…if we work in mushrooms…we have a complete hobbit breakfast!”. So, we tried it out and yes it works. Totally delicious and I would do it again. Each flavour comes through and it is indeed those ingredients in their purest form. Best of all, the egg was a perfect medium poach. My favourite kind. I love it when the egg yolk becomes this gooey buttery sauce to tie together the dish. Break the yolk first and dive in, you won’t regret it.

  • 2 medium red potatoes
  • 2 strips bacon
  • 2 large eggs
  • 4 crimini mushrooms (or mushroom of choice), sliced
  • cooking spray
  • ground pepper to taste
  1. Peel, grate and squeeze the moisture out of the potatoes. Form into two cakes and set aside.
  2. Crisp the bacon in a pan and drain off the fat. Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook until the liquids come out and get soaked up again.
  3. Pulse the mushrooms in a blender to create a tapenade  like texture (chunky, not a puree). Set aside.
  4. Place the potato pancakes in the pan. Cook until golden on one side, about 5 minutes. Flip, press down, and cook until golden. Place on your plate.
  5. Poach the eggs to desired firmness. We use an egg poacher, for the free wheeling way of making these without a poacher you would best refer to Julia Child.
  6. Spoon the mushroom tapenade on the potato pancake. Place the poached egg on top and garnish with your pieces of bacon. Serve!

Serves two. Each serving contains 275 calories, 8.4 grams fat, 37.8 grams carbs, 4.9 grams fibre, and 13 grams protein. What a pretty plate and a tasty brunch that was. Go husband!

 

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Meat Cupcake

Posted on April 20, 2011 | 4 comments

Yup. You read that right. When I first brought our puppy Kaylee home, 2 years ago, I re-watched Firefly with her. She needed to see the real Kaylee that she was named after, she slept through most of it ofcourse. One moment that caught my eye was Simon’s birthday that takes place in the episode ‘out of gas’. Kaylee says (the character, not the dog…if the pup starts telling me things I understand, then the rumors of my craziness have no longer been exaggerated):

Kaylee: [about Simon’s birthday cake] Couldn’t get ahold of no flour, so it’s mostly protein. In fact, it’s pretty much what we just had for dinner.
[everyone laughs]
Kaylee: But I tried to get the frosting as chocolatey tasting as possible.

Hehe. So there it was, I too need to make a meat cake. Now, I didn’t make the frosting as chocolatey as possible but it does make for a mighty fine dinner.

  • 1 lb extra lean ground beef
  • 1/3 cup panko bread crubs
  • 1/2 cup garlic bbq sauce (divided into 1/4 cups)
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
  • 2 tbl dehydrated onion
  • 4 tbl egg substitute
  • 2 cloves garlic, pressed
  • 1/2 tsp italian spice blend
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 cup mashed potato
  1. Combine the ground beef, panko, 1/4 cup bbq sauce, parsley, dehydrated onion, egg substitute, garlic, and spices in a bowl until well mixed.
  2. Press the meat mixture into jumbo muffin cups (6) and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of bbq sauce.
  3. Bake at 350F for 40 minutes.
  4. Remove carefully from the muffin cups, place on your serving plate and top with mashed potatoes. I stuff my mashed potatoes in a sandwich bag, snipped the tip and piped onto each meat cake. Best done when the mashed potatoes are warm.

Makes 6 meat cupcakes, I do not include the potatoes in my serving analysis as everyone likes to make them different or even use the frozen ready made kind. Mine were made with just potatoes, a splash of chicken stock and a tbl of margarine. Each serving contains 224 calories, 13.2 grams of fat, .5 gram of fibre, 9.4 carbs, and 15.8 grams of protein. Each serving also contains a high dose of shiny. Heh, yet another firefly inspired meal…I need to get out more.

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Potato Surprise

Posted on April 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

When I was in my early teens my dad came back from a trip to south africa with a bunch of french culinary magazines for me. I was elated, oh so many new tasty things to pour over, this was of course before the internet was so full of the information it is now. Back when BBS stuff was more the norm. I know, I’m a fair bit aged. I came across a recipe that was called potato surprise that just sounded oh so tasty…and it was. It was the first time I had come across a stuffed potato and I was in love. Years later, driving across the country with my husband I encountered another version of the stuffed potato that made me raise an eyebrow in Alberta. Served in this amazing steakhouse was a spiced potato surprise. I have been adding a kick of spice to them ever since. Now that things around here are a bit lighter I have had to re-imagine my potato surprise and you know what? It is still awesome. Oh potato surprise, you never let me down.

