And did you also know that February is Potato Lover’s Month! Well here is a recipe that you should probably try to make if you are so inclined. I fell in love with this dish in Spain and even got an authentic recipe from an amazing cook in Spain and then got offered an opportunity to remake it on my own and publish it over at the Idaho Potatoes website! (link coming soon)

Yup, these potatoes come from Idaho. I’ve been to Idaho once, it was beautiful out there.  So I love this recipe, it takes only about 5 ingredients and a half an hour. A better version of a Claire Robinson Fix Ingredient Fix or Rachel Ray 30 minute meal.

The cast of characters… Olive Oil, Truffle Oil, Shallots, Eggs and POTATOES.

First, peel the potatoes, then cut lengthwise and slice thinly (especially with a new pink polka dot knife, that makes it extra better).

Then salt the potatoes!

Get your eggs… whisk them up nicely…

Slice up your shallots and saute them on the stove for about 5 minutes until crispy.

Meanwhile, heat up the olive oil and cook the potatoes over medium high for about 8 minutes until tender.

Then add the fancy truffle oil to the eggs.

And then voila! Mix all of your ingredients together. Oh even this looks amazingly delicious.

Then heat up some oil in the big nonstick pan and pour everything back in.

After some cooking, a scary flip of the pan and some more cooking you will have this:  Crusty, Savory, Browned Potato Heaven.

Tortilla Española with Shallots and Truffle Oil

Ingredients:
4 medium Idaho Russet Burbank Potatoes
Salt
2.5 cups of Olive Oil
4 Shallots
4 Large Eggs
1 tsp Truffle Oil

Directions:
1. Peel potatoes, slice lengthwise, cut into 1/8″ slices crosswise, and generously salt. Heat ~2 cups of oil in large frying pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add all of the potato slices to pan, reduce heat to medium, and cook potatoes until tender, around 8 minutes. Remove potatoes from pan using slotted spoon onto a plate. Discard all but 2 tablespoons of oil from frying pan.
2. Peel shallots and slice crosswise into thin layers. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in separate medium-sized sauté pan over medium heat and sauté shallots until slightly brown and crispy, around 5 minutes.
3. Whisk eggs in large bowl, add truffle oil plus 1/2 teaspoon of salt and stir to combine. Add cooked potatoes and shallots to bowl and stir gently to combine.
4. Reheat oil in large frying pan over medium heat and add potato and egg mixture to pan. Cook for about 5 minutes until the bottom of the tortilla is nicely browned (check with flexible spatula) and remove from heat.
5. Take a plate sized larger than the frying pan, place on top of the pan and while over the sink, flip the frying pan over so that the tortilla is inverted onto the plate. Add 1 more tablespoon of oil back to the frying pan and reheat for 30 seconds over medium heat. Gently slide the tortilla back into the pan and cook for 3 minutes. Once done, turn off heat and leave in pan for another 2 minutes.
6. Slide onto serving plate, cut and enjoy!!!

Serves 3

Meal Pairing Suggestion: Arugula Salad with Simple Dijon Vinaigrette

Also, I was generously compensated by the Idaho Potato Commission for this blog post. I was planning on making this recipe anyways this month, so it was extra sweet getting rewarded for it!

And what other women are the lights of my life? Or at least the amusements of each day? Four bloggers, two of which I would have never have brought up on here, lest people think I was cray-cray. (You already know I am cray-cray and thats why you love me. ) Well since I know a wedding in my life is way far out, I don’t regret boasting my love for these blogs: A Practical Wedding, East Side Bride, YoungHouseLove, and A Cup of Jo.  APW has provided alot of advice for me and women I love, East Side Bride is hilarious and very informative for all womanly things (case in point: #boobsweek), YHL is a 50% woman team with Sherry who is very amusing to read and is a wonderwoman when it comes to DIY, and a Cup of Jo just has fun, funny and lovely things to read about. All of these women are witty, they are smart, they are beautiful people that I would love to have as friends. Lucky for me, all of my girlfriends are definitely all of those adjectives, but because most of my BFFs don’t write me daily amusements, I go to those four blogs, every day. Check them out if you are bored one day. So how does this tie into lasagna?? Well I was browsing the archives of A Cup of Jo and saw this recipe. I figured I could incorporate some Tofurky to make it vegetarian and that I could also prepare it before arriving to Bethany’s house so we could eat in 30 minutes or less! Go check it out!!!

Fancy Miss Martha Stewart crafted up this recipe. The recipe starts off with boiling lemons. Boiling lemons whatttttt?? Yes, I tried to use the mandoline to slice them very thin, but a sharp knife ended up working just fine.

Then I took the Tofurky Italian sausage and browned the heck out of it.

