Potatoes and Broccoli Au Gratin

I’ve been browsing lots of recipes and food blogs lately, so it only made sense that I document our meal last night. I have to make dinner anyway, right?

A while ago there was a food item on a plate of leftovers from my church MOPS group which I volunteer at that I loved. It was a sort of a hard boiled egg casserole or salad with this cheesy stuff on top and it was just so amazing. I ate it cold, but I couldn’t tell if it was intended to be served hot. Weeks later, there was a day when I couldn’t stop  thinking about it and really wanted it for dinner. Finally, I googled it and found what looked like my dish, Hard-Boiled Egg Casserole. I had to make it right away. I even went to the store and got Half and Half and Gruyere cheese instead of substituting milk and parmesan or something. It was not only wonderful, but exactly what I’d had!

What I found, though, was that I liked the sauce even better on my broccoli than I did on the eggs. So the dinner that I made last night was based on that. I halved the sauce recipe and used that for this dish.

Potatoes and Broccoli Au Gratin

based on Hard-Boiled Egg Casserole

Ingredients

• 2 TB butter
• 2 TB flour
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
• grated parmesan cheese (I actually used a cheese blend)
• salt
• pepper
• dill (I use dried)
• Trader Joe’s Aioli Garlic Mustard Sauce (or mustard and garlic powder)
• small-medium red potatoes (or any potatoes, really)
• broccoli (fresh or frozen should be fine, I used frozen)
• deli sliced ham or leftover ham (0ptional)

Wash your potatoes and poke holes in them with a fork. I put them in my casserole dish and then microwaved them. I used the “baked potato” button, but if you don’t have one, just microwave them for a few minutes.

Seriously, it seems like my potatoes are always undercooked if I don’t precook them except in a few situations. When I saw that my grandmother microwaves her potatoes before making scalloped potatoes and ham, doors opened in my mind. I guess you could also boil them first.

Meanwhile, start making the sauce. It’s basically a sort of a roux, so if you’ve made macaroni and cheese from scratch you’re ahead. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add in the flour. Cook and stir until it makes a sort of paste. Add a little more flour if you need it.

Add the half-and-half gradually as you stir until it starts thickening. Add in salt, pepper, and dill to taste. I didn’t measure these, I probably used 2-3 shakes of sea salt, 4-5 grinds of pepper, 2-3 shakes of dill. If you don’t have/like dill you can safely leave it out or replace it with something you have/like. Parsley, maybe?

Add the garlic mustard sauce (or garlic powder and mustard). I didn’t measure this either, I just put in a dab so maybe 1/4-1/2 teaspoon. Add in the gruyere cheese and stir until melty and wonderful.

Take your potatoes out of the dish and cut them up to your desired size. Most of mine were sort of rounds, but you could cut them up more and make cubes. Butter your dish and lay about half of the potato pieces out on the dish. Scatter your broccoli amongst the potatoes(I used frozen broccoli and just put it in frozen). If you want ham, cut it up into small pieces and scatter about half on top of the potatoes and broccoli. Pour/spread about half of the sauce on top. Scatter the rest of your potatoes, broccoli, and ham on top and pour on the rest of the sauce. Top with parmesan cheese and a few more grinds of pepper if you like.

Bake at 375°F for about 20 minutes.

I neglected to take a picture of it after it came out of the oven before it was attacked, but here’s a portion of it. When I was putting the casserole together I thought it didn’t look like enough sauce but it tasted great and I didn’t feel like it was lacking in sauce. You could double the sauce and coat the potatoes more if you want it really saucy, but I don’t think it needed it.

Bread Log: April 16, 2010

Yesterday, I baked the rest of my Soft American-Style White Bread dough.

I really wanted to try some cinnamon bread with this dough, so I made a mini loaf. Here’s some advice: wax paper is not at all parchment paper and if you are out of parchment paper, do not try to substitute wax paper.

The rolling out and rolling up the cinnamon in the dough didn’t work quite as neatly as I’d hoped, I probably should have rolled it out with more flour.

It looked a bit funny when I put it in the pan, but it came out looking nice, and it sure tasted good! I brushed it with butter instead of an egg wash. The instructions said to brush the top with sugar, but I used some of my leftover cinnamon and sugar.

For the rest of the dough, I put it in my usual loaf pan that I use for sandwich bread. I had a revelation the other day about the last loaf and the end of my batch of dough.

There usually isn’t as much dough for the last loaf of bread as for the first. As a result, I often end up with really short loaf of bread or I use the smaller loaf pan and the sandwiches are really tiny.

Finally I thought, “What if I put a ball of aluminum foil in the end of the loaf pan?” Why didn’t I think of that before? It worked pretty well and I ended up with sort of a partial loaf which, when sliced, should be the normal shape and size for sandwich bread.

One end looks a little lumpy, but I think it came out pretty nicely. A great bread hack!

Also this morning Papa was at Henry’s Market and called to see what kind of flour I needed. I suggested looking for King Arthur’s wheat flour. They came back with King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour. It’s an interesting flour, but I’m not sure if it will taste more like white flour or more like wheat flour, so I’m not sure how I’ll use it yet.

Bread Log April 12, 2010

April 8 – Made The Master Recipe/Boule dough with one cup wheat flour. Turns out this is also the Light Whole Wheat bread in the book!

This was my first homemade bread in a while and it was super tasty, although it didn’t get as tall as I wanted in the loaf pan. I think this was because I slashed it after its 40 minute rest right before putting it in the oven which made it unrise. From now on I’m going to slash before it rests.