  • 2 large potatoes (any type will do, I’ve done them with them all. For a really interesting show get yourself a blue or purple potato. Awesome!)
  • 1/4 cup fat free sour cream
  • 1 tsp low fat cooking margarine
  • 1 tbl montreal steak spice
  • 1 tbl finely chopped chives
  • 30 grams parmesan cheese
  1. Clean, dry, stab the potatoes with a fork 6 times. Bake at 350F for 1 hour. Sure, you can do them in the micro but I hate the texture you get when that is done. Bleh.
  2. Carefully slice the potatoes in half and allow to cool enough that you can handle them safely.
  3. Scoop out the insides of the potato leaving about a centimeter of flesh still attached to the skin. Reserve the potato flesh in a bowl. Place the skins on a baking sheet.
  4. Add the sour cream, spices, and half the cheese to the potato flesh you reserved. Mash until smooth and creamy (this happens best if the flesh is still warm when you are working with it). If you want to get fancy get out the mixer and whip.
  5. Spoon the mixture back into the potatoes (or if you are being fancy pipe them back in). Top with the remaining cheese.
  6. Place back in the oven at 350F for 20-30 minutes. Serve.

Makes 4 servings (1 half a potato). Each serving contains 191 calories, 3.1 grams of fat, 34.3 carbs, 3.3 grams of fibre, and 7.3 grams of protein. It’s definitely a filling special occasion side dish. The work involved really isn’t much considering it can be broken up. I tend to bake and stuff the potatoes before hand and then do the final baking step right before serving. They work out just fine if you make them the night before. Great for serving to guests.

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Hardcore Hobbit: Large Supreme Repast (Juniper Pork)

Posted on April 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s time to work on our rep! In LOTRO cooks that are a part of the guild prepare certain recipes that help them earn a reputation as a scrumptious cook. Ok maybe not scrumptious but it is rep all the same. One of those recipes is the large supreme repast. Wow….that was a potential typo of doom. The game says this meal is made of pork, spiced potatoes, mint sauce, mixed herbs, mixed spice. As luck would have it I had just visited a local epicurean spice store that is sadly closing it’s doors. This means ofcourse I picked up all sorts of fun spices to play with for unbelievable prices…and play with them I shall. I absolutely had to use the juniper first! It called to me, it told me to do things. Tasty things. Shall we?

  • 1 tbl dried juniper berries
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 12 black peppercorns
  • 1 tbl smoked sea salt
  • 9 oz red potatoes, wedges
  • 8 oz pork tenderloin
  • 1 tbl dried parsley
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • butter cooking spray
  • Hardcore Hobbit Mint Sauce
  1. Grind the juniper berries, 1 clove of garlic, smoked salt, and peppercorns together. Rub the mixture to coat the outside of the pork tenderloin. Allow to sit for atleast 1 hour.
  2. Boil the potato wedges for 15-20 minutes or until fork tender but not too tender.
  3. In a separate bowl, press the garlic and add the parsley, oregano and pepper flakes. Add some salt and pepper if desired. Add the cooked potatoes and toss to coat. Pour the potatoes onto a baking sheet and spray with butter spray.
  4. Heat the oven to 425F. Cook the potatoes for 35-40 minutes.
  5. Heat a skillet to medium high. Add the pork tenderloin. Sear on all sides for 2 minutes. Move the pork tenderloin to the oven and cook for 25-30 minutes.
  6. Allow to rest 5 minutes before slicing. Serve topped with a drizzle of mint sauce and potatoes on the side.

Serves 2. Each serving contains 324 calories, 9.5 grams of fat, 5 grams of fibre, 36 grams of protein and 21.3 grams of carbs. Great served with a side of steamed asparagus to complete the dish. I have to say I am totally in love with the way juniper goes with pork. So floral and woodsy at the same time! Perfect for a hobbit dish. I must explore this spice more.

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