Truffled twice-baked potatoes

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Someone in my Facebook universe was talking about twice-baked potatoes the weekend of the Oscars, and it got me in the mood, so I made a batch for the family to eat while we watched the stars walk down the red carpet. There are all kinds of directions you can take twice-baked potatoes, but that day was all about glamour. I pulled out my truffle condiments and went to work.

I baked some little red fingerlings from Weiser Family Farms, then used a tiny spoon to hollow out the skins. I mashed the potato flesh with a fork and stirred in butter, cream, white truffle oil and truffle salt. Back into the skins went the truffled potato mixture, then another half hour in a hot oven. Some chopped parsley and the little twice-baked potatoes were ready for their close-up.

The kids were underwhelmed. Is it possible that I've jaded them with all this truffle stuff? Now that would be a tragedy. Michael and I ate them happily, though I blame those little taters for my snug waistbands ever since.

I'm already thinking about the menu for my annual Trufflepalooza this summer. Pretty sure some variation of these potatoes will show up.

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Truffled twice-baked potatoes

by Erika Kerekes March 7, 2011

Miniature twice-baked potatoes with truffle oil and truffle salt - an elegant bite-sized cocktail snack or appetizer for your next party.

Ingredients

12 small potatoes3 Tbsp butter2 Tbsp heavy cream1 tsp truffle oil1/2 tsp truffle salt1 Tbsp chopped parsley

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Wash the potatoes well and place them on a baking sheet. Bake the potatoes about 45 minutes or until very tender. Remove from the oven and let cool about 15 minutes. Leave the oven on.Slice off about 1/2 inch of the tops of the potatoes. With a small spoon, scoop out most of the potato flesh, taking care to leave the skin intact. Put the potato flesh into a small mixing bowl. With your fingers, peel the skin off the tops you've already sliced off and add the flesh to the bowl. I ate the skin, bu you can toss it if you don't like it.Mash the potato flesh with a fork until it's pretty smooth. Add the butter, cream, truffle oil and truffle salt and mix well. Spoon the potato mixture back into the potato skins, heaping it above the top.Bake the filled potatoes for another 30-45 minutes, until the filling is browned and crusty. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the parsley, and serve immediately.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 1 hour 15 mins Total time: 1 hour 30 mins Yield: 24 pieces

Babble.com's Top 100 Food Mom Blogs 2011

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Today Babble.com published its list of Top 100 Food Mom Blogs for 2011. And guess what? I squeaked onto the list at number 98! Lots of my wonderful food blog friends made the list too: Picky Palate, La Fuji Mama, Inside the Kaganoff Kitchen, Cookin' Canuck, Family Fresh Cooking, Ladles and Jellyspoons, Daydreamer Desserts, Bell'allimento, Wicked Good Dinner, and many more.

Thanks to all of you who voted for me months ago, and congratulations to all the blogs on the list!

French cassoulet, California style

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The bar at Vertical Wine Bistro

French food holds a special place in my heart. Michael and I have had some great food adventures in France. Foie gras on a buttered baguette at a Paris street fair on a rainy November afternoon. Fish soup with croutons, garlicky rouille and shredded gruyere, spooned up beside the harbor in Cassis, with which we drank amazing wine that never makes it to the U.S. Tiny fraises des bois, wild strawberries, from the produce market in Maillane, the Provencal village where we stayed with our kids a few spring breaks back

Despite the fact that everyone from Woody Allen to my late father made fun of California's obsession with sprouts and wheatgrass, Los Angeles has some fine French food. And few Cal-French chefs do it better than Laurent Quenioux, the James Beard Award-nominated chef behind Bistro LQ and, now, Vertical Wine Bistro in Pasadena, where I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with a group of Los Angeles food writers a few months ago.

California rubs off on even the most French of chefs, it seems, because French food in Los Angeles is always on the lighter side. Even cassoulet, a hearty winter gratin of beans, sausages and various cuts of pork that in France will send you running for your favorite napping sofa, seemed more fresh and less fatty at Vertical.

Chef Quenioux swears by the Tarbais beans, fat white ones, creamy and smooth. It's off the menu now - winter's over, spring's here, haven't you heard? But get ready to channel your inner French chef and make it yourself, because I scored Chef Quenioux's recipe. Reading it, I can't imagine how the final product ended up tasting so light. There are some manly ingredients on this list.

Note: It may be hard to find cured garlic sausage and Toulouse sausage unless you have access to a good European-style butcher. Do the best you can. Ultimately, sausage is delicious. If you can't get the ones recommended here, choose your favorites.