Then I ripped up lots of rinsed swiss chard. I got the red and green varieties.

Then I made a bechamel with milk, flour, butter, parmesan cheese and then the swiss chard. I think I let it thicken too long… I was worried it wasn’t going to thicken, but then the no boil pasta sheets didn’t cook as well as they should because of the lack of wetness in the sauce.

And here is the beaut straight out of the oven and from under the broiler. Is there anything more beautiful than boiling slightly crusty cheese?? I think not.

Bethany, the good follower of directions that she is, listened to my advice to make this awesome salad from Smitten Kitchen. And thanks to Laurita for doing lots of chopping prior to mine and Kelly’s arrival! It had fresh cauliflower, green olives, hard cooked egg, scallions, green peppers, capers, celery and parsley.

So much fiberous healthiness!!! I love fresh vegetables.

A lovely vinaigrette with miniature whisk. Oh many whisks of many sizes and how you delight me.

Here it is again. So yeah, we liked this dish alot. I could have probably undercooked the sausage a bit, and undercooked the sauce so it would have felt a little more lasagna-ey. But the Italian sausage flavor was great and I really couldn’t even tell that the swiss chard was there! The parmesan cheese gave it good balance and the lemon on top was an interesting addition to the mix… I ate mine, but the girls decided to not travel down that path. I’ll be making this again. How can you not love a dish that can sit for 8 hours in the fridge and then heat up to beautifulness?

Here is lovely Carmen. She treated Maggie like a queen in that household and fed her amazingly. We were so lucky to be able to have a specially prepared lunch on our visit. So without further ado, please go for the jump to see pictures and the recipe!

INGREDIENTS for 3 people
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled
3-4 large eggs
Olive oil for pan frying
Salt to taste

Step-by-Step Recipe with Photos
Cut the peeled potatoes in half lengthwise. Then, with the flat side on the cutting surface, slice the potato in pieces approximately 1/8″ thick. If you slice them a bit thick, don’t worry – it will simply take a bit longer for them to cook. Add salt.

In a large, heavy, non-stick frying pan, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. Carefully place the potato into the frying pan, spreading them evenly over the surface. The oil should almost cover the potatoes. You may need to turn down the heat slightly, so the potatoes do not burn.

Leave in pan until the potatoes are cooked. If you can poke a piece of potato with a spatula and it easily breaks in two, your potatoes are done. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon or spatula and allow oil to drain.

Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat by hand with a whisk or fork (Add salt). Pour in the potato. Mix together with a large spoon.

Pour 1-2 Tbsp of olive oil into a small, non-stick frying pan (aprox. 9-10”) and heat on medium heat. Be careful not to get the pan too hot because the oil will burn – or the tortilla will! When hot, stir the potato eggs mixture once more and “pour” into the pan and spread out evenly. Allow the egg to cook around the edges. Then you can carefully lift up one side of the omelet to check if the egg has slightly “browned.” The inside of the mixture should not be completely cooked and the egg will still be runny.

When the mixture has browned on the bottom, you are ready to turn it over to cook the other side. Take the frying pan to a sink. Place a large dinner plate (12”) upside down over the frying pan. With one hand on the frying pan handle and the other on top of the plate to hold it steady, quickly turn the frying pan over and the omelet will “fall” onto the plate. Place the frying pan back on the range and put just enough oil to cover the bottom and sides of the pan. Let the pan warm for 30 seconds or so. Now slide the omelet into the frying pan. Use the spatula to shape the sides of the omelet. Let the omelet cook for 3-4 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the tortilla sit in the pan for 2 minutes.

Slide the omelet onto a plate to serve.

How bout that skill??? I am fully turning into the future awesome Mexican grandma that I want to become someday.  So my roommate, her sister, and friends from church all settled down in our cozy family room to spend the day watching Jim Carrey movies. It was great and so was our meal. So go for the jump to see more of this process and the delicious poblano, spinach and queso fresco rice dish I made to accompany our meal.

I started the cooking pretty early in the morning. Roasted 5 poblanos on the stove… very much fun.

Got the corn husks reconstituting in warm water…

I set out the ingredients for some of the tamale fixins…

Then I peeled the charred flesh off of said poblanos… This part is pretty yucky, but necessary.

Oh and the whole time I was doing all of these things? I boiled a chicken, with some chunks of onion, bay leaves, garlic cloves, celery, fresh thyme, and peppercorns. Boiled for 1 hour, then let it rest in the liquid for 30 minutes and then let it rest on a cutting board for another 30 minutes. Then I had the fun task of pulling all of that chicken apart. This is where I was really channeling my future abuelita self. That chicken really produced a lot of meat! After I pulled, I cooked a whole minced onion with some raisins and diced up can of green olives until soft and then mixed that with the pulled chicken until all was flavorful and ready.