This bread was amazing for toast and good for sandwiches, but the second loaf’s crust was a little hard.

April 11 – Made Soft American-Style White Bread, substituting one cup of wheat flour for one of the cups of all-purpose. I probably would have tried it with a little more wheat flour, but that was the end of my wheat flour.

This bread smelled amazing, though I think that had something to do with the fact that it was brushed with butter! My loaf came out looking really nice and sliced up beautifully for sandwiches. It was softer than the Master Recipe, which is why I wanted to try it. A great sandwich bread, especially the texture, but it was a little plain tasting.

I think I’d like to try making a mini cinnamon loaf with this dough, and I think it would make nice rolls.

Bread I want to try next…

• Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread inspired by Chris Kimball
• Bagel/Pretzel dough (pretzel bread sandwich rolls!)
• European Peasant Bread

The book: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

Bread Baking

About a year ago while we were still in our apartment, I started making my own bread for our sandwiches. We were now both working at home all day and needed satisfying lunches every day, and we were trying to save money however we could. I stumbled upon Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day. I tried the free “master recipe” provided on the website, and it came out great. I continued to make the bread regularly, enough for sandwich lunches almost every weekday until we moved in with my grandparents. I made a couple batches of bread while there, but then I sort of stopped for a while.

Last week I made my first new batch of dough in a while. It was just as easy and good as I remembered. I wanted to try different bread, though. Last night I finally bought the whole book. I got the Kindle version mostly with my swagbucks-earned Amazon gift cards.

This evening, with the little end of my previous loaf not enough for sandwiches tomorrow, I started a batch of dough with a new recipe from the book. The bread is sitting out and cooling right now, and it is beautiful. It looks and smells amazing.

I used the Soft American-Style White Bread recipe, although I incorporated some wheat flour with the all-purpose. They’ve all tasted great, but this is one of those loaves that just looks like a “proper” sandwich bread. I can’t wait to cut into it tomorrow!

New Desk!

Since we have an office in the new apartment, we need some new desks. I finally figured out a configuration that would work for both of us, using Ikea table tops and legs. We got them on Friday and put together Jerrod’s desk. We did his first since I don’t live there yet and he really wanted a place to put his iMac.

They’re VIKA AMON tabletops with VIKA CURRY legs. Jerrod’s is two small tables together, but mine will be one long table.

The wooden cabinet and black shelving were already in the room, so we arranged them a bit.

a quickr pickr post

Our New Table!

We got our new dining room table! We picked it up at Pottery Barn on wednesday, put it together, AND had dinner on it.

Here it is;

It’s the Metropolitan Dining Table in black from Pottery Barn. It sits six and has a leaf which can expand it to seating eight. The chairs are Ingolf chairs from Ikea in black, with Ritva cushions in white from Ikea. I think it looks and feels great!

Bathroom Colors

 I’ve previously posted my inspiration boards for wedding colors and kitchen colors. Here is my inspiration for my bathroom colors – pink and navy!

also posted at http://prettygeek.com

Pink and Brown

Last week I took the train up to San Luis Obispo where my best childhood friend has been living for school and from there we drove to her Oregon to stay with her great aunt for a few days. It was a fun trip visiting a new place with no sales tax. Then we drove back and I took the train home early the next morning.

I knew we were getting new carpet when I was gone so before I left, I had to get everything out of my room before I left.

I had a class that night the day I got back.

I had asked my mom if she could paint an old dresser that was in my parents’ garage for me while I was gone, and she surprised me by painting my room. She did it in pink and brown with three of the walls painted tan, and the wall with the window in a soft pink. It’s kind of neopolitan ice cream colors. The carpet is a nice neutral sort of beige color. they had also moved my bed under the window but otherwise the room was still pretty much empty.

So of course, the rest of the weekend was spent planning where things in my room would go; I went all out with scale diagrams and everything, and I needed window coverings so I was looking at those and the dresser wasn’t done being painted, etc.

So anyway, today I got clothes in the dresser and books on the shelf. I’m still putting things away and going through things. They’re basically in groups of keep, ebay, yard sale, give away, or toss.

I’ll try to post pictures of my room when it’s done.

I also started classes this week and they were all online, but required a first class meeting.

Sprucing

So, I’ve spruced a bit. I actually fixed the Archives so that the new ones are linked. I changed my mood theme to a nice Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants one. I added Gravatar support on comments. Gravatar is Globally Recognized avatar. It’s pretty neat as far as I’ve tried it. Set your own at gravatar.com I can imagine alot of sites supporting them soon. I tested mine and it works perfectly. You just put in the same email address you signed up with, and there you go. I also added some more fun smilies, of animals and characters and stuff. We’re also doing some sprucing at home now too. My grandmother has decided to get new carpet for the bedrooms. This is good, seeing as the carpet is 30 years old, green, and shag. I have a large rug over mine, so you don’t see most of it. This means, however that I have to clean my room and we’re going to have to take everything out. This is very overwhelming, as my room is small but packed with my bookshelves, tv, bed, desk, etc. However this also means that I’ll get to finally move in that other dresser that I’ve been thinking about. It’s sitting in my parents’ garage and it’s really long and white. I’d like to paint it and put it under my window and then I could set my tv and stuff on top of it where it is now, but more stable. Then I could move my DVD shelf over where the not very functional(drawers don’t open and close well) dresser is. Could I put my minifridge there too? I’m not sure. Maybe I need some sort of organizer thing there which would put a shelf over and stuff. There is much to consider.