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side dish

Incredibly Easy Crispy Smashed Potatoes, Asparagus & Pesto

Juni 10, 2021 by katharina.kuehr Kommentar verfassen

There probably are a billion ways to cook potatoes – and (almost) all of them are delicious. But this one, this recipe – damn damn damn. This is pure deliciousness! And it is soso easy to make, so little mess and perfect to prepare ahead of time.

The crispyness on the outside of the potatoes and the softness on the inside just work so perfectly together in your mouth. Paired with some greens and a little tangy pesto and an herby dipping sauce, it is perfection. Perfection with so little ingredients.

What‘s special about this dish? 

The way the potatoes are prepared. So, instead of just cooking and peeling, or baking regularly or frying them in a pan, they are prepared differently. First, they are boiled in water, just as regular potatoes. Then, they are patted dry and smashed with something heavy, like a pot. Now, we drizzle them with oil and sprinkle some salt and bake them in the oven until they are crispy. 

Which potatoes should be used?

Definitely some from which you can eat the peel. We need to be able to do this because otherwise they won‘t get as crispy. Usually, the young and small potatoes can be eaten with the peel, such as the „Heurigenkartoffel“. 

Is this dish healthy? 

Oh yes. Potatoes often get a lot of (undeserved) hate because of their high carbohydrate content. Actually though, potatoes are such a healthy vegetable. They do have a high carbohydrate content, which though is very good because they‘ll provide you enough energy to stay fit and motivated throughout the entire day. Plus, they also add a bunch of fibre, which satisfies you and keeps you full! Moreover, they are packed with antioxidant, which help to prevent diseases. And obviously, they contain a whole bunch of vitamins such as Vitamin C and Vitamin B6. All in all, it needs to be said that potatoes are really healthy and definitely do not deserve all their hate.

What is more, is the asparagus, pesto and dipping sauce. Asparagus is full if fibre and vitamins, and also great to add some color. The pesto is not only delicious but also packed with many healthy, unsaturated fats. And the dipping sauce adds some more protein and also vitamins from the herbs. All in all it definitely can be said that this is a very well balanced meal or side dish.

How to make this dish?

As explained a bit above already, there are a few different steps to this. And yes, it takes long but it is one of those things that can just chill in the pot or oven and you can go do something else in the meantime. 

So we start by preparing the potatoes. To do this, we just add them to a pot along with some water and bring it all to a boil. Depending on how big your potatoes are, you need to cook them somewhat between 20 and 25 minutes. At approximately 5 minutes before they are done, we also are adding in the asparagus. Once they have finished cooking, we can drain them.

Now comes the fun part. Therefor we need a baking tray lined with parchment paper. We are going to have some fun and smash the potatoes (I know mom would say „don’t play with food“ but I guess in this case it is fine ;)). First, we need to gently pat them dry with a kitchen towel. They cannot be wet anymore because then they won’t become crispy. Then, we are taking one potato at a time and placing it on the parchment paper. Then, we‘ll take the pot we previously cooked them in and press it onto the potato so the peel tears apart and the potatoes are smashed. Now we need to repeat this with the remaining potatoes. 

Now all thats left to do is adding the asparagus, drizzling with olive oil, sprinkling with some salt and into the oven they go. While this is baking for approximately an hour, we can prepare the dip by mixing the herbs, greek yoghurt, sour cream and cream cheese. 

One the potatoes are done, we just add the dip and pesto on top and voilà, we can enjoy it!

Great to prepare! 

This way of cooking potatoes is amazing for when you have friends over for example. You can just pre-boil the potatoes, smash them and prepare the dip, and then drizzle with oil and bake them freshly whenever you need/ want them, and you do not make a mess anymore, you just pop them into the oven.

We really, really love this way of making potatoes because the crisp and the flavor is just genuinely soso good. I really, really hope that you‘ll also enjoy it as much!

