Tag: side dishes

New Years Menu

Celebrate the New Year in style with the people you love best. Our delicious dinner menu will be a hit with the whole family…The menu is for 6 people and includes a salad, starter, main course, 2 side dishes, a dessert, a cocktail and a mocktail for kids and non-drinkers. Happy New Year from goodtoknow!

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Garlic & Blue Cheese Green Bean Almondine – I Just Couldn’t Do It

When I went to culinary school in the early Eighties, the
chef instructors used “Green Beans Almondine” as a prime example for the kind
of stodgy, clichéd, faux-fancy, vegetable side dishes that we were supposed to
eradicate shortly after graduation. 

This was the dawn of a new age of American
cookery, and something so old-fashioned as green beans almondine had no place
along side our newfangled raspberry vinaigrettes and cajun fish.


There was only one problem with this prohibition…green
beans and almonds tasted really good together, and made for a lovely side dish once in
a while. Of course, fearing you’d be laughed out of the young, hot cooks club
(hot from heat, not from hotness) you just didn’t dare make or serve such a
dinosaur.


Anyway, to make a long story short, I’ve finally done a
green beans almondine video, but added roasted garlic and blue cheese to it,
just in case any of my old classmates are watching.  I actually did this at Thanksgiving, sans nuts, and it got
rave reviews, so I had a feeling the addition of the slivered almonds would
work just fine, and they did! I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 4-6 portions:
1 pound green beans, blanched in boiling, salted water until
almost tender
3 heads garlic
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne to taste
1/3 cup sliced almonds browned in 1 tsp butter
2 oz Pt. Reyes blue cheese, or other blue cheese
400 degrees F. for 15 minutes

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Twice Baked Potatoes – They Take Longer, But At Least They’re More Complicated

I don’t do a lot of things in the kitchen purely for
esthetic reasons, but these twice baked potatoes are one of my more beautiful
exceptions to that rule. You can get almost the exact same flavors by just
adding stuff to a regular baked potato, but what you won’t get in that
scenario is the impressive, over-stuffed height, and gorgeous, golden-browned
crust seen here.


Is it worth it? Only you can answer that. For me, once in a
while, for those extra fancy dinners, the answer is a resounding yes. Taste is,
and always will be, the most important aspect of cooking, but when entertaining
guests on special occasions, don’t forget that you’re putting on a
show with the food. And when it comes to starchy side dishes, this is a great
way to express that flair for the dramatic.

Like I said in the video, this is a demonstration of
technique, and not necessarily a recipe I want you to follow verbatim. I will
list what I used below, since I’m required to by food blogger common law, but if there was ever a
recipe that you’d want to experiment with, this is the one.

By the way, since theres a certain amount of prep involved
here, you can make these ahead of time, up to the point of the second baking,
and then just finish when it gets closer to service. I hope you give this show
stopping side dish a try soon. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 4 Twice Baked Potatoes:
4 large russet potatoes
3 tbsp butter
1 or 2 tbsp minced green onion
salt, pepper, cayenne to taste
1/2 cup shredded white cheddar cheese
1/2 cup cream or milk
1 egg yolk
Bake at 400 degrees F. for an hour to cook potatoes, and
then 20-30 to brown after stuffing.

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