Potato Candy

Yesterday we had leftovers for breakfast and lunch - nothing interesting there. For dinner my husband made a rice dish. He sauteed a head of cabbage with a polish sausage (we picked up four packages on a really good sale). He added the remaining onion soup that I turned into gravy and some leftover plum sauce and served it over brown rice. It was good. A bit on the gooey side but the brown rice offered a nice firm texture under the saucy cabbage. The flavor was amazing. It's fun to clean out the fridge sometimes and dump extra sauces in dishes. Sometimes it's the seasonings that make the dish.
I promised a potato candy recipe - the actual recipe will be at the end of this post.
My son has this deep love of potato candy and, to him, it's the ultimate St. Patricks Day food. He requests it when he has a function at school during the holiday.
I started with having him peel 6-7 small potatoes (I thought they were small, in hindsight they may have been closer to medium). I wanted him to have enough but I also thought it made sense to use up the bag. I didn't realize this was far too many potatoes. I boiled the potatoes until they were soft and then ran them under cold water to keep them from being to hot to handle. I mashed them with a stick of Nucoa and then set them in the freezer to cool. It took a little work but by the time I added the sugar they were cold. I mixed in slowly an entire 2 pound bag of powdered sugar. This was when I realized I was in trouble. I didn't have anything resembling a dough - this was a definite soup of a mess. I couldn't run to the store - I didn't have time since I left this to the last minute so I did what any great cook does, I substituted. I added some regular sugar, maybe 2 cups but that didn't really help and the texture went from smooth to gritty. I needed something that maintained the current flavor and yet thickened it. While thinking on that, I added the vanilla which was not enough and my homemade version wasn't strong enough. Being of quick mind, I grabbed a rather dusty, forgotten bottle of Irish Cream coffee syrup and added that to the mix. It was perfect, the flavor complemented nicely and may become the new flavoring for this particular candy. I decided that coconut flour would be perfect since I finish off with coconut. I like coconut flour, it adds a nice nutty flavor to baked goods and was my go to GF flour (I started using it long before going GF though because it's high in fiber). About 1 cup of the flour and the dough was good to go. I finished it with about 2/3 of a bag of sweetened coconut and put the whole thing in the fridge. By this time I was too tired to spend time rolling it into balls and then in the remaining coconut.
My son and husband did that before his party. He said the kids were skeptical at first but then ate them all up. I want to note that they only rolled a portion of the dough. I still have a ton of it in my fridge that I need to come up with a plan for. The gritty texture never really went away but the flavor only got better. I may be coming up with a way to use the dough as a filler in cookies.

Potato Candy
1 large potato - peeled
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
4-5 cups confectioner’s sugar
5 cups sweetened coconut flakes
Boil potato until soft Mash until smooth and add butter. Let cool completely. Mix in vanilla and slowly add sugar. (if the potato is still warm it will melt the sugar so make sure it is cool). Add sugar until you have a stiff dough. Knead in half of the coconut. Roll the dough into small balls and roll in remaining coconut. The dough gets soft when warm so may have to refrigerate it to make it workable.
Can add green food coloring with the vanilla.

German Pizza

Due to illness last week, I don't have really good plans for this week's posts. I promise to get back into the swing of things next week with the product/information tuesdays and new food thursday (I may actually come up with something fun by Thursday).
This recipe is one I found on Kraft's website last fall. It's a rather fun and interesting recipe. I grew up in a german area so there was always sausages and sauerkraut. For this recipe, make sure everything is fairly dry or you will end up with a soggy crust. We buy handmade german sausages which are fairly smoky in flavor. If you buy raw sausages, add water to the pan you are frying them in - just up to 1/2 the sausage side so they will cook evenly. You can use any pizza crust recipe in place of the tubed crust.

German Oktoberfest Pizza
1 tube (13.8 ounces) refrigerated pizza crust
1 pound smoked kielbasa or Polish sausage, cut into 1/4-in. slices
2 teaspoons butter
2 cups leftover or refrigerated mashed potatoes
1 cup sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
Unroll dough into a greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan; flatten dough and build up edges slightly. Bake at 425° for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
Meanwhile, in a large skillet, saute kielbasa in butter until browned. Spread mashed potatoes over crust. Layer with sauerkraut, kielbasa and cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Breakfast Bake

This recipe is one my husband came up with after getting a brief description from someone else. He made it at Christmas time and then again last Friday (for dinner this time). It's an easy dish to make but does take time in the oven. He's still tinkering with the time and temperature so you may need to adjust a little.

Breakfast Bake
1 bag frozen hash brown (1 pound or so)
8 eggs
1/2 pound sausage (could substitute bacon)
pancake mix and ingredients to make pancakes
Pancake syrup

Fry sausage in skillet, breaking into bite sized pieces. Layer hash browns in an oiled 9x13 baking dish. Pour over eggs. Crumble over sausage after draining off fat. Mix one batch of pancake mix per instructions on box. Pour over hashbrowns. Smooth even. Pour over a generous amount of pancake syrup. Bake in oven at 450 for 45 minutes.

At 450 for 45 minutes we did end up with a few doughy spots but not overly so and the outside was browned nicely. May want to reduce heat to 425 and bake for 1 hour or until completely cooked through. My husband loves this with a little extra syrup. I am contemplating the best condiment for this - I like ketchup on my hashbrowns but not so much on the pancakes.