Join Me for Merienda: Jessified Hasselback Style Potatoes

Hello again blogosphere and hungry people out there who have been patiently waiting for this post.

The first thing I should tell you is that my version was inspired by a segment of America's Test Kitchen; which is a neat show with good information (even though the host is sometimes a bit annoying ;p). I would have linked directly to the site, but it is a paid membership site; so it doesn't allow you to access any information without that aforementioned paid membership. Anyway, kudos to the ATK team for the inspiration and tips.

Potatoes: There are so many varieties out there, yet the most popular preparation of them in the U.S. is cut up and fried. I'm not saying that fries are bad because I think that most of us have a hankering for them every now and then, but there are so many ways to prepare all manner of potatoes; so why don't we try something different for once?

Hasselback potatoes originated in Hasselbacken, Sweden (hence the name). I'm not going to give a culinary history lesson right now, but basically it boils down to some chefs who were bored at this restaurant and wanted to come up with a new way to prepare potatoes et voila, the rest is history.

What exactly makes these Hasselback style potatoes, so appealing? Well, the manner in which they are prepared makes them both crispy and tender. The outer is crisp and crunchy  while the interior remains moist and tender. They are also basted in olive oil and dusted with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and that alone makes them quite attractive to my taste buds. The original recipe calls for the potatoes to be covered in a topping of buttered crumbs, cheese and herbs, but I prefer to keep them plain; so that I can top, them as I like and to order of my guests. 

The original batch

Jessified Hasselback Style Potatoes- V, GF

Ingredients:

6-10 Organic Russet Potatoes

Olive Oil

Himalayan Pink or Sea Salt

Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Kitchen equipment needed:

Roasting pan

Cutting Board

Chef's Knife

Tongs

1 pair of plain Bamboo chopsticks

1 Large mixing bowl

1 Microwaveable plate

Brush for basting

Method:

Preheat oven to 380F

Scrub and wash the potatoes very well and dry them off. Figuring out which side of the potato is the flattest, cut off 1/4 inch from the bottom of the potato. Proceed to cut off 1/4 inch of both ends of the potato.( I don't throw away the removed portions. I put them a bowl of cold water and save them for another recipe. Center the potato between a pair of chopsticks (serving as a guard to prevent you from slicing all the way through the potato) and slice about 1/4 inch equidistantly, end to end. 

This potato has a flat bottom, but wasn't insulted by this observation.

This potato looks like it's either on stilts or crutches.

This looks like some kind of magic trick.

You will have to 'sacrifice' a pair of chopsticks for this preparation;  so don't use your fancy lacquered  pair!

As you finish slicing each potato, place it into a large bowl with cold water in it. Once you've prepared the potatoes, you should make sure to individually swish each potato around in the water, making sure to wash out any excess starch, especially between the cut slices. If you skip this step; the excess starch will act as a glue and the slices will not splay properly or at all, when you bake them.

Cut potato going for a bath.

 Pat the potatoes dry slightly and place them on a microwaveable plate and cook them for about 12 minutes. Let the potatoes cool a few minutes before placing them on the roasting pan (I use tongs to move them from the plate to the pan). Brush olive oil on each potato, making sure to get between the slices. Season the potatoes with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 30-40 minutes on the middle rack of your oven. 

In the microwave getting par-cooked.

After the ride in the microwave.

These potatoes are all oiled up and have somewhere hot to go.

The potatoes should look nicely splayed and golden. At this point, you could potentially top it with the traditional topping and then put them back under the broiler for a few minutes until the Vegan cheese melts and gets slightly bubbly, but as I mentioned earlier; I like to have options =)

I dressed one of the original batch with some Daiya brand Vegan Cheddar and my homemade Parsley and Almond Pesto. Delicious =)

2nd batch with a few slices waving hello.

Mmmmm....

Look at those gorgeous golden bottoms. The potatoes are suing me for harassment.

I also tried a batch with regular standard sweet potatoes and they came out okay, but I think that I want to try some other varieties of sweet potato; to find the the best one for the Hasselback preparation =)

The sweet potato batch experiment.

Sweet potato looking sweet, but I'm still look for the 'one.'

If you have any leftovers (which is highly unlikely; if you've got guests with you); they do keep well for a few days, but the best time to eat them is when they're fresh out of the oven. If you do have to reheat them; I would recommend reviving them in the oven, but I have also tried reheating them in the microwave and they do come out decently, but the oven would be the better choice =)

This is a very simple recipe albeit a bit labor intensive in preparation, but it's a labor of love if you appreciate a beautiful and delicious end result ;)


Wishing you all good health and happy cooking!


