Comfort Foods and Indulgences

When I heard that my friend, Brigid was making “50″s junk food” I immediately went to a recipe I have been coveting for some time now; Homemade Tater Tots. I have read and re-read Saveur’s 100 issue and there are so many recipes that I want to try, modify, and taste.  But it is these little golden nuggets of fried “potatoes” that I keep coming back to.  Yes, these Tater Tots are indeed fried.  And fried food is one of my guilty pleasures.

This is not a dish that I would regularly put on my dinner table, but it is a great treat and perfect for a crowd.  This is also a dish that could be done in advance.  All of us busy people, juggling everything from kids, work, volunteer committments, plus the perils of everyday life – having something pre-prepared and in the freezer is truly a wonderful thing.

There is simply nothing better than a homemade Tater Tot.  I made mine with organic potatoes and whole wheat flour.  With that said, could this be considered a healthy treat???

Biscuits and gravy is a popular breakfast dish in the South. It consists of buttermilk biscuits covered in thick "country" or "white" gravy made from the drippings of cooked pork sausage, white flour, milk, and often bits of real sausage, bacon, ground beef, or other meat.

It’s usually served with a couple of eggs on the side. The gravy is usually flavored with black pepper, fennel and sage. In some parts of the southern United States this is also called sawmill gravy.

You can try any kind of ground sausage; Whole Foods offers a great variety. Turkey sausage works very well with this recipe.

I live my life according to these Four Culinary Truths:

1.  Nothing is better than food shared with friends.
2.  Know where your food comes from.
3.  Slow down, pay attention and enjoy the moment.
4.  Anything Swimming In Mayo Is A Salad. 

While I earnestly try to live by items 1 through 3 I must admit just a little facetiousness with the last little entry. But I do marvel at those bowls of creamy offerings presented from coast to coast. You know what I’m talking about: Potato Salad (bound in mayo), Salad Olivier (bound in mayo), Lobster Salad (bound in mayo), I could go on. No, really, I could go on. Because I just happen to love things held together with mayonnaise. Probably a bit too much. And therein lies a problem: I live inside a constant battlezone where salads swimming in mayonnaise call my name every single second of the day. Even if it’s only in my head.

For the record there is nothing wrong with mayonnaise. There is nothing bad with jars of mayo nor handmade creations. There is pure delight in dipping vegetables in it and adding it to spreads and sandwiches. I will never be a Mayo Hater. I’m more of a Mayo Lover Who Has Learned To Control The Urge To Add It To Everything.

The first time I ate a Chocolate Lava Cake was at Roy’s on Maui in 1990.  Roy was somewhat of a celebrity chef in Hawaii. Back then there were only a few celebrity chefs; Wolfgang Puck, Jonathan Waxman, Michael McCarty, and Alice Waters to name a few.

The food at Roy’s was good, but it was the dessert, the chcolate molten lava cake,  that I kept going back for. I wrote to the restaurant and asked for the recipe.  They obliged!  

Over the years I have tweeked the recipe a little here and a little there. But it just wasn’t right.  It wasn’t perfectly right until I found this recipe in the New York Times.

Valentine’s Day is around the corner. Along with an extra special dinner that night for my 4 favorite valentines, I plan on  adding this dessert to the menu.