Summer Apple Beet Salad with Peach Balsamic Dressing

 This week I've had an influx of red and golden beets from local farmer friends of mine Eric and Christina Amadio at Amadio Ranch in Laveen, Arizona. These beauties are flipping perfect, and organically grown. Plus, they come from some good hard-working people that I just love! If you've never tried golden beets, they are a bit milder in flavor than red beets and they are gorgeous! I love them.  

This is a light and refreshing salad that really is brilliant in color and is extremely simple to make. The addition of apples gives the salad a sweet-tart crunch balanced with the peach balsamic dressing. I'm picky. I'm specific about the brand on of balsamic that I use because the flavor is deep and complex with natural sweetness. 

Summer Apple Beet Salad with Peach Balsamic Dressing

Ingredients:

4 large beets, about 1 lb. Peel and dice.  

1 crisp tart Fuji or Pink Lady Apple, diced

1 white sweet onion, sliced thin

Dressing:

1/2 Lucero White Peach Balsamic Vinegar*

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/2 cup high quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp dry dill

salt and pepper to taste

Directions: 

Cook the beets by placing them in a 1 quart pot on the stove. Cover and steam 15-20 minutes over medium heat until tender. Cool.

In a large bowl combine the beets and chopped fresh apple with the dressing ingredients.  The apples won't get brown because they take on the color of the beets. 

I love how colorful it is!

* If you do not have peach infused white balsamic vinegar, you can use 1/4 cup white balsamic+1/4 cup peach puree.

There you go. It's vegan, clean, and divine!
A very simple salad for all the Spring and Summer adventures ahead.

Also...if you're in Phoenix, check out these awesome local farmers Christina and Eric Amadio and their mobile farmer's market peach truck...

Amadio Ranch Peach Truck and  Amadio Ranch Farm Store. You will not be disappointed. 


Oh...and their pie...is to die for. To. Die. For! We've purchased them twice on separate occasions. The strawberry rhubarb and the blueberry. I'm in love. Clean flavors, with just a hint of spice so that the natural organic fruit flavor comes through. They're killing it over there in Laveen. Killing it!

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess

Tess' Top Secret Loaded Potato Salad (Banquet Sized Recipe)

Once upon a time my favorite friend Heather invited me over for a barbecue. She whipped out a giant vat of potato salad that she had made and it blew my freakishly adorable mind-space. Number one, because she made just enough for me, and maybe a tablespoon or two for the rest of the guests. You know, I love good potato salad. I do. Don't judge me. Secretly you do too. I bet I'm not the only one who has it as a midnight snack instead of cheesecake. Well. Maybe only if there isn't cheesecake in the house. Number two,  It was perfect. It had just the right balance of zing and zang. The best part...
It had bacon in it. Yeah. Bacon.  Then she confessed to me her ultimate secret for the best potato salad ever. The secret ingredient she used, besides the bacon fat in the dressing, was also the use of pickle brine in the dressing. That's when things got crazy! I started to squeal gleefully!  I pulled out ceremonial head-garb and started singing...The Heather and Tess Ya-ya Sisterhood dancing ensued as I confessed that I too had been using pickle juice in my potato salad dressing for years! After we removed our ceremonial head-garb and stopped dancing, we continued comparing recipe similarities, and it always came back to the pickle juice being the secret ingredient. Ya know...and the bacon. Confession...I have used pickle brine in my potato salad since I was in my twenties, So, since last week...give or take a few decades. This is just a brilliant use of an otherwise "useless" liquid that generally gets thrown away in the trash anyway! I couldn't wrap my head around the bacon fat for my clients, but for the family barbecue, it was absolutely spot-on!

Several years later as I was developing a potato salad recipe for catering and personal chef events, this loaded potato salad just kept appearing in my universe.  It was a sign.  It needed to be part of what I just served regularly.  It is a potato salad without eggs (though you could add those if you wanted to do so) and it is a potato salad that has to always use dill pickle juice instead of vinegar in the sauce. Don't ask me why...except that the saltiness of the pickle brine with the potatoes give it a punch of flavor! To give balance to the tangy zip of the pickle juice, I use sweet pickle relish as well.  It seems weird, but it works! Yes! This is a banquet size recipe that will make 60 servings. Obviously it can be cut back if you need to do so...but it will ensure that there is something for your guests to eat after you've had your "taste". 


Tess' Loaded Potato Salad

yield 60 ½ cup servings

Ingredients:
5 pounds red potatoes, diced into 1/2 inch cubes, skin on, washed

2 1/2 cups mayonnaise
 ¾ cup dill pickle juice OR white vinegar
1 tsp black pepper, freshly cracked
1 tsp salt
1 tsp thyme, ground
1/2 tsp Cumin, ground
1/2 tsp curry powder
1T  minced garlic
1/4 lb bacon crumbles
1 cup green onions, sliced thin
1 cup diced celery
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish

Procedure:
In a large pot of salted water, add potatoes and cook until just fork tender. Remove from boiling water and cool. Combine remaining ingredients in a large 2 gallon bowl. Mix with potatoes, adjusting seasoning as needed, chill well.



Serve with your favorite stuff...or just eat it at midnight in your jammies and slippers in front of the open fridge door. I'm not going to judge you. Just make sure to wear the ceremonial head-garb. Xoxo!

