Potatoes au Gratin

WARNING!  Extreme cheesy, creamy, carb-y, yummy-ness to follow!

Okay, I am a meat and potatoes kind of girl.  Not that I indulge in them at every meal. . . but when you start talking about favorites. . . there are potatoes.  Lots of them.  With cream and butter and cheese, please.  So without further ado ~

Gather the following:

Potatoes (about 1/person, maybe add a few extras if they're small)
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup milk
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, plus some for topping (I pretty much used the whole bag)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (OH - perfect temp to sit in the oven next to the meatloaf ~ coincidence?).  You might also want to go ahead and grease a baking dish.  I had a pretty little oval, you can use whatever size fits the amount of potatoes you're cooking.

Slice your potatoes evenly, like so.  A mandoline would be fabulous here, if you have one.  Mine is broken :( so I just sliced them by hand.

Stand them up in your greased dish.  Make sure there's room for them to move a bit, you want cream to fit in all the cracks.

In a bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients.

Pour that over, around and between the potatoes.

Put in oven uncovered for about 45 minutes, until you can stick a fork in them easily.  Mmmm....rich, creamy, bubbly goodness!!!

Remove from oven, and top with some more shredded cheddar. 

Put back in oven for about 12 minutes, until cheese is nice and bubbly.

Oooohhhhh. My. Wow!

Carb-loading (only on occasion) works for me!
See what works for everyone else.

Salsa Pork Chops Over Lemon-Garlic Zucchini

Okay, so you might be noticing a trend here...I use salsa A LOT.  It's a fast way for me to inject a lot of flavor in a little bit of time ~ and my kids love salsa, so it's an easy win.  And really, who doesn't want their kid begging for more tomatoes?  I do recommend using fresh salsa, though.  You can usually find some in the produce section of your local grocery, or you can make your own.  This dish sort of fell together all by itself.  I had pork chops in the fridge, a co-worker gave me some zucchini and when it looked a little boring I used my trusty fallback - salsa.  John & I loved it...the kids ate it, but they didn't seem to love or hate it.  But they're kids, some days that's all we get, right?

So here we go...let's make dinner!

*Get the printable recipe for zucchini*

First, cut your zucchini so it will fit into the tube of the food processor.

Fit your food processor with the shredder blade, and drop them in one at a time.  I just love the look of this...it's like food confetti.

Slice some garlic.  I like a lot of garlic (6 cloves), you may like less (maybe 4 cloves).

Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan; add in the sliced garlic.  Let that cook for about 3 min.

Add in the zucchini and a couple pinches of salt; stir.  Let that cook in for about 5 minutes.

Add lemon juice and another pinch of salt; stir; cover; reduce to low.

I went really easy on the pork chops.  Season with salt and pepper,

throw them in a pan over some hot olive oil (about 4 minutes on each side).  Add in some salsa (about 1 tablespoon/pork chop) when you flip to the second side. 

I plated them together for the adults

 And separately for the kiddos

 All in all, it was a simple, but successful dinner.  What are you having tonight?

Salsa Baked Potato

I regularly follow Debbie at Words to Eat By.  I love her blog.  Her recipes are wonderful, real and accessible.  I saw on her blog yesterday that a certain company was holding a blogger competition.  The company wants bloggers to dis the potato in favor of their boxed stuffing.  Debbie, along with other food bloggers, was not happy about this contest.

I tend to agree with her.  To say I'm not a fan of boxed food is a gross understatement.  So I'm joining in the defense of versatile spuds.  When I first read her potato post I began to think of wonderful, rich, creamy potato dishes.  Ultimately I settled on what some may call plain Jane--a simple baked potato. 

They're so good though.  I frequently bake 3 or 4 on a Sunday and use them for lunches throughout the week.  Don't freak out over the stigma potatoes get on being bad for your waistline - they're not!  It's the topping we generally place all over spuds that get us into trouble.  So try this idea - top a baked potato with salsa, black beans, corn and cheese.  It's a filling meal that's very satisfying and super yum without regret.

Here's how I do mine:

Wash the outsides first and pat dry

Then lay out a square of foil for each one

Rub them down with butter and sprinkle with salt

Wrap them tightly in the foil and throw them in the oven (I put them on a cookie sheet first, just 'cause it's easier to get a bunch in and out that way).

When they're done, unwrap the foil and cut the potato

Add some black beans and corn.  *Oh, you don't see corn?  It's there, I....okay, I just knew there was some in the pantry, apparently I was wrong {don't tell anyone I said that}*

Salsa, lots of salsa.

And cheese....now throw it under the broiler for a few minutes aaaaaaannnnnnnndddddddd................

Good and good for you.  And there are extras for lunch tomorrow....just saved you six bucks on some not so edible drive thru.  If you're the type that has to have meat in every meal (some days that's me) feel free to add some chicken.

You can get the printable recipe for Baked Potatoes here.  I know it's pretty straight-forward, but for some reason I still have to call my mom every time to ask the temperature.

Enjoy!!!