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Incredibly Easy Crispy Smashed Potatoes, Asparagus & Pesto

This recipe is at least 5x better than your average way of making potatoes. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and really simple to make. Paired with the dip and the pesto it is pure heaven.

Course Main Course, Side Dish
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 7 Stunden 30 Minuten
Total Time 7 Stunden 40 Minuten
Servings 4 sides

What you will need

  • 1 kg small potatoes (which you can eat with the peel)
  • 500 g green asparagus
  • oil
  • sea salt
  • some pesto to serve

For the dip:

  • 200 g greek yoghurt
  • 2 tbsp cream cheese
  • 100 g sour cream
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley
  • 1 tbsp chopped basil

How to

  1. Start by adding the potatoes to a pot and covering them with water. Bring them to a boil and let simmer for about 20-25 minutes. About 5 minutes before they are done, add the green asparagus (before adding it, cut 2 cm of the bottom off). If a fork goes in and comes out easily when picking into the potato, they are done. If not, they still need some time to cook.

  2. Drain both, the potatoes and the asparagus and pat them dry with a kitchen towel. They need to be really dry or else they won‘t get crispy.

  3. Onto a baking tray lay some parchment paper and add a potato. Take a pot and smash the potato down, until the skin has torn and the potato is about 1-2 cm thick. Repeat with the remaining potatoes. Now, add the asparagus to the tray as well, drizzle all with some oil and sprinkle some sea salt. Bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown and crispy.

  4. In the meantime mix the greek yoghurt, sour cream and cream cheese with the chopped parsley and basil. 

  5. Once the potatoes & asparagus are done, serve them with the dipping sauce and the pesto. Enjoy!

Have fun cooking,
Love,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière 

Kategorie: Diet-Specific, Lunch/ Dinner, My favorites, Side, Vegetarian, Vegetarian Stichworte: dip, easy to make, family friendly, healthy side, herb dip, heurigenkartoffel, kräuterdip, meal prep, pesto, plant based, Potaoes, potato recipes, side dish, smashed potatoes, vegan, vegetarian

Not your average, super quick beetroot and couscous Kisir

Januar 7, 2021 by katharina.kuehr Kommentar verfassen

Fluffy (not dry) couscous in a packed-with-flavor beetroot sauce, all tossed together with crunchy and fresh veggies and topped off with tangy, crumble feta cheese. Every bite is an explosion of flavours in your mouth, and every bite is pure enjoyment!

What is Kisir?

Kisir usually is a Turkish dish made from roasted red bell peppers and bulgur. The peppers are blended into a sauce and the bulgur is cooked with vegetable broth. The both then are tossed with different, chopped up vegetables and a marinade from lemon juice, pomegranate juice and olive oil.

What is special about this dish?

I am not even sure if I can call this Kisir because the only aspects we are keeping from Kisir is the sauce out of a roasted vegetable, that a grain is cooked in vegetable broth and that it both is mixed with chopped up vegetables.

Instead of bell peppers we are using beetroots. They are in season now, they are super nutritious, they are a flavour-bomb and they add a pretty colour :). Instead of bulgur we go for couscous because it is quicker and easier to make. And instead of only adding cucumber and tomatoes, we are upgrading our couscous and making it more international with spring onions, edamame beans and feta.

So, you can see it is pretty far from Kisir and at the same time really similar. And it needs to be said, it is at least as delicious, I promise!

Is this dish healthy?

Oh, yes! It is not only packed with flavour but also with many many nutrients. The star of the show, beetroot, is an extremely healthy, immune system boosting vegetable, with many many healthy benefits, If you are interested in it, you can check out my September Top 5 and learn more about it!

Besides the star, we also have many other small stars. Edamame, for example is not only super delicious, but also packed with protein and nutrients. Cucumber, vitamin loaded. Bell Pepper, fibre star. spring onions and the herbs also add another nutrient kick! So, there are many ingredients that will make you feel amazing!