There you go.

Always My Very Best,

Chef Tess

Best Ever Make-Ahead Potato Gratin Casserole

 Hello my darlings! It has been a crazy couple of weeks as we're busting out all the stops getting things together for the Bistro. Here's where we are so far on the interior. The rest of the equipment is coming really quickly!  The floors, walls and electrical are all in place. There's been a slight delay on the opening date so keep checking back...it should be in the next couple weeks. 

When I haven't been in the kitchen working on perfecting the new menu at Stonebridge Manor we've been catering some remarkable and beautiful weddings. Thing have been so wicked-fun! Benjamin is super easy to work with, quick to smile, and totally professional. Seriously. What's not to love? Look at him. He's just a freakin' fun dude! Yup. I've finally found my match in crazy-weirdness in the kitchen. Big things ahead with this guy!

 At any rate, one of my favorite things to do for large-scale events is get a lot of preparation done the day before the function, and though this isn't the exact recipe we use at the Manor, this is one of my all time favorite potato gratin casserole recipes because of the fact that I can make it ahead of an event and still have time the "day of" to do the fun stuff...like this...

So, here's the simple recipe for the potatoes. They're perfectly cheesy and loaded with awesome flavor. 

Chef Tess Make-Ahead Potato Gratin

12 servings

5 ½ lbs russet potatoes, peeled and sliced to 1/8^th inch thick (about 10 potatoes)

2 cups sour cream

2 cup whole milk

2tsp salt

¼ cup flour

¼ cup butter or olive oil

2 medium onion, minced

3T garlic, minced

2tsp Thyme, fresh (or1 tsp dry)

2 tsp fennel seed, crushed

2tsp white pepper

1 cup Parmesan cheese

2 cups cheddar cheese or Asiago, shredded


Make the gratins: combine the first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Making sure to Prep and assemble the sour cream, milk, salt and flour in a bowl before slicing potatoes (so they don't brown). Do not store sliced potatoes in water or the gratin will be watery and flavorless.

 Saute the minced onion and garlic in butter until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add thyme, fennel seeds and pepper. Add the sauted onion mixture into the potato mixture. Turn bowl of potatoes into a 9 by 16 inch GREASED baking dish, pressing the potatoes into a flat even layer.

 Top with cheese. 

  Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake at 375 degrees 1 hr 45 minutes. Transfer the gratins from oven to a cooling rack. Cool uncovered 45 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated up to 3 days.

 For service: Remove from the fridge and allow to warm to room temp (about 45 minutes) remove the plastic wrap. Bake at 450 degrees uncovered for 25-30 minutes until cheese is golden brown.

There you go my darlings! Make some great potatoes!

Always My Very Best,

Your Friend Chef Tess

Cheese Bread Pudding...

What? Cheese in pudding? Am I insane? Now that is a loaded question. Not usually safe to answer that one. Personal mental capacity aside, this is a great recipe. We sometimes have left over bread. Not often. Since I am the bread girl, I thought I'd share how we use some of the crust. Did I say crust? Crust is my favorite part! Usually the center slices have a better chance of survival around here.

Back to the pudding. This is a comfort food we have come to really enjoy. It is a savory casserole. Great as a main dinner or side dish. Great as a freezer meal. It is called Cheese Pudding thanks to my good friend Fannie Farmer. Ever read the Fannie Farmer Cookbook? I think it may be one of my all time favorite references. Great information. I wore out two soft covered copies before I had my brother in law order a hard cover into his store specially for me. It's nice having a family member in the book business.

Even nicer having recipes that work all nice and hard bound at my finger tips. Look at this...
I added green onions to the original recipe, but this is it:
Mmm. Cheese. So here's what's in it:

5 slices of good bread (I used some cottage cheese dill bread: The Sound of Music Meets Culinary School...Cottage...) cut into one inch squares.

1 1/2 cup milk (soy milk works)

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese (and 1/2 cup for topping later...)

3 eggs

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 green onions, chopped

all purpose seasoning to taste (I use my seasoning blend but any all purpose seasoning would work)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Yea. That's a low temperature, but it gives a good texture to your pudding to do it that way.

Oh. A word on seasoning...

I do go a little heavy on the seasoning, but that's what makes a good savory stuffing, right?

Mix all that stuff together. Pretty simple right? Put it all in a lightly oiled casserole dish. I use a round 10 inch by 2 inch deep pan. Top with another 1/2 cup shredded cheese.

Bake covered with foil 40-50 minutes.

Pull out and serve hot.

This is an excellent main course for breakfast or brunch if you prepare it, ready to bake, the night before and put in the fridge overnight. Also good with chunks of cream cheese mixed into the bread cubes (but is there anything on earth that isn't improved with chunks of cream cheese?!). If you're not vegetarian, Bacon is also good. Blue cheese. Big hunks of roasted garlic. Roasted red bell peppers. Jalapeno. Sausage. Stop me. I could go on all day! Just know that it is a great way to use extra bread. And...spread out the "bread" you have. It's very inexpensive to make. Oh and here's a kicker...if you freeze it instead of baking it, it will make a wonderful freezer meal! Yeah!! Defrost it and bake as directed. Simple and fast for the freezer. There you go.