Twice "Baked" Potatoes

         Woooooo weee! Hello! It’s been a busy few weeks. I have been traveling to Hong Kong, catching up with work, and celebrating. The weather here is still hot, but is cool in the morning and at night. I’m looking forward to all things fall, as it’s one of my favourite times of the year.

          My trip to Hong Kong was absolutely amazing, with a minor setback (more of that later). I would 100% recommend travelling to Hong Kong if you can. The Simmering Seoulmate and I spend a wonderful five days in Hong Kong at the beginning of September. We saw amazing skyscrapers, walked around down by the harbor, sailed on a boat, rode the Peak Tram, visited the Big Buddha, and of course went to Disneyland! I wanted to do a whole post about the delicious dim sum and other Chinese food that we ate in Hong Kong, but unfortunately I came down with food poisoning the night after our big dim sum meal. But, don’t worry, I've still been cooking and have a recipe to share with you today.    

The Simmering Seoulmate and I found these enormous potatoes at our local mart. We have also made a trip to Costco recently and purchased a bunch of staples and a few other treats, like bacon and cheese! One night, he was craving twice baked potatoes so I whipped up a very indulgent version of them below which included both cheese and bacon, yummy!

So technically these are only once baked, because I was feeling lazy, but they were delicious all the same. I made the mistake of cutting the potatoes in half before microwaving them, don’t do that. The tops dried out and were a bit difficult to scoop the potatoes out of the skin.

Ingredients
2 enormous potatoes
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
3 sliced of bacon
3 tbsp milk
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 green onions chopped

Directions
Step 1 - Place your potatoes on a dish and stab them with a fork a few times. Microwave them for eternity, because that’s what it felt like waiting for these monsters to cook through. But, really microwave them for about 20 minutes. While the potatoes are being zapped, fry the bacon until crispy and cut up.

Step 2 – Preheat oven to 400ºF or 200 ºC. Scoop the potatoes out of the skin leaving about 1/2 a centimeter still attached and set skins aside. Add the milk, butter, salt, pepper and garlic powder to the potatoes and mash until there are no huge chunks.

Step 3 – Add the mashed potatoes and top with grated cheese, bacon pieces and green onions. Pop into the oven until the cheese is bubbly. About 10 minutes.

You can serve these with sour cream if you like, but we ate them as is. I hope you enjoy these as much as we did! Enjoy!

Makes four huge portions

4 Cheese Baked Spin Dip

I love dips, especially ones involving cheese. I think the following dip might be my favourite kind of dip ever. Almost every time I got to a restaurant and see a spinach dip on the menu, I order it right away. The ooey gooey cheese combined with the salty chips is simply irresistible. I’ve been craving spin dip recently, but it is almost impossible to find in a restaurant in Korea. So without further adieu... enjoy this tasty treat!

Ingredients

-          200g of cream cheese (one container)

-          Large bunch of spinach

-          1 cup grated pepper jack cheese (you can use any cheese of your choice, I just like the spiciness of the    pepper jack)

-          ¼ cup of sour cream

-          ¼ cup of parmesan cheese

-          ¼ red pepper

-          ½ cup of cheddar cheese

-          Pinch of cayenne pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 205°C (400°F). Mix the cream cheese, sour cream, and parmesan cheese together in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until well combined. Wash and drain your spinach and pat dry. Don’t skip drying your spinach, because it will make your dip soggy. YUCK! Chop the spinach up, toss it into the bowl and mix well. Next, add the pepper jack and mix again.

Spoon the mix into a baking dish and top with cheddar cheese and a sprinkling of cayenne pepper. Pop it into the oven for 20 minutes. Let cool down for 5 minutes and serve with tortilla chips.  

Panko Mozza Sticks

Recently, I found some Korean frozen mozzarella sticks at my local mart. They tasted pretty delightful to me, but after making these homemade sticks I’ll never go back… well maybe.

This past weekend was a nice four day holiday for Korean Lunar New Year (Seollal), so I decided to spend some time whipping up a delicious mid day snack for my boyfriend and I. A nice big HomePlus opened up nearby and had a 1+1 deal on mozzarella sticks, which inspired me to finally try making homemade mozzarella sticks. The rest of the ingredients can be easily found at most local marts. Enjoy!

Ingredients

·         6 mozzarella sticks

·         1 egg

·         ¼ cup of milk

·         1 cup of panko breadcrumbs

·         1 tbsp of dried or fresh parsley (I used dried)

·         1 cup of flour

·         Canola oil for frying

·         Marinara sauce for dipping (optional)

Prepare three shallow bowls. In one bowl, pour in the flour. In the second bowl, wisk the egg and milk together with a fork. For the last bowl, combine the parsley and panko bread crumbs.

Next, cut each mozza stick in half.

Then, roll each stick in flour, dip in the egg mixture, and then place into the panko mixture. Instead of rolling the eggy-cheese stick in panko, place the panko over the stick and press. I find the stick gets covered more evenly this way.

        Once all of your sticks are ready, place on a tray or cookie sheet and pop them into the freezer for 20-30 minutes. (I went out for about an hour. Don’t worry if you leave them in for awhile, just don’t leave them in all afternoon)

After 30 minutes (or an hour if you’re forgetful like me), take those sticks out of the freezer and heat up oil on Medium to Medium-High depending on your stove top (Medium worked well for me). Fill the pan with an inch to an inch and a half of oil.

Make sure the oil is hot enough before putting the sticks in the oil. Turn the sticks over when they've browned slightly. These little treats cook quickly, maybe 1-2 minutes. Don’t crowd your pan. Fry the sticks in batches of 6-8 at a time.

When done place them on a paper towel to absorb the oil and serve with marinara. I was feeling lazy so I used Ottogi pizza sauce, which was surprisingly good when heated up slightly. 

Happy New Year! 

Recipe adapted from: http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2010/05/panko-mozzarella-sticks/