The Twelve Posts of Christmas: Lemon Myrtle Hasselback Potatoes

I won't have any choice but to make potatoes dauphinoise for Christmas this year (siblings and husband expect it!) but I do really like hasselbacks - they look pretty, crisp nicely, and you can put all sorts of flavourings on them. If you fancy some Aussie flavoured ones try some lemon myrtle - it gives them a lovely little tang and these also pair really well with the vegie ribbon tart! 

Ingredients

Washed roasting potatoes skin on (allow 1 1/2 potatoes per person minimum)

sunflower oil

sea salt flakes

lemon myrtle dried

Method

Cut potatoes in half, and then put cut side down. Using a sharp knife make vertical cuts a few millimetres apart leaving about 1 cm uncut at the bottom. 

Place on a baking tray and drizzle with sunflower oil, sea salt flakes and lemon myrtle. 

Bake at 180C for approximately 40 - 50 minutes until golden and crisp. 

The Twelve Posts of Christmas: Vegan Potatoes Dauphinoise

These potatoes are the perfect comfort food on their own, not to mention going brilliantly with a vegie roast. My mum makes a similar version of these which we always called scalloped Christmas potatoes, although she never cooked the potatoes in milk first. She would finish the top of this incredibly cheesy dish with parsley and paprika for Christmas colours. There was always a fight, especially with my Dad and sister Rachel, as to who got the biggest serve, and who could have seconds. No such thing as leftover potatoes in out house! I never thought there could be a creamy enough vegan version of these, as all the other recipes I've tried involve making a sauce from tofu, which I find goes a bit grainy. So this is my version, made with coconut cream, which I find just as satisfying as the dairy version. The coconut can't be tasted when the potatoes are cooked, by the way! Allow at least two good sized spuds per person for a generous serve.

Ingredients

8 medium sized potatoes

1 can coconut cream

200 ml water or soymilk/ricemilk

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 brown onions

1 large garlic clove - if you like garlic, have two!

2 tsp nutritional yeast

ground black pepper

1 log cheezly cheddar or other vegan cheese of your choice

vegan margarine

Method

Wash and peel potatoes and slice thinly - I used my mandolin which makes short work of this, but a sharp knife is fine too! Drop into a basin of cold water if it takes you a while to slice, or if you are doing a large batch. Drain well when you are ready to use.

Chop onion.

Grate cheese.

Using a blender, blend half the coconut cream, and half the water with garlic, Dijon mustard, ground black pepper to taste, and nutritional yeast.

I use a heavy bottomed iron casserole dish that can go from stove top to oven, but if you don't have one, use a saucepan for this next step, and then transfer to an oven dish.

Put potatoes in pot with chopped onion, and then pour blended mixture over the top to cover. Cook gently on medium heat until about half the liquid is absorbed, or the potatoes have softened (not cooked, just softened they shouldn't fall apart!

Mix the remaining liquid, and pour over potatoes. Add two thirds of the cheese, and turn through potatoes gently.

Cover with foil or a lid and place in oven on 180C for about 45 minutes. Check to see if the potatoes are fully cooked, and liquid level. the potatoes should not be dry, they should be saucy, and move around a little bit. Remove the foil or lid, and then dab blobs of vegan margarine over top of potatoes. Sprinkle remaining cheese over, and add paprika and parsley if desired. Place back in oven for 10 -15 minutes until top is golden.

Vegan MoFo: Gluten Free Warm Pasta & Potato Salad

The Beloved was out tuning again last night (he does pipe organ tuning still to keep up his skills), so the Kitchen Fairy and myself had a simple dinner.  I roasted some chat potatoes; cooked some gluten free penne; sauteed some mushrooms, onions, and pinenuts; and added some salad leaves, tomato and olives. I tossed some olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the lot, with some lemon and pepper, and voila! Dinner for some can't-be-very-bothered people!

Spring Planting: Potatoes

Spring is almost here! I can smell it in the air, the jonquils and daffodils are bursting into flower and their delicate perfume is wafting over various parts of our garden. So it's time to plant some spuds. Well, more spuds, because I was a bit sneaky and jumped the gun a bit two weeks ago and planted the first lot under a blanket of frost netting to get an early start. I'll be bandicooting potatoes by Christmas, and my mouth is watering at the thought of baby new potatoes with fresh herbs from the garden smothered in butter and salt and pepper...mmmm. they are easy to grow and produce prolifically - I got about 5kg of spuds from each seed potato last year, and there are lots of varieties to choose from. We have just run out of the ones I stored over winter,so from early harvesting in December through to the end of August we didn't have to buy a potato- saved a few $$ there! So how do you go about planting them?

Well drained rich soil is a must. If the soil is too wet, the potatoes will rot and /or develop diseases which give ghastly skin or rotten cores. A raised bed, or large container is the best idea, as drainage is not an issue and you can easily build up the soil. I've seen potatoes grown in old tyres, tried it myself in chicken wire and newspaper towers (as below), and even straw bales. The trick is to keep building up the soil level as the plant grows, and make sure that the developing tubers are well covered, or they will go green. Green potatoes are toxic and should not be eaten. So wherever you plant them, make sure you have enough room to biuld up, and the plants have room to spread out as the tubers develop. Think containers like half wine barrels, old bathtubs etc...

If you are planting into the ground ,the first step is to make sure the soil is loose and friable. Use a hoe and get rid of any weeds - I'm lucky because my chookies have been digging over my potato bed for the last month and have eradicated weeds completely. If you're like me and sensibly ordered them weeks ago, they should have arrived by now, and they should have greened up and begun to sprout if you have left them in a well lit area ( Don't put in direct sunlight or the tubers will 'burn.' You don't need them sprouted as much as the ones pictured below, but at least 1cm is good.

Dig a trench and place tubers with the "eyes" up approximately 30-40cm apart as pictured below. I plant mine at least 10 cm deep. As the plant grows you will hill up more soil around the main stem of the plant which will in turn produce more tubers. you will then end up with trenches between the hilled up plants, which assist with drainage. 

By October my plants will look something like this, but being in the mountains I will still need to cover them at night for frost until early November. (You shouldn't get cats sprouting from yours by the way lol). In Spring the plants put a lot of effort into growth, and need good soil, well rotted manure, and compost. When Murray mows the lawn I throw the clippings over the top to help hill up around the plants, and also water with Seasol once a fortnight until December. When summer comes, don't let the soil dry out. A good mulch will help keep the soil moist, and once the potatoes have bushed out water loss will be minimal as they cover the ground really well. If you push your finger into the soil, the soil particles should stick together, but still be a bit crumbly.

By December the plants will be well established and look like this. You will then be able to gently dig down and "bandicoot" that is, steal early spuds for Christmas lunch. The others left behind will have more room to grow and thus you will get bigger tubers for storing later on. So go and get started!