Week 6 -- Twice Baked Potato Bites

For the Super Bowl party we went to, I decided to make twice baked potatoes. Except all the recipes called for full size potatoes. Who would eat a half a potato as an appetizer?? Craziness.. anyways, I made my potato bites with red potatoes because they were much smaller than Russets. A good tip that I read recently when cooking food for guests was: don't skimp on the calories. This usually makes for a much tastier dish. For this appetizer, I seasoned all layers of the potato bite starting from the potato shell, through the mashed potatoes, and even after the dish was cooked. Made it much tastier!!

Although the prep time on this recipe is not long at all (I'm thinking around 45 minutes) I spent all day on these. I only have limited time to play with my son so he takes priority over cooking. So when I have to cook, I usually distract him. This week's distraction was baked apple slices with cinnamon and powdered sugar. So during his nap times and during feeding distractions, I prepped this week's dish for nearly 5 hours.

To start the appetizer, I cooked the bacon (there's nothing like butcher shop thick sliced seasoned bacon.. MMMMM....), boiled the potatoes with some rosemary, and chopped up some garlic, parsley, and chives.

After the potatoes were cooked, I sliced them in half, scooped out the centers, and blended that with sharp cheddar cheese, sour cream, and the bacon/garlic/parsley/chives. Put that mix into the potato shells, top with more cheese and then bake until the cheese is a few minutes from burning. That way everything inside the dense appetizer gets cooked. Then just top with some freshly chopped parsley. A tip from the famous Giada... rub olive oil around the skin of the potato shell before baking. This way they kind of get "fried" and crispy.

Week 5 -- Beignets (Ben-yays)

I got the urge to try this after watching another movie with my bride. The Princess and the Frog. In one of the scenes, the main character's friend asks her to make "some of those man catchin beignets!!". Never knew what that was but the movie made it look soooooo delicious. So after further investigating, they end up being an original doughnut made with yeast, flour, sugar,... and fried. After they're done cooking, they have a bath in powdered sugar, can be drizzled with honey, syrup...

The recipe that I was following said that there was a 25minute prep, and a few minutes of cooking. Well, they forgot to factor 8 hours for the dough chilling/rising so that was kind of a bummer... Oh yeah, they also forgot to count time to run to the store because you forgot shortening, ran out of flour, and didn't have enough frying oil.

Beignets

1 package active dry yeast (3/4 oz)

1 ½  cups warm water (1 and a half cups)

½  cup sugar

1 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 cup evaporated milk

7 cups flour (leveled)

¼ cup vegetable shortening

Non-flavored oil (enough to fill an inch in a pan)

Powdered sugar (optional)

Honey (optional)

Add water to a bowl/kitchenaid

Sprinkle in all the yeast and ~2 tsp sugar

Stir this until well dissolved and let sit for 10 minutes

Add the rest of the sugar, salt, eggs and evaporated milk and blend it all together

Slowly add 4 cups of flour

Add the shortening and make sure all chunks are well blended

Slowly add the rest of the flour

Cover with plastic wrap and let sit overnight

Heat the oil pretty hot

Put a lot (and I mean a lot) of flour on a rolling surface and roll out the dough to about the thickness of half a pencil. (the recipe said 1/8 inch but I’m not gonna get out a ruler)

Cut into shapes

Test a small chunk of dough to see if it rises to the top when fried. If not, increase temp.

Fry each side about 30sec-1minute or until golden. Put on paper towels to dry.

Serve hot/crispy with powdered sugar/honey or whatever else you want.

I used a kitchenaid with paddle for the first 4 cups of flour and shortening. Afterwards I used the dough hook. You can use your hands or spoons too but it gets thick and sticky.