Food help

[kaberett]

Dear Dreamwidth: I have a craving for a specific Food Of My People, specifically, it's approximately potato gratin (except what actually you do is boil up new potatoes in milk with onions, and maybe a bit of nutmeg, and nom nom nom). When I eat these at home, it's normally with green beans + cheese, but I suspect housemate would legitimately like something a bit more substantial/interesting than "potatoes and cheese" for dinner, so, er... suggestions? Vegetarian ones? Because where I come from, this gets served with like ham boiled with cloves, and that's clearly utterly irrelevant to me. HALP.

Comments

weirdly specific reply

[sebastienne]

My favourite way to eat Linda McCartney veg sausages is with cheesy mashed potato and green peas or beans, so I feel like that must work with this dish, as well. (Of course this is a useless reply if either of you dislike that particular brand..)

Re: weirdly specific reply

[kaberett]

Huh, it normally totally fails to even occur to me that veg sausages are a thing, but I suppose they are! That is a thing worth contemplating.

[highlyeccentric]

potatoes and cheese is a food! especially with greens!

how about upping the green bean component to a warm salad? I wonder if something like this, with nuts instead of bacon, would do the job? I think my manfriend made that recipe (with moulis, and beans instead of radish greens) and served it with potato to my satisfaction.

cold salad, similar vein: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/green-bean-salad-vinaigrette.html

[kaberett]

It's not quiiiiiiite the right kind of potato for that (i.e. if I were going to serve mustard-and-vinegar green beans, I'd want to do something less... warm-and-liquid with the potatoes, probably involving gherkin). I went for sausage in the end, which still leaves me with "ugh, meat substitute", but hey :-) It worked :-)

[sorrillia]

Lentils, particularly the greenish-brown ones that are standard in the US (but I think you have to get at Indian groceries in the UK?) make a good ground beef substitute.

[kaberett]

Mmm, this sort of wants something solid rather than ground; I went with veg sausages in the end :-)

The würst is yet to come

[hairyears]

Veg sausages.

Sensible.

Safer, in this country, than putting the kartoffel before the horse.

[milkymoon]

This sounds marvellous; I must try it at some point (although 'new potatoes' as such are an impossibility to find in the States; I miss being able to find them).

And... hmm. I would second sebastienne's suggestion of veg sausage - that seems the most appropriate, I think?

[wild_irises]

Where in the States are you? Admittedly, I am in vegetable-variety-rich California, but I see new potatoes all the time.

[sorrillia]

What are "new potatoes"?

[milkymoon]

The wintry wonderland of Boston.

[redbird]

I often found them on sale in New York. I don't know Boston stores as well, but maybe the summertime farmers' markets would carry them? (I tended to be grabbing apples and bread and such at the farmers' market in Harvard Square, and walking past the potato selections without noticing more than "oh, this stand has potatoes.")

[milkymoon]

I should try and check. It's obviously not going to work now considering we're still in the throes of the Endless Winter, but. I've made do with some smallish potatoes I found at the local supermarket.

[kaberett]

Yeah, I went with sausage (and was mildly perplexed by it, but hey!). It is tasty :-) You can do it by chopping up bigger potatoes if easier!

[milkymoon]

Yay, I'm glad it was good in any case. (And I've gone with smallish potatoes.)

[redbird]

Since my immediate reaction was "that sounds like a meal to me," I'd suggest checking with the housemate first and asking if they think that Food of Your People is enough to make a meal. (More often than potatoes, I'll just roast or bake sweet potatoes, and serve them with butter and maybe nutmeg and/or cinnamon, with a glass of milk alongside.)

(I also suspect that I am posting this too late to be helpful, given the time zone differences.)

[kaberett]

Hah. Yes. I ended up going with veggie sausages, but I think some of the issue - in retrospect - is that this is Home Food, and really not the kind of thing that ever appears in restaurants in the UK, and so it's that thing of - this isn't good enough to serve to guests, you know? Even though that's blatantly wrong-headed. (Hilariously, "but that's home-food, though" appears to also apply to... mushroom stroganoff. Which totally *does* exist in restaurants.)

[milkymoon]

Yes! People make stroganoffs all the time in restaurants. ^^;; And no, I can't see... nutmeg potatoes being served in UK restaurants; I associate nutmeg-as-a-seasoning with savoury food with central Europe. Germany, Austria, that sort of thing.

[kaberett]

The Food Of My People, yep ;)

[fyreharper]

:headtilt: Does that come out soup-ish textured, or more solid than that? Because slices-of-potato in milk with onions (plus celery salt in this case, rather than nutmeg) is pretty much my mom's potato soup (which I cannot for the life of me make right ;_; ).

[kaberett]

More solid - less liquid, distinct coherent potato-lumps.

[fyreharper]

Hmm, okay. Sounds tasty! (and potatoes just got added to the shopping list... ;p )

[birke]

...I think this post is why I bought sausage and potatoes when I went grocery shopping a few hours ago.