The Cookbook Experiment: Cheese Potato Puff

Tonight's cookbook experiment is a recipe from another amazing woman at church: Sally Dowdy. She is one of my heroes of faith, someone who you know if she says she will pray for you, she will.  She is a beautiful, courageous woman and I am grateful to know her.

The recipe is called "Cheese Potato Puff". This recipe is wonderful because I had all the ingredients on hand. It is also wonderful because it will satisfy not only my meat-eaters in the house but my vegetarians as well.

Cheese Potato Puff

(12) medium potatoes, peeled
(1) teaspoon salt, divided
(3/4) cup butter
(2) cups shredded cheddar cheese
(1) cup of milk
(2) eggs, beaten
fresh or dried chives

Place potatoes in a large kettle; cover with water. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt; cook until tender.  Drain; mash potatoes until smooth. In a saucepan cook and stir butter, cheese, milk and remaining salt until smooth. Stir in potatoes; fold in eggs. Pour into a greased baking dish. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until puffy and golden brown. Sprinkle with chives if desired.

Here are my take-a-ways from making this recipe:

• I was not exactly sure what size "medium" potatoes are. I made my best guess as you can see from the picture above.
• I chopped my potatoes before boiling them. I am not sure if that was correct or not but I was in a hurry to get dinner done and knew that chopped potatoes would soften faster while boiling.
• Because I am a cheese snob (I can't help it, I love cheese) I would encourage you to use really good cheese. I used some Murray's sharp cheddar.
• My eggs are so bright yellow because I now only buy cage-free brown eggs. Don't look up the differences in grades/types of eggs unless you want to be disturbed. I looked it up when I was trying to figure out egg safety and because of what I read, I now only use cage-free.
• You will need to temper the eggs when you go to fold them in if you potato/cheese/butter mixture is still hot. Don't scramble your eggs in the potatoes or you will have to start over.
• This recipe is DELICIOUS!!  I encourage you to try it. My whole family loved it. Thanks Mrs. Dowdy!!!

Chicken Salad Adventure

No one, and I repeat, no one can make chicken salad like Ms. Stella out at our church. People have been known to volunteer for events just because they know she is making it!  I do not even pretend to think that I could replicate it but I have decided its time to create my own recipe. My mother had her own version. I was not a real big fan as it was heavily laden with Miracle Whip. That stuff makes me shudder. I guess it has its place....just not in my household. A very nice lady at our church named Linda made a chicken salad recipe that had dried cranberries in it that my daughter and I loved. I used that as the basis of inspiration for my first attempt at our salad.

The ingredients I used were as follows:

• 2 stalks celery diced
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 chicken breasts, boiled, shredded and cut up
• 1 4 ounce bag of dried cranberries for salad
• Duke's Mayonnaise
• 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper
• dried dill

I found bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts on sale at Kroger. I boiled these and carefully removed the bones. This is a great opportunity to save the chicken stock for later. (I'm going to freeze mine in ice-cube trays!)  Just be very careful to get the bones out of the chicken.  Set the chicken aside to cool while you dice your celery and onions small.  Even my picky oldest daughter will eat this.  She loves chicken salad! She usually does not eat anything with vegetables but as long as the celery and onion are small, she eats!

After dicing the celery and onion, I shredded then cut up my chicken.  I like to shred the chicken with my hands. This way I can feel for any bones I may have missed the first time. After shredding and chopping the chicken, I mix in my celery and onion. I am still using my hands at this point.  I did not use all of the celery and onion.  It is a matter of taste at this point. As I mixed it in, I watched the ratio as I added it.  I really did not want the celery or onion to out-gun my chicken.

After washing my hands I decided it was time to switch to a spoon.  Here is where the measuring goes out the window! Once again it comes down to a matter of taste.  I cut my lemon in half and only squeezed half into my chicken/celery/onion mixture.  I tossed in the bag of dried cranberries and stirred.  Next I added the first of what was to be three large tablespoons of Duke's Mayonnaise.  I kept stirring.  Added salt, pepper and approximately 1/2 teaspoon of dill weed.  I stopped. I tasted. I added more mayo.  More salt. More stirring.  This is where you just have to go with your gut....or more with your taste buds.  I did not want soupy chicken salad.  I did not want salty chicken salad.  I knew if I accidentally added to much dill weed my kids would not eat it.  It was a ballet of chicken salad in the kitchen.  Eventually I stopped adding things and called in the BIG GUNS.  My seventeen year old son has no problems telling me like it is when it comes to my cooking.  He came in.  He took a bite, nudged me out of the way, grabbed the bread and made himself a sandwich.

Later he came into my office and declared it was good.  He thanked me for dinner and asked me to make it again.  He said it needed a little something more.  "Mayonnaise?" I asked.  "No." he said.  "More crunch?" I said. "No, but maybe more of the dill weed next time." Hmm...I was surprised.   Stay tuned for the next chicken salad adventure...