Saucy Creamer Potatoes "Wisdom From the Kitchen" | Veg4Health: Healthy Eating

This great potato recipe is one that my husband really likes. It is very simple and really fast, especially if you have a pressure cooker. I normally cook some extra potatoes and leave them plain for pan-frying the next day. Creamer potatoes are usually found early in the potato season and are at their best when fresh from the produce market or famer's market. If they are really fresh, they can spoil quickly - a fact we discovered when we owned our own produce market. So if you aren't going to use them that same day, be sure to store them in your refigerator.

Saucy Creamer Potatoes Nancy Walker Healthy Ea

Start with about 1.5 to 2 pounds of fresh red creamer potatoes. Make sure to select firm,
bright red potatoes without soft spots. It's pretty hard to scrub each potato when they are this small,
so just let them soak in fresh water for a couple of minutes and then drain and rinse well.
Sometimes you find some in an unusual shape such as the one at the bottom of the cutting board.

Saucy Creamer Potatoes Nancy Walker Healthy Eating

Wow! A potato heart! We just had to take a seperate picture of this cute potato.
It was hard to put the knife to this one - but it was too good not to eat!

After carefully rinsing the potatoes and draining them, simply cut the potatoes in half. If you have some
potatoes which are larger than the rest, you may want to cut them into quarters instead of just in half.

Once they are all cut in half, you are ready to go. These almost look like radishes, don't they?
You may also find white creamers and they are wonderful too. In my mind, creamers are
no bigger than golf-ball size. If they are bigger, they will still work fine in this recipe -
I just don't think they are quite as good.

If you aren't ready to cook your potatoes immediately after slicing, completely immerse them in fresh water. If the potatoes are left out in the air they will oxidize and turn a really ugly color. This day, I was not quite ready to turn on my potatoes, so I covered them with water and let them sit.

Next, assemble your ingredients for the sauce. We love Earth Balance because it tastes just like butter, but without any hydrogenated oils, cholesterol or animal products. Any typeof sour cream alternative will work. I happened to have Tofutti brand on hand. Always look for the blue lid if you are buying Tofutti - it is made without any hydrogenated oils. The white lid of Tofutti is made with hydrogenated oils.

In a casserole dish or serving dish, place approximately 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance.
Most of the time, I don't bother to measure - I just scoop and dump.
Accuracy is not something that most of my recipes require.

Next, I add approximately 2 tablespoons of non-dairy sour cream.
You can make a wonderful sour cream alternative with tofu.
Tonight, I was being lazy and used the Tofutti brand - which tastes REALLY good.

Next, add the juice from a lemon. Here I am squeezing it over a fine sieve so that the lemon seeds don't find their way into the casserole. Fresh lemon juice is always the best - but bottled will work if that is all you have on hand. Everytime you go grocery shopping try to pick up a few lemons. They keep quite well in the crisper and are a wonderful addition to most recipes. If they start to go bad - make lemonaide.

Now toss in about 1 to 2 teaspoons of dried dill. I didn't measure this tonight - forgot we were
photographing it before I had it added. Remember, this recipe is very forgiving! At this point,
you can either microwave the dish to melt all the ingredients or set it near a hot stove top or oven
and let the excaping heat melt the Earth Balance.

Now that the sauce is ready and the rest of my dinner is in the works, I am ready to cook the creamers
under pressure in my pressure cooker. Since pressure cookers work with very little water, I have drained
off all but about a cup of water.

Here is my good old pressure cooker that I use most every night. I've placed the lid on top, lining up the arrows on the lid and the handle. Once the arrows are lined up, simply slide the lid in place so the handles line up with each other. Notice the jiggle valve is not on yet. (This pressure cooker is a Presto pressure cooker a friend of my mother-in-law gave to us. I believe it is from the early 1970s. It was my first presure cooker and I still love it. I know people often talk about pressure cookers that have a lot more gadgets and bells and whistles, but quite frankly, I have never seen the need for them. I don't make super fancy dishes, just ordinary "down-home" dishes which turn out beautifully in my old Prestos. I have always been very impressed with Presto's customer service and I can't imagine switching brands. Sometimes more expensive is better - but not always.)

Put the jiggle valve in place and turn up the heat. If you don't have a pressure cooker, simply boil the potatoes in water for approximately 15 minutes or until the potatoes are just fork-tender.

While my dinner had been cooking and my potatoes coming up to pressure, my sauce has nicely melted and it's time to stir up all the ingredients. I soemtimes add some salt as I am mixing it all up, but often I prefer to salt it at the table. Just a few twists from the salt grinder wil do. You can also add pepper if you want.

Once the pressure cooker has come up to full pressure, I let the potatoes cook for approximately 2 minutes. Then I remove them from the stove and use the quick release method to lower the pressure. Simply place the pan under running water until you hear the steam escape fully and the safety valve on the handle release. Again, if you have a regular pot, you skip this step! Once you open the pot, check the potatoes with a fork to make sure they are the right tenderness. If not, simply return the pan to the stovetop and continue cooking. A pressure cooker will come back up to pressure very quickly.

Once the potatoes are well drained, add them to the sauce and toss well. Yummy! Time for dinner!

This is a picture of a small bowl of potatoes I didn't mix with the sauce. My darling daughter doesn't particularly like the sauce, so I leave some plain for her to either dip in ketchup or smother in
just Earth Balance. This is one way, I am not a "short-order" cook every night -
but still manage to please everyone's tastes.

Just what do total vegetarians eat? This is a great example of what I paired with the creamers. We had stuffed zucchinni and spinach with raisins and pine nuts. This is what my dish looked like, my children had a few more potatoes on their dish. I always make sure to have one thing for everyone on the menu. That way, I only have to cook one meal, but our individual plates may look very different.

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