And then we also have the couscous, which is a great source of carbohydrates, and when bought wholegrain also a great source of protein. The olive oil, which we are adding, also adds some healthy fats and the lemon some vitamin C!

How to make this dish?

Easiest thing ever. Because no-one wants to spend an hour cooking lunch when their tummy already is groaning. It essentially comes down to preparing the couscous, blending the beets with vegetable broth and oil, chopping the veggies and mixing everything! Yes, it is as easy as it sounds!

When and how to best have it?

It is great for a quick lunch, a leftover side for dinner but also as a delicious meal prep idea. You can store it very well in the fridge (the flavours will only get more intense) and have it the next day!

I love to serve it with some feta or goats cream cheese and some fresh herbs. If you are more on the meat side you could add some grilled chicken or if you are plant based, go ahead and add some chickpeas or vegan feta!

I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as we do and that it will be a healthy staple in you winter cuisine! Have a fun and delicious time cooking and enjoy!

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Not your average, super quick beetroot and couscous Kisir

a flavor packed, creamy (not dry) couscous in a beetroot sauce, tossed with fresh, crunchy veggies and topped with tangy feta. All ready in 15 minuntes!

Course Appetizer, dinner, Main Course, Salad, Side Dish
Cuisine turquish (inspired)
Prep Time 15 Minuten
Total Time 15 Minuten
Servings 4 servings
Calories 473 kcal

What you will need

  • 300 g couscous
  • 600 ml vegetable broth
  • 2 rather small beets
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 100 g edamame beens (cooked)
  • 2 spring onions
  • 1 bell pepper
  • 150 g feta
  • 1 tbsp parsley
  • 1 tbsp mint
  • 2 tsp honey
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 lemon

How to

  1. Bring the vegetable broth to a boil. Take off the heat and add about 3 tbsp of it to a blender with the beets. Pour in the couscous to the rest and let it soak up the liquid and fluff.

  2. Chop up the cucumber and bell peppers into small (about 1cm sized) pieces. Finely slice the spring onions and chopp the herbs. Add them all to a large bowl. In a seperate bowl combine the olive oil, honey and lemon juice.

  3. When the couscous is done, add it to the bowl with the veggies, the beetroot sauce and olive oil mixture. Mix it through until the sauce has covered everything.

  4. Divide onto plates and crumble the feta on top. Serve with some fresh herbs and enjoy!

Love,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Kategorie: Appetizers, Diet-Specific, Lunch/ Dinner, Salad, Side, Vegan, Vegetarian, Vegetarian Stichworte: beet, beetroot, couscous, easy lunch, feta, healthy side, healthy vegan, kisser, light lunch, main dish, plant based, quick, salad, side dish, side salad, tabouleh, vegan, veganuary, vegetarian

Asparagus and Strawberry Salad

Mai 22, 2020 by katharina.kuehr Kommentar verfassen

This salad is like spring in a bowl. So mush freshness, fruitiness but also savoury goodness. Super easy to make, full of vitamins, perfect side dish or light main course. Absolutely in love!

Spring honestly is my favourite season. Everything is starting to bloom and coming back to life. Flowers are so colourful and the markets are full of fresh fruits and vegetables. Including two of my favourites: Asparagus and strawberries.

How we typically eat Asparagus

Asparagus is something very typical in Austria. We usually have it with Risotto, as a side or very very typical with potatoes, ham and molten butter or sauce hollandaise. But while this is good once in a while I feel like it is really heavy and not healthy in the long term. This salad, on the other hand is something very light and refreshing.

Which Asparagus works best?

Definitely a mix! Use some white stalks and some greens because the combination of the slightly different flavours is just super good! If you want, you can also use purple asparagus although I would not necessarily recommend to buy it extra for this. I have tried it out with purple asparagus but it lost its colour while cooking and turned green. So it was a bit of a pity.

How to cook asparagus?

