Good Ekadashi Dish

I know Ekadashi is still about a week away, but this is one of my favorite ekadashi dishes.

Start with a potato - See small yukon gold potato

Grate and put in water, rinse out the potato starch

Lay out to dry on either a cloth or paper towel, layer another on top. (I sometimes add weight so as much of the water gets absorbed.)

Once dry, in a warm pan, put some oil and add half of the shredded potatoes. DO NOT TOUCH. Leave it alone till the edges are looking nice and brown.

Then sprinkle some yummy cheese. (Use good melting cheese.) You can add tomatoes, or chopped serrano or bell peppers, whatever you are desiring. Sprinkle some black pepper. Do not sprinkle salt!

(Its really easy to over salt this dish, but if the cheese isn't salty enough you can always sprinkle it on top after you've tasted it.)

(Look at the gooey cheese. And see the browning on the edges? That's what you have to wait for before you touch it.)

Add the second half of the shredded potatoes, then carefully cover the pan with a plate, and flip the hash browns onto the plate. Then slide it back into the pan, so the beautiful golden bottom is now the top. Cook until the bottom is nice and golden brown. Cut into pieces and enjoy!

This dish is really yummy, and really simple when you are hungry. The first time you attempt this dish it might be hard not to disturb the potatoes, but trust me, leave them alone, otherwise you'll ruin that beautiful crust you see up there.

Enjoy a stuffed hash brown for me!

(Tomorrow Mira's new favorite salad and salad dressing)

Such a long wait....

Sorry for the long absence, been busy trying to finish my paper so I can get closer to graduating. So I get tired of writing.

A simple dish - A Caprese salad with a twist.

Normally, most people make their caprese salad with fresh mozarella, good tomatoes, fresh basil and olive oil.

But I didn't have mozarella and I had amazing tomtatoes and basil. So I made a monterey jack cheese caprese salad.

Remember, do not put salt or pepper. The goal is to enjoy the taste of tomatoes, good cheese, and good olive oil all with some yummy basil.

Pesto Potato Salad

Okay so yesterday I made Pesto Potato salad using a Smitten Kitchen recipe, but since it was Ekadashi I didn't use the green beans and instead replace it with oven roasted tomatoes from 101 cookbooks (check the bottom of the recipe to see the instructions for the tomatoes).

So what did I do?

First - Oven Roast the tomatoes (they take a long time)

cut cherry tomatoes in half

then toss them with olive oil, a little salt and honey (the original recipe calls for brown sugar, but I love my bee spit).

After tossing them with the yummy mixture above, lay them out (cut side up) on a oven safe pan (I used a pizza pan with parchment paper, so there won't be any clean up). And bake them in a 350 ºF oven for 45 mins. (I can't remember how long I baked them, but strangely it takes a long time.)

Then the Potatoes

So the smart way to do this is roughly chop (ie don't be a perfectionist about this) yukon gold potatoes and put them into a pot of salted water, cook for about 14 mins (key here DO NOT LET THEM OVER COOK!)

Now the way I did it cause I was distracted -

I boiled whole yukon gold potatoes for more then 30 mins, then realized my mistake, then roughly chopped them and cooked for about 4 - 6 mins (This strangely worked well cause I avoided turning my potatoes into a watery mess. Yucky!) Drain the potatoes when done.

while potatoes are cooking, make up a mess of pesto without pine nuts.

in the pesto I used: a bunch of basil, olive oil, salt and pepper

In a food processor throw in the basil, grind till its fine, then drizzle in olive oil till everything is nicely mixed - then add salt and pepper.

Then using a vegetable peeler slice slivers of parmesan cheese. (Keep on side)

Last but not least - pan roast some pine nuts (takes about 5 mins, do not leave them alone!)

Ok - we are almost done - take the drained potatoes, the pesto, some balsamic vinegar (the recipe calls for white balsamic, but I don't own white), salt, pepper, cheese, pine nuts and the tomatoes. Mix!

Adjust taste to your liking. Enjoy!

Yummy!

Fat-free potato chips are my savior?

This recipe goes completely to Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

So these are simple,

I started with two golden potatoes - which are delicious already.

Peel and thinly slice potatoes - if you have a slicer, they will be even and nice, but don't worry, cause I don't have a slicer and I was able to slice some nice slivers of my potatoes. Not perfect, but decent all things considering.

Then lay the slices out a piece of parchment paper. (Don't use a paper towel - I did this when I ran out of parchment paper - no go! the potato slices stick like nobodys business. Also, don't do plates, they stick worse to plates then paper towels). Then salt, ensure you don't don't oversalt cause after the first 10 pieces the salt can get to you. (You can add other seasonings, but I recommend getting the basics down. Its amazing how simple of a recipe it is and yet how easy it is to screw up)

Then microwave (Fat Free Vegan Kitchen says 4-6 mins) till the chips are starting to bubble and brown.

Stop the microwave for at least 1 min, then cook it till they look goldenish. Not all will be goldenish, since in my case the outside ring of slices cooked almost till burnt and the inside was slighty under done. In cases such is that, removed the finished ones and continue cooking.

Enjoy!

So yummy!