Purple Potatoes Take Two

Just wanted to give this link here – so you can see the potatoes cut into – and there’s lots of purple potato recipes!

and the winner is…

The cupcakes were a big hit…for the sake of those of us who are trying to stay away from the goodies, photos are after the break. 😉

how to pick???!

First, is it okay to link to other people’s flickr photos? I’ve seen other bloggers do it, but I’m not completely sure what the etiquette is….so If I’ve linked your photo here and you’re ticked, please accept my apologies. Now, on with the post….

I have to make Halloween cupcakes today! I’m not even going to start on how hard that’s going to be because I can’t snitch at any point in the process…no licking fingers, no ma’am.

So I went to my favorite source of cupcake inspiration: flickr. Wow, so many cool ones to choose from! There were these:

and these…I’m liking the skull one:

but wait, these are cool and look very easy…

Holy crap, these ones took the cake though……

Have you ever seen a cooler cuter ghosty little cupcake???!! Not that I’m even considering making them.. I just fell in luuuurve with them.

So…skulls, graves, or mummies?

***YAWN***

So I’m on a modified eating plan for six days, trying to jump-start my very sluggish metabolism. No salt, no sugar, no wheat, no dairy. And you know what I miss most….COFFEE. I am one who cannot take my coffee without sugar or cream…and believe me, I’ve tried every sugar substitute known to man and they all make me gag.

I’m past the stabbing-headache-phase of caffiene withdrawal…now I’m just sad and TIRED and wistful. I want a latte so much right now that I think I might cry a little. (Is that the sound of tiny violins I hear?)

But I keep telling myself…NO, NO, NO…you can do this. It’s six freaking days, for crying out loud. You have plenty to eat. Suck it up. You’re halfway there.

But the call of the coffee is so strong……

Purple Mashed Potatoes

I’m having a “Lucid Window” where my PC seems to maybe work – so here we go.

YEARS ago on a cooking show I saw a chef from Hawaii use PURPLE potatoes. I thought they looked so fun – and really wanted to try them. I’ve finally found them both at Wild Oats and at a local farmstand.

They are purple through and through – deep, dark, purple. Not maroon like beets – PURPLE! (The birdfeeder/candydish behind the potatoes is from a local craft fair – fun huh?).

So I decided to make mashed potatoes with them – for fun. They turned out so fabulous. They were a gorgeous lavender color.

No recipe here – just added cream and butter and used my kitchenaid. They taste just like regular mashed potatoes. My 6yo couldn’t eat them because of the mental thing – too weird to eat purple mashed potatoes I suppose. Parts of the leftovers turned a bright turquoise – crazy fun.

I also made potato leek soup with these and it’s amazing how well they hold their shape. So they are a starchier potato – like a new potato. They’d be great in stews or soups if you want the potatoes to keep their shape. Now with potato leek soup, I like mine blended – so I used an immersion blender – and at first my soup just looked kind of brown. As it sat overnight in the fridge (and freezer) it turned this deep dark purple. Crazy stuff. Sorry – no more pics.

I haven’t confirmed this yet, but I’m guessing that the purple potatoes may have some anti-oxidant properties of other foods in the blue/purple group.  Hopefully you can find these too – it is potato harvest right now!!!

my million dollar idea

It’s for someone else, granted, because running a place like this would be my idea of a private hell, but it’s *my* idea…

Don’t you think that there should be an alternative/crunchy version of Chuck E. Cheese (et al) where kids can play all the fun games and run around and be wild and stuff, but not eat total crap and come home with craptastically crappy plastic toys? I’m envisioning:

• an excellent security system (of course) so you don’t have to worry about your kids getting nabbed
• healthy, or at least moderately healthy snacks and drinks…no high fructose corn syrup allowed. (Would founatin Izze be too much to ask for?)
• prizes that are somewhat useful and encourage creativity

Really, wouldn’t it be amazing? I know I’d pay more for the tokens if it meant I didn’t have to field constant requests for assorted crap for two hours straight. I think other parents would too.

five things I really wish I liked

but they make me gag:

1. yogurt
2. oatmeal
3. beans
4. avocados
5. tea

it’s kind of rocking my world

…that all of the Old People on Survivor are my age.

Yikes.

curds and whey

Seriously, I never really had any idea what curds and whey were…until I tried cheese curds in college, then I sort of got it. Now I really get it, because I MADE CHEESE. You heard me right, I made cheese, with milk, on my stove, in my kitchen.

I started my quest with this recipe and a brand spankin’ new insta-read thermometer. Unfortunately, the insta-read was totally jacked, which resulted in my adding key ingredients at the wrong temp, more than once. Which resulted in this:

Not too pretty. It’s like a freaky brainy thing.

Determined that failure shouldn’t be my only memory of attempted cheesemaking, I decided to try again. Having a good idea of what went wrong and why the first time around was valuable…and this time I succeeded! Go me!

My observations, which the first-time cheesemaker may find useful (now that I’m a wise second-time cheesemaker, lol):

• It’s not a bad idea to half the recipe for your first attempt.
• The recipe says your milk will start to curdle around 88 degrees. If it’s not curdling, don’t add the rennet; your thermometer is almost certainly jacked.
• When you get to the part where you’re nuking the curds repeatedly, if they’re not stretching, keep nuking. I think I had to heat mine 5 or 6 times — then magically, the cheese was all smooth and stretchy like it was supposed to be.
• Don’t be shy with the salt. Salt away.
• Don’t discard your whey — you can use it to make ricotta. Just heat the whey to around 200 degrees, then scoop out the new curds that will form, and drain in cheesecloth for a little while…voila! Ricotta! (this also needs to be salted!)

Since I halved the recipe I didn’t get a whole lot of ricotta, but heck, I figured it was worth a shot!

Also? It’s very amusing to throw, “when I was making cheese…” into a conversation and watch the reaction. It launches you into a new level of crunch-dom. Heh. (And they thought you were crunchy before…)

I wasn’t sure how to store homemade mozzarella, so I cut half into chunks and put them in salted water (like you buy it at the store) and wrapped the other half. The next day I grated it and put it on pizza, but sadly it didn’t melt the way I felt it should. All in all, though, a success.

contest!

Carrie is having a contest…and the prize is FAB. Seriously. If you have kids, it’s a no-brainer, they will go ape. Go enter. Now!