Cheesy Horseradish Mashed Potatoes

I'm really trying to get into my creative groove lately.  I'm tired of all the recipes I have (even though I haven't even tried most of them).  So I'm tweaking the ones I've made before.  Some have been epic fails, but this one turned out really well.  I have a recipe for mashed potatoes that is flavored with dry ranch dressing, and I've been on a horseradish kick, so why not flavor potatoes with horseradish.

Day 41: Dutch Oven Potatoes

Side dishes are my Nemesis. I have such a hard time finding side dishes that everyone will eat. Summertime is not so bad because the garden gives me something new and fresh every day. But in the winter I get tired of boring frozen or canned veggies. I search high and low for new recipes. Anyone that knows me will be laughing out loud right now because I am being conservative when I say my recipe collection includes about 5000 recipes. I read cookbooks like novels. But I especially love it when I have a great recipe delivered to my door in the form of the Tuesday newspaper. They did an article on DO cooking (and they didn't ask me--how rude! LOL LOL) and printed a DO potato recipe. Since the first ingredient on the list was bacon...I knew I had to try it. This was a recipe from David Littlefield printed in Provo's Daily Herald.

Dutch Oven Potatoes

12" dutch oven

1/2 lb. bacon (I used a whole pound and it was perfect!)

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, finely chopped (I didn't have one)

1/2 Tbs. McCormick Creole Seasoning

1/2 tsp. black pepper

6-8 large russet potatoes, peeled and sliced

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1/4 lb. shredded cheddar cheese

Brown the bacon in your DO. Remove from the pan and drain all but a few Tbs. of the grease. Saute onions, peppers and spices until veggies are soft. Add the bacon and potatoes; mix well. Add the soup and mix well. Let them bake for about 40 minutes. I used 8 coals on the bottom and 16 on top. During the last 5 minutes of cooking remove the pot from the bottom heat and add the cheese. Cook until it melts!

The Finished Product

Wow--that pic is dark! Sorry!

What I Learned

I started out with 10 coals on the bottom and 14 on top, but about 15 minutes in I went to stir them and I could tell there was too much heat. I just moved a couple of coals from the bottom to the top. I am seeing that in a lot of cases the problem with too much heat isn't the actual temperature of the oven, rather the distribution of the coals. So I've learned not to be afraid of moving the coals around. Honestly, I haven't cooked a bad meal yet.

The Review

These were Fabulous! This is my new favorite DO potato recipe. Every time I went to stir them I was snitching half cooked potatoes "just to see if they were done". Yeah right--I just couldn't keep them out of my mouth. They just sort of kept jumping in! This recipe is going camping with us this summer. These potatoes get an easy A.

Day 6: Dutch Oven Potatoes

I think I am overthinking dutch oven cooking. I am so worried about getting it right, that I am forgetting that the one thing that I am going to learn the most from is my mistakes. Trial and error is sometimes our best tutor. Today, I have to give a hearty thanks to Mark from Marks black pot. Mark site has become sort of a mentor for me. If you haven't found his site yet, be sure to check it out. He is creative, inventive, knowledgable and has a real passion for food and dutch oven cooking. Anyway, I was browsing his site and found a great post he made about dutch oven heat. He really brought it down to the basics of cooking, and that is that all we are doing is adding heat to food. I have no problem adjusting heat when I modify or create a recipe in the kitchen, so I just need to remember that I am doing the same thing when I cook outdoors. So, no more stress about heat. I will just follow the basic formula for using coals, and add a few more coals when a meal isn't quite doing what I want it to. The rest will just come with experience. So, thanks Mark for helping me de-stress and reminding me that cooking is really very simple.

Today's recipe is the most simple and "dutch oveny" recipe ever. It is the first dutch oven food I ever tasted. It was my father-in-law's specialty. It has only 3 ingredients plus salt and pepper, and they happen to be 3 of my favorite ingredients: potatoes, onions and bacon. So, here we go!

Dutch Oven Potatoes

10" dutch oven

10 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced (leave the skins on red potatoes)

1 onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings

1 lb. smoked bacon, cut into 1" pieces

salt and pepper to taste

I cooked the bacon first with 20 coals on the bottom until it was just beginning to crisp. Then add the potatoes and onions. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook until potatoes are tender with 12 top coals and 8 bottom coals. Stir occasionally.

The Finished Product

What I learned

This is a really easy dish. I still need to add more heat to compensate for the cold air temps. It took about 40 minutes to cook, which isn't bad. I am getting closer to figuring out how much heat to add. This was a morale booster for me.

The Review

How in the world can I say anything bad about a dish with bacon in it. It is fabulous just by virtue of the fact that it uses bacon. Honestly, this one has real sentimental meaning for me. My father-in-law has been gone 15 years. He was an amazing man, and this dish reminds me of him.