Potato Pizza with Garlic and Rosemary
I’m writing this while on hold with Visa. Trying to book a flight to Vancouver, I was at the very end asked to prove my identity on a pop-up Verified by Visa page, which prompted all the answers to the questions they had as I began to type them in, then told me I’m wrong – try again. Like there are alternative answers to my mother’s maiden name. So I’m on hold at 11 on a Friday night when I should be working on any number of stories I have due this weekend, or making mini flapper pies for a party I’m cooking for tomorrow night, or I don’t know – sleeping might be a good idea.
So yeah – potato pizza, hey? I never really got the double-carb-whammy concept, but with an abundance of beautiful, delicate-skinned potatoes from the farm (and an overflowing but not-yet-harvested potato condo in my back yard – can’t wait to show you!) I really was pushing for new ideas. And I need to carb load for my marathon pie-baking contest in the morning. (Honestly – Pierre and I are judging pie, jam and homemade wine at the Bowness Fair at 10 in the morning. (They’ll also have a produce swap, if you have too much of a good thing and not enough of another.)
So the pizza. I took a ball of dough out of the freezer, sliced the purple and white potatoes as thinly as I could (which was pretty thin, using my new kick-ass Japanese knife from Kevin’s shop) layered them, scattering between the layers with roughly chopped garlic and fresh rosemary, then drizzled the lot with some olive oil into which I squished another clove of garlic before starting this whole process.
Then scattered cheese over the top and baked it at 450F for 20 minutes, until golden. It was not at all as involved as it sounds. Having spent the past two days doing cooking demos at the Kerby Centre Expo I also had copious amounts of quinoa salad and salmon, which I spread with pesto and slid into the same hot oven for about 10 minutes. (What’s convenient about Hamburger Helper again?)
And I know, it’s Friday. And I have some Free Stuff for you! Honestly the Fridays keep blowing by and I keep on missing them. But I caught one! And I have something for you that I think is hilarious, that I bought at Kulinary Kids last week when W and I were hanging out and cooking with Chuck Hughes from Food Network Canada.
Check it out – self-shaking salt shakers. You pull the string and they shake on their own. I had to buy them. (It was hard to capture their shaking action on camera. Those are Mike’s hands, posing with them. Don’t you think he should be a hand model? Do you think there’s any money in that? Do you think it would go to his head?)
As always, I love hearing what you’re eating. And if you have any suggestions for new ways to use chard, potatoes and zucchini, that would be fab. I’ll do a random draw next Tuesday!
Pie Baking Contest?? Now that sounds like fun 🙂
Tonight’s dinner-pizza and salads from Panago. There was salad so I’m not doing THAT bad right? 😉
In my defense – I did bake brownies in the afternoon so I did do some work in the kitchen. They were I’m sorry brownies for the RCMP for being called out after the alarm tech who was replacing our outdated gear accidentally tripped the tamper alarm! hehe DH is a Prosecutor so they were joking about how much of a ribbing he was going to get for the false alarm and of course just to make sure the WHOLE neighbourhood stuck their heads out the door for a looksee they hit the sirens as they drove away laughing.
Last night was deli chicken, roast broccoli and a baked potato with a kit kat for dessert. Yuhm!
I like zuchinini in brownies and on my tuna pita pizza and raw is always good as a crunchy snack. Potato soup or boiled so you can have them sliced and fries with bkfst
Friday night dinner was lasagna from the new Keynote Sunterra market. Dark chocolate M&M’s for dessert.
My favourite way with zucchini is to saute in butter along with a little too much garlic and some tomatoes. Great as a side dish or on pasta. I have been begging people for zucchini this year to no avail-I may have to buy some. (!)
I did a curried potato and chard dish once that was really good.
I hope I win the toy! 🙂
Quesadillas with chicken and black beans. Zucchini, so far just the usual stuff: chocolate cake and loaves. I did find a recipe for zucchini pakoras that we want to try.
Dinner last night was a la you, Julie – I pulled a random container out of the freezer and it turned out to be leftover red clam sauce my newly-turned-chef brother made us this summer when he was out for a visit. So, I boiled up some linguine et voila!
