Potato Sauce--a Fast & Easy Holiday Recipe

A quickly assembled sauce of crème fraîche, mayo, roasted garlic and pepper. Great on many types of potatoes--boiled, roasted, or baked.

I've got a fast recipe today. It uses 4 ingredients--and if you can't find the main one, you can always substitute or even make your own. How easy is that?

We eat potatoes to celebrate so many things.  If it's not my Make Ahead Irish Mashed Potato Casserole alongside a Thanksgiving turkey, it's a baked potato, roasted potatoes, or boiled new potatoes from the farm share cuddled up with Swedish Meatballs.

Our family's favorite way to enjoy these potatoes is with Potato Sauce.  I know the name is boring--I thought about trying to jazz it up by calling it Crème Fraîche and Røastéd Gårlic Pøtatø Saüce, but in the end opted to keep it simple. It's just a sauce for potatoes, after all.

I first had this sauce in Copenhagen when my sister in law whipped it up. I was blown away at how delicious something so simple could taste! I'm not sure if it was the exoticness of the crème fraîche or the comfort of home cooking after travel or what--but I was smitten.

If you are fortunate enough to encounter some magically marked down containers of crème fraîche you're good to go. If not--you can make your own. Here's a recipe. If you don't have time for that--just use some sour cream. It's all good.

What if you didn't roast your garlic crop last year? No worries, finely chop some fresh garlic, or stir in some dehydrated minced garlic if that's all you've got handy. [Don't tell me you didn't even grow garlic--it's pretty easy. If you live in a place where tulips and daffodils flourish in the Spring, you live where garlic will grow. Plant some in the fall and harvest it--along with amazing garlic scapes--in early summer.]

For other recipes using roasted garlic, please see my Garlic Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

Grilled Cheese with Cheddar, Havarti and Apple Fig Chutney

A grilled cheese sandwich with creamy havarti and sharp cheddar set off by grainy mustard and apple fig chutney.

You get by with a little help from your friends. This was probably as true when the Beatles sang it as it is today. Interactions with my friends--either online or in person--give me physical and emotional support that keeps me going some days. I don't need much--a phone call here, a morning walk there, meeting for coffee or lunch--or chatting late at night on FB. It all lifts me up and makes me appreciate my friends.

When my spouse is deployed my friends help me get through. At this stage of the game, it's less about physical support--though my friend Dawn's spouse's weekly weed whacking is an act of kindness I will never forget*--but the need for emotional support remains strong. I hope I give back to my friends as much as I take from them.

I'm writing about friends and grilled cheese because the idea for this recipe came via my friend Melanie. To know her is to know she's a rockstar ninja. A group of us were enjoying lunch to celebrate her birthday and I ordered grilled cheese. [My interpretation of that will appear on the blog in another week or two--my friends voted to share this one first.] Melanie told me about a great grilled cheese sandwich she'd had--havarti, mango chutney, and fresh spinach leaves. It sounded good enough for me to pick up a package of havarti slices at Costco and try it out with my Apple Fig Chutney for my girl.

*If you are in a position to provide routine lawn care to a woman whose spouse is deployed--please do so. Don't wait for her to ask, just offer and then show up and do it. Thank you.

Ham Stock {Easter Leftovers}

Use kitchen scraps and a leftover ham bone to make something from nothing--your own ham stock.

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If you have an Easter ham, don't just throw away the bone! Just like the myriad of uses for a leftover ham that I've blogged about (I even had Leftover Ham Week!) there are many ways you can use a ham bone after Easter. On this blog I've made Ham and Bean Soup using a ham bone. Not yet ready for blog prime time, I add a ham bone to my dry beans during cooking (I've been working up some bean dips). Today I'm going to share how I make ham stock.

measuring the defatted stock before reheating to see how many jars I need

You can freeze this recipe--in zip top bags or in canning jars. I used to freeze my ham stock in jars. I was even smart enough to  slick a piece of tape on the wonderful storage lid (Amazon affiliate link) and scribble 'Ham Stock' on top. [That way the jar wouldn't be confused with the jars of vegetable stock or Thai turkey stock also in the freezer.] However, I really suck at the pre-planning aspect of cooking and would rarely have a jar of stock thawed when I wanted to use it.

After reading Cathy Barrow's pressure canning article in the Washington Post [because my mom mailed it to me!] I shared the article with my spouse. You can see it here. Cathy's calm and reasoned approach to pressure canning appealed to his engineer brain [or maybe it was an excuse for him to also buy an expensive toy, I don't know]. I am now the proud owner of a pressure canner. Yes, I could also cook in this, and that may be a future post, but it's 15 quarts which is double my pretty purple pot shown below and I'm not quite sure what I'd be cooking that much of. So for now--canning.

ready to strain

My recipe uses elements from the meat stock recipe that came with the All American® Canner (Amazon affiliate link) , the Ball Blue Book (Amazon affiliate link) , the National Center for Home Food Preservation, and Food in Jars--my favorite 'go to' blog when I want to branch out and play while putting up food.

the set up--reheating the defatted stock while the pressure canner is standing by

Ham Stock (for defatted stock, this is a 2 day process)

1 leftover ham bone (don't go crazy getting every last scrap of meat off)

1 Soup Pack (see this post for directions on how to save kitchen scraps over time to make one)

or 1 to 2 cups carrot peels + 1 to 2 cups onion skins + 1 to 2 cups celery leaves

1 bay leaf

10 to 12 peppercorns

water (4 to 5 quarts to start)

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

Place ham bone and soup pack in a large pot (mine is my 7 qt pretty purple pot but you ain't buying it from Amazon and I've already linked a whole ton of stuff so I'll leave it at that). Add bay leaf and peppercorns then pour water over, and add the shot of apple cider vinegar. Heat gently on the stove until it gets to a simmer (I use my fancy pants power burner on low for this). Skim off any foam that clings to the edges. Simmer for 8 hours, adding additional water as necessary to keep the bone mostly covered. Strain the stock (I just use my regular colander which has fairly small holes but is not a 'fine mesh' strainer) and chill overnight. The next day, scrape the solidified fat off and discard. 

If you're freezing the stock, this is when you pour it into zip top bags or canning jars, making sure to leave room for expansion once the liquid is frozen, label, and freeze.

If you're going to pressure can, this is when I leave it up to the experts and direct you to this site.

steam is escaping the petcock at a constant stream--ready to put the gauge on and start the timer