Love,
Jessica

Jess a Few Reviews =)

Hello again people of the blogosphere,

This entry will be a list of items that I've recently purchased in the last few months.This time around they're all food products, but in the future I may document non-food items as well.

Daiya Brand Havarti style Wedge- Jalapeno Garlic

Cost: $3.59-4.00 in my local market area

This photo is from Trueindigo's wordpress 'Bacon is not a herb'.' I think I was being lazy for this entry =) http://nobacon.wordpress.com/tag/vegan-cheese/

My brother Jonathan of the canary files first talked to me about Daiya cheese a few years ago and I did go and pick up a pack of their shreds a handful of times, but I wasn't a huge fan. It was fine if I did something like vegan burritos mixed in with the other vegetables and rice, but I didn't care for it too much by itself because it was a bit oily to me. When I saw these Daiya Wedges at the store, I was a bit reluctant to try them, but when I saw them on sale, I thought I would give one a try. I chose the Havarti style because it's one that I hadn't seen replicated before, although I wasn't sure about the Jalapeno Garlic part, not because I don't like spicy foods, but because I wanted to try the Havarti as a stand alone flavor. This wedge is awesome. When it's nearly room temperature you can almost spread it like a Boursin. One way I really enjoyed eating this was cooking it with some raw red onions, some baby kale salad, organic raw sunflower seeds and then eating it in some homemade Injera bread.

I've also used the wedge to top a  homemade foccacia style flat bread with red onions and homemade za'atar spice. Another variation that I did was topping a homemade rosemary crisp bread with sauteed baby bella mushrooms with sauteed baby kale, dotted with some of the wedge and baked until melty. Deliciousness. 

The wedges as well as the shredded Daiya Cheese freeze well. If you see them on sale ( I found them on manager's special for only $2.59 a piece!); I would go ahead and stock up on them. They are quite handy for some quick meals. 

To learn more about Daiya, please visit the following link:

  http://www.daiyafoods.com/

Alive and Radiant Brand ChocKalet Chips

Cost: $4.99 at my local food shop

I had no qualms about eating this whatsoever. I love Kale and I love Dark Chocolate. This stuff is soooo goood. Rawliciouness! The texture reminds me of a cross between  homemade dark chocolate corn flake clusters and those German chocolate bars that have a variety of grains and nuts in them. 

I was usually satisfied with one or two pieces of the Kale Krunch because it's definitely something that you should savor and not eat mindlessly just like all food and drink for that matter =)

To learn more about Alive and Radiant Products, please visit the following link:

 http://shop.kaiafoods.com/

Nature's Path Organic- 

Love Crunch- Premium Organic Granola, Dark Chocolate, Red berries, coconut and flax

Cost: $6.99  at Costco for the 26.4 oz Bag (a bargain!)

This is awesome on so many different levels. First of all, it tastes spectacular and also because it gives back the purchase price equivalent, not only in cash, but also in organic food to the Bite4Bite Food bank. The story of its creation is actually very sweet (pun intended). It was created by some of the employees for their wedding. The guests loved it so much; that they urged them to make it a regular product line.  The name is highly appropriate =)

Be warned this granola is extremely delicious; so I would recommend pouring out a single serving, instead of just reaching your hand into the bag. You also have to remember that this is granola so it's dense in calories and even though they are the good fats and fiber; you should still eat it in moderation =)

To learn more about Nature's Path Organic Products, please visit the following link:

http://us.naturespath.com/

Well, that's all for this first installment of 'Jess a few reviews.'

If you do try or have already tried any of the aforementioned reviewed items; please do let me know what your thoughts were about them and leave me a comment!

Wishing you all health and happiness!

Love,

Jessica

Modern Day Nonsense 3

Happy New Year to Everybody!

Hopefully, your January has been going well so far and you're enjoying this new year.

I have a few entries on the back-burner and some of them will be published before next month.

In the meantime, here is another installment of my series: Modern Day Nonsense

The Disuse of Brain Power and Perils of Technology

People don't take the time to actual think, they prefer to rely on Google instead of using their brain power.