You could use all three of those veggies in the summer stew I keep mentioning – so good with basil and garlic in the white sauce, and of course throw in any number of other veggies you have lots of. Potatoes and onions are really the only necessities.
This summer I’ve been layering thin slices of tomato and zucchini, with some chopped onion and liberal use of garlic scape pesto in a casserole dish, sprinkle goat cheese on top and bake till all is tender and delicious…
Today I am going to attempt to make pie crust. Never done it. Always intimidated. I have “Starting Out” open to the pie section with all your instructions. Wish me luck!
Love the self shaking salt shakers. We have a thing in our house for interesting pepper/salt shakers! I would buy those if I saw them too!
dinner was a disaster. forgot that the Russian judge had dance class at 630pm. on Friday night. sigh. the roast was rushed and didn’t taste so good. the gravy was lumpy. the yorkshire pudding puddled. however, the baby carrots were delish.
good for a laugh.
So…Friday night supper was fab!! Moroccan chicken skewers (so yummy) with a lemony herb couscous and Naan bread. For dessert, Amaretti Semifreddo with Bittersweet Chocolate and Almonds. We had guests and they loved everything!!
I put both chard and potatoes in the corn chowder I made the other day. All seasonal and fresh. Yum.
I made curry with leftover pork.
I tried my hand at making eggplant parmesan for the first time. I just couldn’t resist buying one of the lovely eggplants that were available. It came out pretty well. We had it with pasta and salad.
One of my favorite recipes for zucchini is a quiche type thing using Pillsbury Crescent rolls as a crust and filling it with eggs, mozzarella and cheddar cheese, ham and lightly sauteed zucchini and topped with thinly sliced tomatoes. Good for any meal of the day.
I had horrible mexican from a strip mall. I just moved to Southern California and I’m looking for my favorite take mexican take out..and have yet to find it.
The chard freezes brilliantly for soups in the winter. I make a chicken broth sausage/sweet potatoe/chard soup that is fabulous on those super chilly days. I slow cooker it so it waits for me when I get home from work.
I made hummus. It wasn’t supposed to be dinner, but by the time we’d fussed with lemon, and roasted garlic (I roasted a whole head of it, and ended up putting it all in) and adjusting pepper and herbs and so forth (no red peppers because Lisa is allergic, and no salt, so we had to tweak the other things enough to compensate) we’d eaten so much that I had an Activia and called it a day.
Erica B, I laughed right out loud at the RCMP driving away and whooping their sirens! 🙂
This is really magic food! Baked using pottery from local artists would make it taste even better. It is important to suport local artists. l”ocal artists make the best gifts” http://blog.sidestreetstudio.com/wood/10-reasons-why-you-should-buy-local-arts-crafts/
I had hamburgers for dinner yesterday.
I have a recipe that uses potatoes and chard (so 2/3). Its an Italian sausage potato and chard soup, I really liked it.
http://www.canadianliving.com/food/sausage_potato_and_swiss_chard_soup.php
My favorite zucchini recipe, when made at anytime of the year always reminds me of summer and puts a smile on my face.
Quarter and chop (like you would a cucumber for salad). In olive oil, brown some garlic and onions (the more the better) in a large pasta pot. Add the zucchini and let it brown a little too. (It may just sweat though). After 5-10 minutes add crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, fresh basil (to taste). Cook until the zucchini is mushy (~30 min to an hour). Thin it out so it is soupy.
Break up angel hair pasta into quarters and cook separately. Drain pasta. (Note: pasta is optional)
Chunk up hard Italian table cheese (i.e. Romano) and place in pasta bowl. Add pasta and zucchini. Mix quickly. The cheese should melt and get gooey. Eat with a spoon. If its really soupy you can mop it up with Italian bread.
Only drawn back is the cheese makes a mess of the bowl and the spoon.
Steamy Kitchen’s amazing garlic noodles.
Tonight we will have Taber corn, grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and strawberry rhubarb pie. = assuming no one ate all the ham. The other day I wanted to make Naan cheese and pear grilled sandwiches, but the Nann bread did not make it back into the pan. It had a fast encounter with hummus and then was history.
