Potatoes are probably the best value in the produce department today. But their nutritive value de-creases with the amount of bad stuff you put on them. In this post, we’re featuring a few carefully selected recipes demonstrating ‘potato sin’…
Chicken Bacon Ranch Potato Bake: Sinfully delicious…
Our trio of sinful potato dishes comes to us from AllRecipes.com. Where they know the cheapest, fastest and easiest ways to make supper…
The many faces…
Potatoes wear many faces in the world’s culinary traditions. Paleobiologists tell us spuds originated in South America and spread to the rest of the world from there, after the Conquistadores made first contact.
They’re called ‘aloo’ in India, ‘tǔdòus’ in China, ‘papa’ in Latin America, ‘patata’ in Spain and Italy, ‘kartoffle’ in Germany, ‘pomme de terre’ in France, and ‘ziemniak’ in Poland. And each of those cuis-ines cherishes its own dishes based on them.
Today’s recipe offerings pay homage to no particular culinary tradition. But steal desirable charact-eristics and ingredients from a variety of them!
Here we go…
The Maggie J’s official Nutritional Sin Scale runs from zero to 5. Anything over 1 is, by defination, ‘sinful’…
Absolutely Ultimate Potato Soup
‘Absolutely ultimate’? Well, pretty darned good, anyway! This thick, almost porridgey cream soup is full of good stuff: bacon, heavy cream, and butter. Oddly – I thought – no cheese of any kind. But it makes up for this exclusion later at serving time…
“Loaded with smoky bacon, tender potatoes, and a flavorful broth,” recipe contributor Karena says, “it’s the perfect cozy meal for chilly nights or easy family dinners.”
My take
Absolutely Ultimate Potato Soup racks up a respectable 4 on the nutritional sin scale, if you top it with more bacon and shredded Cheddar cheese as Karena recommends. That’s enough to take note of, but not enough to dissuade you from serving it 2 or 3 times a month – ‘for special’…
Chicken Bacon Ranch Potato Bake
I as captivated by the glam photo of this dish before I even got to the ingredients list. But one not-able item thereon is a packet of powdered Ranch Salad Dressing Mix. Aside from that, this is an ultra-streamlined, super-simple Chicken Casserole – but featuring potatoes rather than noodles or rice.
I particularly like recipe contributor Julia Hale’s recommendation that you use Chicken Thighs instead of the usual white meat. Thighs are still significantly cheaper at most supermarkets than breasts, and because they are dark meat, they offer more flavour and a greater bounty of essential nutrients. I be-lieve that Chicken Thighs are, in fact, sadly underrated and often ignored.
My take
This sumptuous dish tallies-up a 2.5 on the sin scale: One point each for the cheese and bacon, and 1/2 point for the extra fat ion the thighs…
Cheesy Ground Beef and Potatoes
I’ll admit that personal preference got in my way just a little when I chose this classic casserole for today’s ‘best of’ list. I grew up on ground beef scramble in its myriad forms (from Hamburgers to Shepherd’s Pie, to Sloppy Joes to Lasagne). And I still have a soft spot in my heart – not to mention a ‘hard’ craving – for them all.
This dish is refreshingly different from most such casseroles in that thinly-sliced spuds serve as a ‘crust’ of sorts, rather than an ‘internal’ ingredient, or a topping (as Tater Tots often do).
My take
I can think of no better pairing – for this kind of comfort food – than ground beef scramble and Cheddar cheese. If not the ultimate umami experience, then it’s pretty darned close!
The ground beef, itself, is notoriously fat. You still have to pour off rendered fat when cooking even the highest grade. So, one sin point, there. That can of Cream of Mushroom soup rates another point. And the cheese earns a third. We’ll count the 2 tbsp of butter as 1/2 point. For a grand total of 3.5.
My overall take
You can serve any of these dishes once or twice a month without worrying about going to Nutritional Hell. They’ll fit right into a meal rotation that allows for one ‘sinful supper’ a week…
Any of these potato dishes is sinful enough to crush even your most embarrassing culinary cravings. I like to think of the potatoes in each as a small but significant nutritional ‘saving grace’!
~ Maggie J.