I know that sometimes people genuinely don't have a clue about anything, but for the most part people just tend to be lazy. When I am trying to remember something and it doesn't immediately come to mind; I go through a process of association. I think about items, places, people, moments adjacently related to the information that I'm trying to find. I like a mind puzzle; so it's not a nuisance to me; to go through those steps. I realize that not everybody will agree with me on this, but to those people I would just ask them to give it a few tries and then get back to me.

I grew up during the early digital days; when computers were being introduced to student life, it wasn't a given. Not everybody had computers at home or the latest tech. I remember when they were first teaching us about a new concept called electronic mail. I remember using 'webcrawler', for the first time to search something, creating one of my first web pages, the love affair with whatever was brand new.

 I can recall when a friend was so intent on getting a pager (her mother was really against it). It was truly ridiculous because she did not need a pager at all and to make it even more ridiculous, she shared it with another girl. They had some time schedule as to when they would have the pager. It's still true, the only people who use pagers are doctors and drug dealers and these girls were neither (we already knew who those ones were, they didn't bother to go incognito about it). I still remember what the pager looked like, it was red and had the Tasmanian Devil on it. Utter nonsense.

I recognize how times have changed when I see my niece or my tinier cousins fiddle with smart phones and tablets like second nature. Technology is wonderful, but if you are being honest; you'll admit that a lot of what is produced is useless crap. I don't think we need to do 20 things at once on our phone. How many 'As seen on TV' products actually work? Nobody needs to be plugged in 24/7. We can use technology, but we should use it wisely. 

The Atrophying of Language and its usage

Modern spelling and grammar is atrocious. If you are a part of social media; then you know which 5 in the English language are misused and abused the most. Yes, the infamous 'your', 'you're', 'there', 'their' and 'they're.' I can understand if it happened once while you typing quickly, but when I see it over and over again; it's not a mistake. I'm not here to give a grammar lesson; so I am not going to break down the differences for their separate uses. I know that the younger population is still reading books. As to what quality of books that they're actually reading; I'm not sure. I would hope that the generations that read the Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket series would know the difference. I don't know about those that read the Twilight Series, I can't say because I've never read a lick of them. A recent best seller was the 'Fifty Shades of blah-blah' which I know is not aimed for the young reader audience, but you know that some of those tiny folks can't wait to grow up; so they think that reading a mature book will make them cool etc. (Children, need to be children;  there is enough time for them to grow up!) I haven't read the series, but the few excerpts that I've seen people read are atrocious. I know that the reason that they're so popular is because it's about taboo S&M stuff, but the writing is just terrible. I can't look beyond that and it gives me the same grating feeling as when I've heard somebody conjugate incorrectly. The other day while I was browsing through channels; I came across a show about bartering and one of the guys on it was describing and item and said 'more rare.' It stopped me in my tracks and I actually said 'excuse me?' out loud. The correct description should have been 'rarer.' I can accept it when very young kids say 'gooder' instead of saying 'better', but when you're already well beyond your school days; you really don't have any more excuses. 

One of the things that I recently watched the prompted this section about language, was an episode of Scared Straight. It's basically a show where young kids who are reckless, out of control, desperately need a reality check get sent to jail, in the hopes of snapping them out of their delusion. I guess you can think of it as a boot camp where all those disrespectful kids on those trashy talk shows are sent; after the show has ended. Anyway, they had a segment where they wanted the kids to write letters to their parents, telling them how they've changed  and what they wanted for the future. This one girl's letter was really atrocious ( they actually didn't show it onscreen for very long, but I paused it because I wanted to see what she actually wrote). There was a time where your writing voice/word was different from your actually speaking voice/word. Nobody would actually write 'gonna', 'tryin' or 'I be' etc. The only times where you would use those in writing were to convey a dialect,regionalism or maybe in song lyrics. Reading her letter just made me sad and almost afraid for the future generations.

Abbreviations are getting to be ridiculous. I really don't care for abbreviations, the few that I do use are more practical, such as fwd, btw and seldom use brb. I used to use 'brb' quite a bit when I used to do a lot more chat and messenger. I won't even use the abbreviation for 'laugh out loud', (notice how I didn't even use it!) it's just annoying to me. I am aware that abbreviations are necessary and useful, but sometimes they are counterproductive especially if another person doesn't understand the acronym. Time is wasted in figuring out what they're actually trying to convey to you. I don't have disdain for '1337' because it has established lexicon and grammar and therefore can be claimed as a genuine language.