I had amazing potato cheese fougasse while in France years ago, kind if like your pizza only with more bread. I dream about it. Also had the best potato omelette.
I love to make potato and some type of vegetable frittata – could be chard and/or zucchini. Also have a potato kale curry (From Vikram Vij’s cookbook) on my to make soon list.
Make greek zucchini fritters! And latkes. Basically, shred everything and fry it.
Zucchini relish- much better than the store bought bright green relish. My kids love it.
As for dinner, last night it was Taber corn and barbequed burgers.
The weather’s been too cool for grilling so I took a small turkey out of the freezer, seasoned it with s and p (how do you hold a turkey on its head and spin those shakers at the same time?) stuffed it with wedges of lemon and fresh rosemary sprigs and set it on a layer of thick onion slices in a covered roaster. I went out for lunch and shopping (I heart my oven timer) then fixed mashed potatoes, gravy and fresh corn tonight. Easy as HH.
Well, we didn’t have this last nite, we had it last weekend. Every year we spend the long weekend camping in the LacLaBiche area with 5 other families, and each year we the meals get better and better. One night we had a lobster boil along with freshly caught jackfish, fried garden veggies (potatoes,onions,peppers, and wild mushrooms). For dessert we made campfire empandas filled with freshly picked wild blueberries and the left over berries went in pancakes the next morning. MMMMM I still salivate at the thought of the great food – always that much tastier when cooked and eaten outside.
I just love all things potato so this puzza is right up my alley. Speaking of Chuck Hughes and potaroes I am the biggest fan of his Potato Risotto (no rice in sight , just the technique) http://morethanburnttoast.blogspot.com/2009/06/chuck-makes-potato-risotto-and-sausage.html
Zucchini…my ultimate favorite veg this summer, fall, well anytime really! usually, it’s cut up thin and thrown in a pan with mushrooms, peppers, bacon and cheese, and butter…but lately, I’m slicing it thin, dipping in flour, egg and panko and frying it in evoo and then baking it off in the oven. little parmesan, salt pepper. YUMO! (thanks to the demo lady at costco for the panko demo, i am using it alot!)
I’m tired and grumpy—in the middle of a great big ol’ pity party, so…self-shaking s and p thingamabobs would be just the thing to set me back on track.
Supper tonight will be brie, popcorn, apples and pears.
‘Potatoes, swiss chard and zucchinis,’ sounds like a dish already: mashed potatoes with swiss chard (sautéed in butter) and zucchini (grated or thinly sliced, then added to the chard), all combined. If you must, bake with some cheese until golden.
Sockeye salmon!! Made a delicious recipe…Salmon baked in foil by Giada de Laurentis. Very moist and flavorful.
Oops, forgot to leave my name for the above comment.
I made a great stirfry with zucchini – it was one of those nights where at the last minute I threw everything in the fridge into the wok. 4 small zucchini, chopped into large chucks, some celery, some broccoli, some mushrooms and some teriyaki sauce, but when I ran out of teriyaki I added some soya sauce and some sweet and sour sauce until it was the right consistency. Definitely going to have to see if I can re-create this one!
Zucchini – For the last two years I’ve been dehydrating them in thick slices. They end up being very thin and crispy. The kids like them with popcorn seasoning and eat it like potato chips. I sometimes used the slices unseasoned in the layers of lasagna.
This afternoon we spent time making spaghetti and fetuccini noodles with pureed swiss chard in the pasta dough. It’s yummy and the kids wouldn’t ordinarily eat chard.
I’m not very creative with potatoes. Gnocchi is good but our favourite is roasted with garlic, olive oil and rosemary.
Chard – fricos or tossed with pyrohy or with slow roasted tomato or sauteed with korn or with kale and sweet potatoes in soup.
Potatoes – currently obsessed with lemon roasted and served with aioli for dipping.
Zucchini – sorry, I got nada.
i made veggie pizza for my parents. they were most impressed by the veggies (zucchini slices, red and green peppers) and the home made whole wheat pizza crust. I liked the leftover bruschetta for the sauce and the nice melty goat cheese.