This actually is not as easy as many people think. I mean it is to hard but you just need to know how. Green Asparagus is super easy. You just need to cut off the ends of the stalks and boil it in salted water for about 5-10 minutes, depending on how thick the stalks are. White asparagus is slightly different. It also needs some boiling water, you need to salt it, and add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of sugar. This takes out the bitterness of the asparagus and makes it really good!

Do you need to peel asparagus?

Depends. Green asparagus does not need to be peeled. Neither does purple one. White one on the other hand needs to be peeled!! Generously! I would recommend to peel it twice. If it is not peeled well it will have strings when eating and that’s not good tbh.

Fruit in salad?

A big YES!!! This is game changing! Especially the combination of strawberries and asparagus is insane! The sweetness of the strawberry pairs perfectly well with the freshness of the asparagus. If you do not have strawberries on hand or do not like them, you can add in raspberries instead, which also must taste really good!

Other add-ins:

Here you can be really creative! What would 100% work well is some kind of cheese like mozzarella, burrata cheese, cottage cheese or feta. Those would make it really good! Also, grilled chicken breast or prawns would take this next level but also hard boiled eggs.

When & how to eat it?

You can have this as a nice side dish and leave it as is or make a little more and add in something like hard boiled eggs for example and enjoy it with some freshly toasted bread or couscous to have it as a filling salad!

I hope that you like this recipe as much as I do and that you will make it many times this spring!

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

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Asparagus and Strawberry Salad

Not your average asparagus side dish but much better! Sweetness of the strawberries paired with the taste of fresh asparagus is just heaavenly!

Course Appetizer, lunch, Salad, Side Dish
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Total Time 30 Minuten
Servings 4 sides
Calories 149 kcal

What you will need

  • 500 g white asparagus
  • 500 g asparagus
  • 500 g strawberries
  • 2 spring onions
  • 1 handful mint
  • 1 handful basil
  • 1 handful parsley
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp maple or honey
  • 1 tbsp butter or magarine
  • 1 tsp sugar

How to

  1. Bring a large pot with water to a boil. Peel the white asparagus generously (about 2x). Cut the ends (about 3cm) of both, white and green asparagus and throw them away. Cut the asparagus into about 3-4cm sized pieces.

    Add the butter (or magarine) and sugar into the boiling water and salt it. Add in the white asparagus and cook for about 5 minutes. Then add in the green asparagus and cook for another 5-10 minutes, depending on how thick the stalks are. You can test if they are ready by pieking through them with a fork. If they almost fall off the fork, they are done. Then drain them.

  2. In the meantime remove the green part from the strawberries and half them or cut them into quarters, depending on how big they are. Slice the spring onions and seperate the onion rings from each other.

  3. Roughly chop up the basil, mint and parsley.

  4. Add the asparagus, strawberries, spring onions and herbs into a bowl. In a seperate small bowl combine the olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon and the maple syrup. Toss the salad in the dressing and serve!

    Enjoy!

Notes

If you want to have it as a main dish just make more (about half more, so 6 servings for 4 people). You can then also add in other things like hard boiled eggs, feta or mozzarella cheese, grilled chicken breast or prawns! 

Kategorie: Appetizers, Diet-Specific, Salad, Salads, Season, Side, spring, Vegan, Vegetarian Stichworte: asparagus, asparagus recipes, fancy salad, healthy, healthy asparagus recipes, healthy recipes, healthy salads, healthy spring, plant based, salad, side dish, side salad, spring, spring food, strawberries, strawberry season, vegan, vegan asparagus recipes, vegan recipes, vegan salads, vegan spring food

Oven baked Sweet Potato Fries

Mai 7, 2020 by katharina.kuehr Kommentar verfassen

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. With a little hint of roasted garlic and paprika. Sprinkled with a little sea salt. That’s what I call the perfect side. No matter with what, a burger, a salad or just by itself. It is so good. And so simple. You will never want to go back to making sweet potatoes differently.

