Food, Glorious Food!!

Okay, now on to something we can all agree on... food and the fatty goodness thereof!

Yeah, yeah, I do my best to eat healthily. After all, I knocked off over 40 lbs back in '06-'07 and I'm not about to let my weight creep that high again. My knees were KILLING me! My joints appear to much happier when I'm more in the 150's range.

That said, there are some things I just won't cut out of my diet. I flatly refuse. For example, life simply isn't worth living to me if I can't have cheese. I know, I know, saturated fats, bad, naughty... well, tough.

Fat is a flavor carrier, and some fat in our diets is necessary. Now, perhaps not the amount of fat that I prefer, but all in all I think I strike a fairly good balance.

Then again, there are the days when I don't, like when I fix Super Taters as a side dish.

Grandma, aka Dad's mom who passed away this past March, is the one who brought Super Taters into our family. I think she got the recipe for "Gourmet Potatoes", as they were originally called before Dad and my uncle got their hands on the name, out of some magazine or cookbook written back in the glorious 1940's, before levels of cholesterol and triglycerides were measured on a regular basis. Let me tell you, they are TOTALLY teh awesome. I am so not kidding here. They are also utterly a heart attack in a casserole dish. Potatoes, cheddar cheese, sour cream, butter, chives... oh drool.

And just so I'm not alone in my addiction I'm posting the recipe. Have some, call your cardiologist, then give me an update ;)

Super Taters

6 medium potatoes (equals one 5 lb. bag)
2 cups shredded cheddar
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sour cream (room temp.)
1/3 cup chopped green onions
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
other seasonings (I like the Montreal Steak Seasoning and extra garlic powder) to taste

Cook (boil) potatoes in skins, cool. Peel and shred coarsely. In saucepan over low heat, combine cheese and 1/4 cup butter, stirring occasionally until almost melted. Remove from heat and blend in sour cream, onions, salt and pepper. Fold in potatoes, and turn into greased 2 qt casserole. Dot with 2 tsp. butter. Bake 25 min. or until heated through, 350 degrees. Serves 8.

Note: shredding the potatoes is a total pain in the asterisk. I've found this can be somewhat mitigated by a) leaving out the peeling of the boiled potatoes, because the shredding kills the large chunks of skin anyway, and b) delegating the shredding task entirely to your scullery assistant while you do the melting of the cheese and butter mixture.

Oh, and for where you're to fold the butter, cheese, sour cream, etc. into the shredded potatoes? It's my experience that there's no spoon strong enough to stand up to the heft of these combined ingredients. Just scrub down your hands and plunge 'em in. An added bonus is once you're done mixing you get to lick it all off your fingers. Yay!!