No dinner last night, as I’d just gotten home from a bridal shower in which bacon-wrapped dates, fine homemade salsas and fig + goat cheese crostinis figured heavily. Tonight, though, the plan is pan-fried fish sandwiches with tomato, avocado & spicy remoulade.
I generally make a big hash (with potatoes and chard, although zucchini could probably be stirred in last-minute) at the beginning of each week, to be eaten with an egg for quickie breakfasts. As the weather turns, though, I’m all about stirring loads of greens into every soup I make.
Dinner was spring mix with beets, caramelized walnuts, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese. So many flavours I didn’t even use a salad dressing.
My favourite was to use a potato this time of year is in a chunky and creamy potato soup with bacon, leeks and of course, cheddar cheese! I’ve never been one or zucchini, but there sure are lots of great ideas to try here!
Dinner was spring mix with beets, caramelized walnuts, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese. So many flavours I didn’t even use a salad dressing.
My favourite way to use a potato this time of year is in a chunky and creamy potato soup with bacon, leeks and of course, cheddar cheese paired with from scratch ‘red lobster’ biscuits, its worth every one of the zillion calories involves! I’ve never been one or zucchini, but there sure are lots of great ideas to try here!
Dinner was spring mix with beets, caramelized walnuts, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese. So many flavours I didn’t even use a salad dressing.
My favourite way to use a potato this time of year is in a chunky and creamy potato soup with bacon, leeks and of course, cheddar cheese paired with from scratch ‘red lobster’ biscuits, its worth every one of the zillion calories involved! I’ve never been one or zucchini, but there sure are lots of great ideas to try here!
smitten kitchen’s mustard roasted potatoes – so good!
Saturday supper involved local beef tenderloin with a blue cheese sauce, Taber corn, Beck Farm carrots, baked Russian Blue potatoes topped with sour cream and dill (they looked great, and tasted fine too), and a chopped salad. This wound up with a sensational-if-I-do-say-so-myself pie made from Evans cherries and topped with whipped cream that eased gently into the divots of the crispy crumbly oatmeal topping. Nice fall meal. Questioned the need to eat at all on Sunday.
LOVE your blog, Julie!!! It’s a bit like a nice piping hot bowl of chili or soup on a really cool fall day (or a really cold chunk of watermelon on a super hot summer day!).
Last night, I made roasted chicken stuffed with lemon, onion, garlic, and herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) with a white wine/balsamic glaze, and roasted baby potatoes and carrots.
For something really crazy, try a super-stuffed-twice-baked potato. Scoop out inside of baked potato; saute finely grated zucchini, onion, garlic, finely chopped chard, and prosciutto; mix this with potato, milk, s&p, gruyere, and a bit of butter; re-stuff potato and bake until brown on top.
Those shakers are adorable! Supper tonight will likely be one of my staples — quiche and salad
Chard! I love chard stems simply sauteed in bacon fat with a bit of onion, then when they’re about done toss in the leaves and some crunched up bacon bits. Salt and pepper to taste. At the table, splash on some vinegar (red wine is my usual favorite).
We bought a bunch of Taber corn and I made corn chowder with scallions and bacon (I used pancetta instead of bacon). It had a potato in it but I think it would have been fine with more, and even with some zucchini in there as well! Served that with freshly baked whole wheat scones.
Dessert = blackcurrant & peach smoothie with currants picked from Kayben farms in okotoks. yum!
Last night was salmon fillets, quinoa (with orange sections, tomatoes, zucchini, mint, basil, chives), tossed salad, beans and for dessert, we grilled pears and served them on ice cream with caramel sauce. Yummy!
Love your recipes – I think my favorite is the 2 bite brownies. I make them lots and they’re always a hit!
Do the potatoes cook through if you don’t pre-roast them? Damnit I’ve been wasting my time then. 🙂
Supper tonight – well TheHusband is demanding Chinese takeaways. Very foodblogger glam, right?
Yep! Slice them nice and thin and they’ll cook right through!