Tag Archives: cheese

french onion mashed potatoes

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I found this recipe on Bluesky one sleepless night from a rather unlikely source (he usually posts political stuff) and it sounded so good I wanted to give it a go. He also linked to a recipe, which I used as a base but ended up changing it a bit (as usual). For example, I left out the heavy cream and used a salted butter & olive oil mix to caramalise the onions, plus swapped out gruyere for manchego (finely grated so it stirs in and melts easily). And only stirring after mashing so the potatoes didn’t get all gluey.

Anyhow, the basic idea is gorgeous mashed potatoes with caramalised onions and cheese stirred in, so it’s pretty flexible. I’ve also made this with a mix of sweet onions and shallots and then stirred in wilted baby spinach at the end – also delicious.

Ingredients & instructions below…
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manchego cheese croquetas

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It seemed like a good idea to make croquetas on a rainy afternoon, as they are a bit labour intensive and I wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, it had been a long while since I’ve made croquetas, so wanted to be sure I still knew how. I should say that I have a different idea of croquetas than the average Sevillano (and many Spaniards in general) in that I like mine to taste of something other than bechamel. There are many points of view about what constitutes the “perfect croqueta” and I actually don’t care that much. The ones I like best are full of flavour, soft and creamy on the inside and with a good solid crunchy outside. Anyhow, today I opted for cheese croquetas, which in the end is like making a thick cheese sauce, breading and frying it. Which is amazing! My recipe has maybe three times the cheese as I’ve seen elsewhere – you can decide how cheesy you want them.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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cheesy garlicky courgette potato bacon bake

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So it’s another “fridge forage” lunch, this time using up a couple of courgettes and potatoes that needed eating. It’s fast and easy and you can play around with the ingredients (obviously leave out the bacon for a vegetarian option). Really nice comfort food for a cold rainy November day.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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potato “raclette” casserole

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Just so you know, this has nothing to do with a proper raclette, nor does it use raclette cheese. But as it does involve mostly potatoes and melted cheese this is what came to mind as I was making it. It all started yesterday when I realised that the very special Swedish Vasterbottensost Cheese that my friend Karin had brought for me in October was about to reach its expiry date. I’d been saving it for a special occasion…

Anyhow, it was such a miserable wet and cold day that some comfort food was definitely required and, after trying a bit of the Vasterbottensost (delicious!) decided it needed to be eaten as simply as possible. And so I came up with this. It was a perfect rainy day meal … and also made for great leftovers!

Ingredients and instructions below…

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triple grilled mac & cheese

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Another fab recipe from guest contributor, fellow foodie & friend WeeRascal
(previous contribution was his angus beef & coriander casserole)

[click to enlarge]

What’s your favourite part of Mac and cheese? For me, a slightly burnt, crispy, extra cheesy top when it pops out of the oven is heaven. So I had an idea: why not make a Mac and cheese that has this sort of texture all the way through? The recipe is actually very similar to the way my grandmother used to make it. It’s not at all like the over-rich, creamy, liquid dish you’ll get from a tin, or from a restaurant – I find that a couple of mouthfuls of this “white lava” can be far too sickly.

On the other hand, because of the layering and grilling process used here, the cheese adheres to the pasta like iron filings to a magnet and it’s very addictive. From a culinary point of view, this is about as easy as it gets, but it’s not exactly healthy. It’s perfect for the odd comfort food fix and I will say from experience that it is a superb hangover cure – served cold. Incidentally, you may think that there’s far too much mustard power in this, but bear with me – it really does turbo charge the sharpness of the cheese.

Ingredients and instructions below…

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