Potato Latkes

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. I spent my vacation in Phuket, Thailand and had a fantastic time. I’ve decided that I love Thai food and I’m going to attempt to make some of my own at home, using spice packets I picked up at the airport on my way back to Seoul.

I’ve only got a few months left in Korea before I move back to Canada for good and the week that followed Christmas was a whirlwind of craziness. I decided to relax this weekend, so I made something that I’d been craving; Potato latkes. These delightful fried potato pancakes have been a favourite side dish of mine since I was a young girl. I remember my mom making them for dinner and me eating several of them!

We ate them for lunch, but they make a great side dish to any main course. Give them a try or let me know below how you like to make these delicious potato treats!

Potato Latkes

Ingredients
4 medium potatoes peeled 1/2 onion fined diced
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp flour
salt and pepper
vegetable oil

Directions
Heat a skillet over medium high heat and place about a tablespoon of oil in the pan and cook onions until soft and translucent, about 2-3 minutes. Set aside.

Grate the potatoes with a cheese grater into a medium bowl. Place the grated potatoes in a tea towel or cheese cloth and squeeze out as much water as possible. Place them back into the bowl and add in flour, onions, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add in the egg yolk and stir until all ingredients are combined.

In a large skillet, heat about an inch of vegetable oil over medium heat. Take about two tablespoons of the potato mixture and press flat into the hot skillet.  Cook for about two minutes or until they edges appear brown. Flip and cook for another two minutes. Place on a plate lined with paper towels to drain. Serve with sour cream or apple sauce.

Makes about 12 – 15 medium latkes.

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

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Happy Sunday everyone! Last week, I made stuffed peppers for the second time. They are quickly becoming a weeknight dinner favourite in my house. They are fairly easy to put together and you can add whatever kind of meat and veggies you’d like. The quinoa really fills you up! This is a dish that can be made vegetarian by simply skipping the meat. I hope you give them a try.

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetable stock
500g ground pork
1 head of broccoli chopped
½ onion finely diced
4 cloves of garlic
4 large red peppers
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder

Preheat oven to 400  ̊F. Add quinoa to vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer on low for 15 minutes. While the quinoa is cooking, steam broccoli for about 10 minutes and chop into small pieces. Cook onions and garlic with ground pork in a frying pan with a splash of olive oil and some salt and pepper, until the pork is no longer pink. Cut the tops off the peppers and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds. Once your quinoa is finished cooking add the pork mixture and steamed broccoli and stir to combine. Spoon the filling into the peppers until filled all the way.

Topping
3 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
1 tbsp butter
½ tsp Italian seasoning

Melt the butter and combine ingredients in a bowl. Sprinkle on top of the stuffed peppers and bake for 30 minutes at 400  ̊F

After stuffing the 4 peppers fully, there was some filling left over, which I ate later that week for lunch, but you could definitely stuff 6 peppers if you wanted too. 

Salt and Vinegar Chips

A week ago, our school took the kindergartners to a farm to pick potatoes. They had panted some back in March, and the time had come to got pick some up. It’s mostly just a photo op that involved two men from work digging up the potatoes and the students picking one up and posing for an individual shot. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves anyway and I got to take home some fresh from the garden potatoes. 

I’d had a craving for salt and vinegar favored chips, which are hard to come by and only available in foreigner stores here for a high price. So, I decided to make some using some of the potatoes I got from the farm. A few years back, I attempted to make vinegar infused french fries and they didn't turn out tasting very good. This time I thought I would try to make chips instead, hoping the thin cut of the chips would let them soak up more vinegar flavour. These chips turned out great when served right away and got better when left out for a day to dry up a bit more, when I had them as a snack. 

Salt and Vinegar Chips

Ingredients
6-8 medium potatoes
2 cups of white vinegar
pinch of salt
3-4 cups canola oil for frying

Directions
For this recipe you do not need to peel the potatoes, so make sure you wash them well and cut out any eyes. Next, slice the potatoes as thinly as possible. If you have a mandolin, use that. If not, use a sharp knife and be careful when cutting. Soak the potatoes slices in water for about 20 minutes in a bowl in the refrigerator. After that, put the potatoes into a large pot and pour the vinegar over top. Pour enough boiling water over top to cover the potatoes. Let the potatoes sit in the pot for about 45 minutes to an hour. Fill a large pan with the oil. (I use a wok to fry food, because it’s the biggest pan I've got.) Heat oil over medium to medium low heat on your stove top. Working in small batches, fry the potatoes until they are a light golden brown colour. This takes about 10 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the oil using a slotted spoon or long handled mesh strainer and toss with salt. To keep your potatoes hot while cooking the other batches, put finished chips on a metal sheet pan and throw into a low temperature oven.

The vinegar taste is actually quite subtle, but definitely noticeable. If you like even more of a vinegar taste, drizzle with malt vinegar.

Enjoy!

Oven Roasted Asparagus

Asparagus is one of my favorite veggies. In Korea, asparagus can be expensive. I recently found it at my local mart and the price was finally reasonable. Asparagus tastes delicious cooked every which way. I usually like to steam it and cover it with a little butter and parmesan cheese, but since I’d already had it twice this week I thought I’d try a healthier option.  This delicious fresh veggie goes well as a side dish or can be added to a pasta or rice dish.

Ingredients

1 small bunch of asparagus
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 clove of garlic
pinch of salt
pinch of cracked black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 ̊ F (200 ̊ C). Break off the ends of your asparagus. Sometimes, it’s sad to see a few inches of your beautiful asparagus discarded, but don’t worry, those discarded ends are the woody bits and are lacking in moisture. The asparagus will break naturally where the woody part meets the fresh green part. Next, lay the asparagus out on a cookie sheet. Drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice over the asparagus. Then, put the garlic through a garlic press and spread over the asparagus. Use your hands and don’t be afraid to get messy! Sprinkle the salt and pepper over the asparagus and pop in the oven for about 15 minutes.

                                                                        Serves two.