I know that language is dynamic and not static, but I really sigh sometimes when I hear mangled messes of words that are carelessly strung together.

Outright Rudeness and Disrespect

It's better to be strong and kind =)

Trolling in the comment sections is out of control. I am just disgusted with people when I read such sick negativity. People who do it, have nothing better to do with their time. It's such a pity to pour such energy into something bad when it could be used to do something good, something to better the world. I know for me, I will only comment on something; if I really have something to say, that has a point. I know that anonymity makes people feel like they have more power or like they are invincible, but it's still not an excuse to be a total jerk and a disappointment to humanity.

I don't know if it's worse or not when you see outright rudeness it in public. A long while back I was at take out restaurant with my father and one of my brothers waiting in line when a customer started yelling at the cashier because he didn't think that he should be charged for getting chicken instead of beef in his burrito or whatever. He kept on arguing with her that they shouldn't be charging him more; that it cost the same to raise chickens and cows or some bs. He went on ranting for a few minutes as the people behind him just stood there looking at their watches.  They cashier didn't relent (I'm amazed that he didn't ask to speak to the manager at this point) and he did pay whatever extra for his chicken instead of beef. He continued on saying something like 'You're going to feel stupid when you're thinking about it when you get home and realize I was right... balbhalbalhblahblhalbhalahlhblahblhalhabl.'

 Now, I get that you can disagree with something, but you don't have to get in people's faces to get your point across. He was being extremely rude to not just the cashier, but also to the rest of the people in the restaurant. I'm all about voicing your opinion (obviously =)), but there is a right and a wrong way to go about expressing it.




Have I turned from Jessica Ligaya to Jessica Rooney, yet? =p


Please feel free to leave your thoughts on these topics in the comments section below.


Love,
Jessica

End of the year food photo show

Happy Holidays everybody,

I actually have a few entries in the stack, but I haven't done an old fashioned show and tell of the food that I've been cooking over the year. I still take a lot of photos, but I don't always post them. Sometimes, I think that it's too much and maybe people don't need to see every single little thing, but anyway, here's a little show and tell. 

Mediterranean Style Fried rice with chopped Makdous, shredded carrots, spices and garnished with Organic Cilantro

These were a batch of V,GF Banana Bread Muffins

Same batch

A Fresh Mango and Black Bean Salsa that I made.

A V flatbread topped with an herb pesto and sliced green olives

Served with an organic marinara sauce

This was one of many different coconut based fusion curries that I made

At a restaurant: Fresh Vegan Vietnamese Fresh rolls with a peanut sauce

At a restaurant: customized V, Vietnamese rice noodles

I made a batch of V, Spinach pies as a gift to one of my friends

Filling the homemade dough

Pies waiting to be put on the tray

Pies ready to get a golden tan

Tada!

V, Zucchini Ribbon Pasta 

Veggie Maki

This is homemade Pak tong koh and if you don't know what that is, then you don't know how  crazy it is to be making it at home! We would normally just buy this at the Chinese bakery, but it was amazing to be able to make this special rice cake!

One of the first versions of Vegan Filipino Kaldereta  that I made.  I didn't have any green olives to use; so I ended up using some calamatas. The next batch had real deal and I liked that one a lot better. =)

This is a Organic Baby Kale Salad with Organic shredded carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and red cabbage in a mustard vinaigrette with toasted Organic sunflower seeds

One of the many incarnations of my Jessified Vegan Shawarma

V,GF Date and Organic Sunflower seed Mamouls and V, GF Orange and Fennel Shortbread

V,GF Apple Crisp getting ready for the oven

Delicious Tostones =)

V,GF Filipino Champorado style porridge (without tsokolate!) with sweetned mung bean  and dusted with chia seeds

V, Zatar with black calamata olives on a homemade crust

V,GF Rice noodles with sauteed Chinese greens, King Oyster Mushrooms and Fresh mung sprouts in a  Vegetable soup

At a restaurant: Koshary, an Egyptian specialty. This is one of those dishes that can make or break a relationship.  Pasta, rice, lentils, chickpeas, carmelized onions served with a savory tomato sauce.

I didn't post all the food photos from this past year; otherwise this would be a billion pages long. I also didn't want to re-post photos from previous posts and things that were already posted on FB. I hope that you enjoyed some of them and let me know which ones peaked your interest the most. 

I hope that you all had a good year and that you have another beautiful and health filled 2013.

Love,

Jessica