Oh and another thing I was doing in the meantime?? Getting the tamale masa ready to go. I boiled 20 guajillo peppers (previously de-seeded) in 2 cups of chicken broth and then pulverized that in the blender. I took about 5 cups of tamale masa with 2 tsp of baking powder and slowly incorporated it into 2 cups of lard and about 2 cups of broth. The texture should get to a slightly wet kind of cookie dough consistency… add more masa or more water depending… My trusty Rick Bayless cookbook said that a teaspoon of dough should float in a cup of cold water. Mine never floated. :/ But grandma didn’t say anything about the texture, so I figured I was good!

So to construct these I smeared a good 1/4 cup of dough on a corn husk, then topped it with another 1/4 cup of chicken mixture and topped it with fresh cilantro and some canned jalapeno slices. Then I rolled it all up and secured the ends with thin strips of corn husk so it resembled a candy.

And candy it was!! I made about 20 of these and set them in the fridge to keep until it was close to dinnertime.  When that time came, I got my tamale cooker (really a big pot with a “holey-shelf” about 3 inches up. I put some pennies in the bottom so I could hear if the boiling water was ever getting too low. I boiled my tamales for an hour. Could have gone 1 hr and 15 minutes, but I was too impatient!

So oh yeah the other thing we ate! Beautiful fresh queso fresco that I had shredded up.

My weekly purchase of Club Saver Wegmans spinach. Love me some spinach! It’s the only green that will keep more than 2 days in my fridge!

And then boom the rice was done! Psych… See below for the recipe. It was the perfect filling thing to serve a group of people. The spinach and poblanos upped the healthiness factor and the queso fresco helped with the flavor portion.

Ingredients: (I bumped mine up by a third)
3 medium fresh poblano chiles
2 cups chicken broth or water (I used broth)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
1.5 cups white rice, preferably medium grain
1 small white onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
3 cups loosely packed sliced stemmed spinach leaves
1.5 cups coarsely crumbled Mexican queso fresco

Directions:
1) Roast the chiles over a gas flame. Once all the skin is charred, approximately 5 minutes, transfer to a bowl and cover for 10 minutes. Remove the skins, seeds, and stems, rinse, and chop into 1/4 inch pieces.
2) Heat broth in a small saucepan. (I did it in the microwave)
3) In a separate 3-qt saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. At onions and raw rice; stir regularly for 4-5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for a few seconds. Make sure the grains of rice do not brown.
4) Add the warm liquid and chopped roasted chiles. Stir, cover, and cook on the lowest heat setting for about 15 minutes.
5) Remove the pot from the heat and add spinach, distributing it over the rice, but not stirring. Cover the pot and let is stand for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, test the rice. Mine was done and all of the liquid was absorbed, but if this isn’t the case for you, Rick suggests sprinkling 2 tbsp water on top of the rice and returning it to low heat, covered, for 5 minutes.
6) Uncover the rice, sprinkle with cheese, and fluff everything together with a fork.

Stay tuned this week for some more Spanish food and the first meal of the year that I shared with Bethany Kelly and Laurita!

The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie n’ Oreo Fudge Brownie Bar!!!!

If you recall back to the first posts in the new year I had written in 2010 and 2011, they were all talking about health! Well I am still getting back on that health train! But for me this year, it includes mucho exercising and not buying chips, etc to snack on at night. I eat verrrry healthy during the day at work, but my boredom or whatever fails me at night. So yeah this display of dessert insanity right here is not fitting with these new habits I would like to develop but whatevs!

The cast of characters.

Cookie on top of cookie.

and then cookie on top of cookie smothered with brownie batter.

I actually think I overcooked this dessert. I went with the 45 minutes end of the baking time, but I wished it had been gooey and chewier. So maybe next year for New year’s Eve, I’ll go with 37 minutes?? Cause there is no way I am making this any time soon! Health food, this be not.  But delicious, this surely is.

But for serious… This year started with much anticipation and thoughts of a move to Boston. Luckily, that plan was thwarted and the real plan for my life is now in action.

I had much joy, a lot of sorrow, many frustrations but also many blessings this year. And you know what got me through all of the ups and downs?? My family and friends!!

And somehow God graced me with the blessing of a generally happy disposition. So thank you God and thank you friends and family. And thanks for reading my many blog posts of many exclamation points. It means alot to me.

I will bring back this quote from a post I did in March… love it so.

“Every one of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, the loss of a job… And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another – that is surely the basic instinct… Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.” – Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson

So go and be merry and drink lots of champagne and ring in 2012 with a bang! Cause I sure will be!