Potato Cake with Truffled Green Beans and Sauteed Mushrooms

The last few days, I have had no desire to eat at all. Which is really, really weird for me. Last night however, I finally got my appetite back, so I decided it was time to cook.

I took a look in the refrigerator and found some items that looked like they would make great side dishes, but no main dish candidates. The husband saw me staring into the fridge and made a suggestion, potatoes.

I found a few Yukon golds lurking in the back of the crisper drawer and decided to use them to make my main dish, a potato cake kind of similar to Pommes Anna.

Here's the ingredients:
4 Yukon gold potatoes
2 Tablespoons butter
3 or so cloves garlic

I started by melting the butter over very low heat along with the garlic.

While it melted I used a mandolin to slice the potatoes (very carefully because that thing is wicked sharp).

I sliced the potatoes about 1/8" thick (traditional Pommes Anna would cut the potatoes to about 1/16" thick).

Next I got out a 9" nonstick cake pan, brushed it with the garlic butter then added a layer of sliced potatoes.

Then I brushed this with more garlic butter,

and sprinkled it with a tiny bit of salt. I repeated this process a total of three times. I would have preferred it be a little thicker (more layers), but I really needed a 6" or 7" pan to accomplish this, and the only pan I have that is that size was not deep enough.

I put this into a 400 degree oven and let it bake for 45 minutes.

While the potatoes were in the oven, I started on the side dishes. Here's the ingredients.

1 handful green beans trimmed and cut into 1" pieces
truffle oil

3 slice bacon, chopped
6 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup white wine
2 teaspoon fresh tarragon

I tossed the green beans with some truffle oil and a little truffle salt. I considered sauteing the beans, but since the oven was on, I decided to roast them alongside the potatoes. I put them in the oven when there was 20 minutes left on the timer.

Once I put the green beans in the oven I cooked the bacon in a saute pan until it was nice and crispy, then I removed it from the pan and put it on a paper towel to drain. I left a little bit of the bacon fat in the pan and added the mushrooms to the pan to saute.

When they were cooked through, I added the white wine and let it simmer until all the wine was gone.

At this point I added the fresh tarragon and the bacon.

When the potatoes were done cooking I removed the pan from the oven.

Then I turned the potato cake out onto a cutting board.

To plate, I cut the potato cake into quarters, put two on each plate and then spooned on some of the green beans and mushrooms to each plate. Alongside I served a salad made with red and purple radishes, cucumber, fresh mint, feta cheese and a splash of sherry vinegar.

At first I tried each thing individually. The potatoes were creamy and sweet on the inside, but the outside was so crispy and delicious (like yummy french fries). The truffle oil was a perfect accompaniment to the greens beans and the tarragon was delicious with the wine-infused mushrooms. Next I started mixing and matching flavors, a little mushroom with a little potato, a little mushroom with a little green bean, etc. It was all good and it was all good together. The husband liked everything too (especially the potatoes) which is good, because the whole thing started as his idea.

Asian-Grilled Chicken with Stir-Fried Vegetables

It has been a very busy week for me and I'll admit, I've been a bit of a lazy chef this week. Today was my at-home paperwork day (and triathlon training rest day) so I had more energy for cooking tonight.

After a quick perusal of the crisper drawer I was rewarded with shitake mushrooms, a whole bunch of green veggies (including a zucchini that had seen better days that went in the bin rather then the meal) and in the meat drawer some chicken. I decided to put a quick marinade on the chicken and stir-fry some veggies.

Here's the ingredients for the chicken:

1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 oyster sauce
1 Tablespoon honey
a healthy squeeze of sriracha
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 chicken breasts

I combined all the marinade ingredients in a ziploc bag. Then I trimmed my chicken and cut each breast in half horizontally so that they were thinner and would cook faster. I set this aside which I worked on the veggies.

After about 15 minutes I removed the chicken from the marinade (reserving it for later), dried them well with paper towels then tossed them on my hot grill. When it was done I set it aside to rest covered with foil while I cooked the veggies.

Here's the ingredients for the veggies:

On the left are the veggies to top the chicken on the right are the veggies for under the chicken (that will make more sense later).

8 or so shitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
4 green onion, chopped
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 cup dry sherry

1 shallot, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced
12 sprigs asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch spinach

In a small saucepan I warmed the sesame oil and then added the mushrooms and green onions to saute.

When they were just about cooked through I added the sherry and then put it back on the heat and let it cook until the pan was almost dry.

While this was cooking I added just a little more sesame oil to a large saute pan then tossed in the shallots, green onions and asparagus. When the veggies were cooked almost through I added the reserved marinade (making sure that it boiled for at least a minute since it had raw chicken in it) and then the spinach.

Now I was ready to plate. I made a little bed of rice, then topped that with the stir-fried asparagus combo, then topped that with grilled chicken, then topped that with the shitake mushrooms.

How was it? Well I think I would give this dish a solid "B". It could have used more garlic, especially in the mushrooms, a little soy sauce wouldn't have hurt anything (but their was none in the pantry) and I could have been a little more heavy handed with the sriracha. For the most part the husband enjoyed it too, but I did get a "was there spinach in this" when we were done. I can't get anything past him.