Perfect potatoes every time
Fifteen recipes and six principles for superb spuds
March 16, 2021
Potatoes are affordable, abundant, nutritious and delicious. From the basic baked potato to French fries to potato blinis with caviar, how you handle your potatoes is key to the success of your dish. A few basic principles will help you elicit potato perfection.
Use the right potato for the job. Baking potatoes, such as Idaho russets, cook up starchy and fluffy. Their high starch content makes for creamy mashed potatoes, billowy gnocchi and crisp-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside potato pancakes. Gold potatoes with their buttery flavor and creamy texture are great roasted and in gratins. For the creamiest mashes, use russets or gold potatoes. Use less starchy red, baby or new potatoes when you want more intense potato flavor and for the potatoes to retain their shape, as with a potato salad.
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This is the first in a new series called “Week of Meals,” which brings you five easy-to-prepare weeknight dinners from one shopping trip and which come together in less than an hour.
I’m kicking off the first set of recipes in the series so you’ll get a feel for the types of dinners I like to make during the week. I buy all the ingredients from my local Albertsons.
As you’ll notice, vegetables usually make up 50% to 75% of the plate, and they’re either simply roasted or tossed in an acidic dressing to keep everything from feeling too heavy. When it comes to proteins, I love seafood the most, so you’ll see that I use one batch of cooked fish, prepared on a Sunday, to use in two meals during the week. Same deal with a loaf of bread: I use it as a foundation for cheesy greens one day, breadcrumbs in fish cakes for another and as spiced croutons to cover roasted veggies at the end of the week.
Crunchy, cold vegetable salads better without lettuce latimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from latimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Meatless meals to savor on Lenten Fridays 18 Recipes
Feb. 17, 2021
With Lent upon us, now is as good a time as any to add to your repertoire of meatless recipes. Although many Americans eat meat three times a day, any vegetarian or vegan will tell you that you don’t really need meat to eat well. If you want something other than good old fish sticks and tuna casserole for dinner, read on.
Jackfruit carnitas tacos with a spicy chipotle sauce are a quick, easy meaty-feeling vegan option. Another almost effortless option is zesty sizzling ginger scallion sauce with pan-seared tofu. “Blackened” snapper with a salad of crunchy pickles will also light up your taste buds with little effort. Orecchiette, little pasta “ears” with breadcrumbs and broccoli rabe, is a texture fest that leaves you feeling like it was hours rather than minutes in the making.