What to do with an old potato.

Do you sometimes forget that you bought potatoes, and then they get lost at the bottom of the potato basket until you find them, months later, shrivelled and sprouting?
I do. All the time. And I never knew what to do with these shrivelled creatures, until one day I had a stroke of brilliance.



Instead of throwing them away, or trying to grow them, I've decided to turn this sad little potato into a stamp! How crafty of me.



Remember potato stamps? Yeah, I'd forgotten about them too. But they're cute and super easy. I remember doing them in primary school.
You just have to draw your design on the potato, cut it out, and stamp it on.





Wow! That WAS easy.
And now you can make cute cards for all those nice presents that you wrapped.



And you should probably listen to this song while you're carving and stamping...

Obsessed with soup.

Sometimes I get obsessed with things. Lets call them fads.

When I first got The Shins album Kissing The Lipless, I played it everyday until I couldn't listen to it any more. Even now, I still can't listen to it. I ruined it for myself. I do this with lots of things. Running, for example. A few months ago I became obsessed with running. I ran every second day for a month, until one day I woke up and decided that I just didn't want to get out of bed. And I haven't run since.

At the moment, I'm obsessed with soup. I usually have Wednesday off work, so I go to the grocery store and buy whatever vegetable is on special and in season. Cauliflower. Sweet potato. Spinach. I make a big batch of soup and freeze some of it so that I can eat it for lunch during the week. Eating soup makes me feel healthy and full and wholesome.


A while ago a saw a recipe for baked potato soup. It sounded delicious but much too much effort. Little did I know that it wasn't made of baked potatoes, but was supposed to imitate what a baked potato tastes like. So last night when I felt like soup, I searched for this recipe and found two completely different recipes that claimed to make the same thing. So I just winged it in the end and it was a Success! I have to admit, though, that the extra bits on the top were my favourite part.

Potato and Bacon Soup.
4 spring onions
1 medium onion, diced
4 (or more) bacon rashers, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
5 cups of stock or water
3-4 tbsps sour cream

Fry the onion in a little olive oil in a heavy bottom saucepan, on medium.
Meanwhile, dice the spring onions. Adding this in with the onion, keeping a little bit of green for garnish later.
Add half of the bacon and all of the garlic and cook until everything is soft.
Add the potatoes and stock. Turn the heat up and bring to the boil.
Then turn the heat back down and simmer until the potatoes are really soft, about 30 mins.
Stir in the sour cream and cook for another 2-3 mins.
At this point, I mashed my soup with a potato masher, because I wanted it to stay a bit chunky. But feel free to blend it in batches in a blender.
Taste for seasoning (mine needed quite a bit of seasoning, but it depends how salty your stock is).
Fry or grill the remaining bacon until really crispy.
Top the soup with crispy bacon, diced spring onion, grated cheese and sour cream.

Lemon & horseradish potato salad.

When Brent and I were in England, I discovered lots of new things. These were mostly foods that I've heard about through my love for British television, but had never had the chance to try. Horseradish on roast beef sandwiches. Mushy peas with fish and chips. Yorkshire puddings with a Sunday Roast. Brown sauce with pretty much everything.
The only one that I brought back with me was horseradish. I'm still trying to find other ways to use it and salad dressings are my favourite at the moment. The idea for this potato salad came from a recipe that I stumbled across, but I decided that I'd just make up my own. I love potato salad, and as my Dad says, "you can never have too much potato salad."
In the past 5 days, I've made this twice, two different ways. One with a mayonnaise base and one with a yoghurt base. They were both good. It just depends on what you're looking for.
I didn't measure any of my ingredients out, because I was just making it up as I went. So if the levels aren't quite right, just taste it and add whatever else you think it might need.

Recipe:
Serves 4 as a side.

4 medium potatoes, peeled, cubed.
3 eggs
heaped tsp horseradish
1/2 cup Greek yoghurt, or mayonnaise
juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp of white vinegar
salt and pepper
chives

Boil the potatoes. In a separate saucepan, boil the eggs. I like to do them for the same amount of time.
Mix all the dressing ingredients in a jar. If the dressing isn't runny enough, add a little bit of olive oil. If the dressing is too tart, add half a tsp of white sugar.
If you're not eating the salad right away, leave the dressing off until you're ready to eat it, otherwise it soaks into the potatoes.