More Sweet Potato inspiration…

I absolutely love sweet potatoes. In any form. Baked as a whole and stuffed, mashed, boiled, fried, baked in little chunks or whatever. They are just so tasty! I already have a few recipes on my blog with it like the Miso sweet potato with coconut rice or the Thai sweet potato cauliflower soup or the fall tabouleh stuffed sweet potatoes (which honestly are so good) and one of my favourites, the harvest buddha bowl with apple chicken! But all of those were a while ago so I knew it was time to make something new.

Are sweet potatoes healthy?

Sweet Potatoes, as the name says, are potatoes, and taste very similar to regular ones, just a little sweeter. Because of that they are also sometimes used in desserts or sweet dishes. But they are just as common in savoury ones. They are extremely high in Fibre, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Protein. Plus, they are very high in antioxidants, meaning they support your gut healthy. All in all, super healthy.

How do you make them?

It‘s really simple! Cut into thin strips. They should be rather small and thin because this way they’ll get crispier in the oven. If you have the time for that I would recommend soaking the strips in water because that helps to remove some of the starch to make it crispier (this wasn’t my idea, i learned it at pickuplimes blog). And of course, you need to pat them dry afterwards, very dry, because obviously, water will make them soggy. Next step, which I do recommend, is tossing them in a little cornstarch. I also love making this with my tofu (like in my vegan glas boodle salad recipe) because it really binds the water in the food. 

Spice it up!!

Next up: spices! This is really important because the key to good food are good spices! The spices used really depend on what you serve the potatoes with. For example, if we serve it with a burger, I would recommend using paprika and garlic. If it is a side to some grilled halloumi, some herbs like rosemary and oregano work really well. If you are making wedges and want to make them a bit extra (in winter this is so good!), you can add some cinnamon. This surprisingly works really well!

Tossing them in spices is really essential. They add so much flavour. So last on the list is some oil. I would recommend using olive oil or another one that is neutral in taste. The oil adds more flavour and helps crisping them up. The potatoes are now baked on very high heat in the oven, for really not long. After taking them out, you can sprinkle some sea salt and serve them with a delicious sauce.

Why not frying them?

The reason we are making them in the oven is fairly simple. Because it is way healthier. While they do get a little crispier when deep fried, they also soak up way more oil. This means way more fat and calories. Of course, once in a while it is super good, but when making it more often, baking them in the oven is just way healthier.

I hope that you will love this recipe as much as I do and your family or friends do so too. In our house, they are always gone, and not a single fry is a leftover! Enjoy!

Happy Cooking,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

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Sweet Potato Fries from the Oven

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and perfectly spiced! The ideal side for anything!

Course lunch, Side Dish
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Total Time 30 Minuten
Servings 4 sides
Calories 230 kcal

What you will need

  • 600-800 g Sweet Potatoes 2 smaller ones or 1 big one
  • 3 tbsp corn starch
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 3 tsp paprika
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • some sea salt

How to

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C.

    Wash the sweet potatoes. Cut them into about 1cm thick strips, about 8cm in length. Place them in a large bowl and cover with water. Let sit for at least 5-10 minutes. This helps to remove the starch.

    Drain them and place on a kitchen towel or kitchen paper and tap them dry. They need to be really dry.

    Place them in a clean bowl and toss with the cornstarch and spices.

    Spread them onto two baking trays and make sure they have enough space. They should not touch each other. Drizzle the olive oil and add the garlic cloves (they do not need to be peeled). Sprinkle some salt on top.

    Bake for 10 minutes, then flip them. Bake for another 5-8 minutes. Take out and serve. Enjoy!

    P.s.: If you want, you can squish out the garlic from the peel and mix with some mayonaise to get a garlic dip!

Kategorie: Diet-Specific, Lunch/ Dinner, Side, Snack, Vegan, Vegetarian, Vegetarian Stichworte: carbohydrates, carbs side, fries, garlic, garlic fries, healthy, healthy fries, healthy side, oven baked, potato, side dish, Snack, spicy, Sweet potato, sweet potato fries, sweet potatoes

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