Cassoulet at Vertical Wine Bistro

 Vertical Wine Bistro's Cassoulet De Toulouse

• Salt and pepper
• 250g pork skin (optional)
• 500g pork belly, cubed 
• 1 kg Tarbais beans, soaked overnight 
• 1 large whole onion
• 12 whole cloves
• 200g duck fat
• 1 bouquet garni with thyme, rosemary and bay 
• 500g lamb shanks 
• 2 pieces duck leg confit 
• 1 cured garlic sausage 
• 500g Toulouse sausage
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1/2 garlic head, minced
• 6 tomatoes, chopped 
• 1 liter chicken stock
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• 2 Tbsp walnut oil
• 1 Tbsp butter

Chef Laurent Quenioux

Soak pork skin for 12 hours or overnight if using.
Sauté pork belly to render some of the fat in a large pot. Add the soaked beans to the pot and enough water to cover by 2 inches. Stud one whole onion with the cloves and add to the pot along with the bouquet garni and 50g duck fat. Cook for 1 1/2 hours on low heat on the stovetop.

Roast the lamb shanks in a 400F oven using 50g duck fat. Season with salt and pepper. Nestle cooked lamb into the beans.

Sauté the sausages and the confit. Remove from pan, set aside. Add the chopped onions, carrots, and garlic to pan and sauté until onions are translucent. Stir sautéed vegetables and tomatoes into the beans. Nestle sausages and confit on top, making sure confit is not crushed. Cook for 1-2 hours in oven at 350F, making sure to keep beans wet by adding water or chicken stock as needed.

Taste for salt and pepper. Layer the beans and meats in a large clay pot for presentation. Add 2 tablespoons of walnut oil and 1 tablespoon of butter. Sprinkle with the panko and 100g duck fat and place under broiler for 30 minutes to toast the panko and heat through.

Cassoulet ingredients

Traditional blackberry cobbler recipe

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I only need three words to describe this traditional southern blackberry cobbler:

1. Easy
2. Decadent
3. Delicious

Thanks to Nathalie Dupree, doyenne of American southern cooking, for sharing this recipe with her Facebook friends (of which I am lucky to be one). When you read the recipe, you'll understand why "decadent" is one of three words, despite the fact that this is a fruit-based dessert. Hint: Decadent = BUTTER.

Traditional blackberry cobbler

• 2 cups blackberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
• 1 cup self-rising flour (or 1 cup all-purpose flour plus 1/2 tsp baking powder)
• 1 cup milk

Toss the blackberries with the sugar in a large bowl. Let sit 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Put the butter in an 8-inch square baking dish and stick the dish in the oven. While the butter melts, whisk together the flour and milk in another bowl, plus any juice that's come out of the berries.

When the butter is melted and bubbling, remove the pan from the oven. Pour the flour mixture over the butter - do not stir. Pour the sugared berries on top of the batter, again without stirring. Return the pan to the oven and bake 30-40 minutes, until the cobbler is bubbling and the juices threaten to escape the pan at any moment. If you're thinking ahead and you hate cleaning your oven as much as I do, put a piece of foil on the rack under the cobbler, just in case the juices succeed.

Cool 15 minutes in the pan before serving. Whipped cream is always welcome on top of blackberry cobbler.

Pear almond yogurt cake

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I am a woman of simple cakes. I spent a month in 2010 focused on cake decorating (in preparation for Kelly Ripa's Cake-Off for a Cause, where I rolled fondant with 14 other food bloggers and Buddy "The Cake Boss" Valastro), but despite private lessons and lots of practice on my own, I never really got the cake decorating bug. Truthfully, I prefer my cakes plain, even a little ugly.

This pear cake with ground almonds is a perfect example of the kind of cake I love. It's based on a traditional French yogurt cake, which I've made with lots of variations (lime yogurt cake, chocolate yogurt cake, almond pomegranate yogurt cake, limoncello cake). Grated pears keep the cake moist, and ground almonds add both flavor and texture. It takes 10 minutes to put together, 45 minutes or so in the oven, half an hour to cool enough to cut. Will it win any beauty contests? No. But when I've got a hot cup of tea and a slice of this pear almond cake for breakfast, I'm not looking.

Pear almond cake with yogurt

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup plain yogurt (low-fat is fine)
• 1/3 cup grapeseed or canola oil
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 large pear, peeled, cored and grated
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup ground almonds or almond meal
• 3 Tbsp coarse raw sugar crystals

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a round 9-inch cake pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, yogurt, oil, granulated sugar and almond extract. Add the grated pears and stir to combine.

In a smaller bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in the ground almonds, making sure to break up any clumps.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend with a large spoon or spatula just until everything is incorporated. Turn the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then turn the cake out onto the rack to finish cooling.