Okay, I know, second post of the day, but I made scalloped potatoes from scratch for the first time ever and it got me excited. I got the recipe from "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence," by Amy Sedaris, which Cherilyn sent me for my birthday. It was pretty simple and really tasty. Yay!
Scalloped Potatoes
1 Tbs minced parsley
1 cup thinly sliced onion
2 ½ cups thinly sliced potatoes
1 tsp salt
1 ½ Tbs butter
3 ½ Tbs flour
1 cup milk
pepper to taste
paprika to taste
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
1.Preheat oven to 400F.
2.Boil potatoes and onions 5 minutes, then drain and set aside.
3.For cream sauce, melt butter in medium saucepan, then add flour and milk. Add salt, pepper, and paprika and stir until thick. Add cheese and stir until fairly smooth.
4.Oil bottom of 9x12 baking dish. Place a layer of potatoes and onions, then a layer of sauce, then parsley. Alternate until finished with ingredients. Bake 35 minutes until sauce is browning and potatoes are cooked through.
So how do you get the cream sauce to work? I tried to make mac'n'cheese from scratch a while ago, and the recipe called for a cream sauce that was essentially like this, and I thought I followed the recipe, but it was a complete disaster. Instead of turning creamy, the flour got all balled up and floated in the milk and butter.
ReplyDelete(So the next time I made mac'n'cheese from scratch I just did away with the cream sauce altogether. I read a NYTimes article about mac'n'cheese and one of the people they interviewed said she made it with just cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. That was awesome, although a complete artery-buster.)
BTW, why the redesign? I liked the first one - but I like this one too. Either way, really, just curious.
I'm pretty sure the key is to use a real whisk to stir with. I made another recipe with cream sauce this week (I'll post that sometime but it's pretty long) and I started with a wooden spoon and the same clumpy mess started happening. So I grabbed the whisk and stirred like crazy and everything magically fixed. This time I went straight for the whisk and it worked again.
ReplyDeleteI liked the old design too, but I discovered the tomato background more or less accidentally and it seemed more delicious so I switched. But the old title color didn't show up well on the new tomato background, so I made that blue. I'm kind of a crazy fiddler with stuff like that, so it might change again, but the tomatoes seemed fitting.
I like both designs and I agree that tomatoes seem thematically appropriate. Lorien has that Amy Sedaris book and it's really fun. I am getting the feeling that I just don't make potatoes often enough. Maybe I should rememdy that.
ReplyDeleteI think potatoes get a bad rap these days. I mean, sure, it's awful if that's the main (or worse, only) vegetable you eat. But they're really versatile, they take flavor well, and they fill you right up. So I don't cook them every week or anything, but we have a lot of potato dishes.
ReplyDeleteOh boy, potatoes! Me and the Missus won't hear a bad word about them. Absolutely they can't be the only veggie you eat (are they even a veggie?), but goodness gracious. I think I feel a potato post coming on...
ReplyDelete