Recipes while traveling (or how to make wallpaper paste)

So, Jessie is on part two of her "adventure" (or, is it part 3?). She is on a ferry in the middle of the ocean and we have had communications via text all day. But, that does not diminish her superpowers of coming up with appropriate ideas for what is for dinner. So, I thought I would share our conversation this afternoon (while I was at work transcribing minutes from the last board meeting and she was around Ketchikan and had a cell signal).

Jen: Got any good recipes for potatoes? I have a shit ton and I'm best at mashed. (read: I don't feel like making mashed potatoes tonight)

Jessie: I bought that cookbook at your recommendation. It has a bunch of good potato recipes.

The fiddlehead one. (please ignore the lack of proper grammar... it's a text message... like yours are always grammatically correct?)

Yeah. You said it was good so I bought it. :)

The millet bread recipe is awesome. We call it bird seed bread and it was out (should be our) favorite when the restaurant was open. (I secretly hope that Jessie perfects this recipe as she is awesome at bread and I suck at it... OK, now that it has been published for all to see, not so secretly)

So... from here, we have a few non-food related text messages that pertain to my opinions on the best way to get rid of a bruise (lavender oil... seriously) and a funny blog she introduced me to (barefoot foodie - hilarious!)... I won't bore you with this discussion, but I will bore you with more of our food related conversation...

How about twice baked potato? They freeze and reheat well

I have about every potato imaginable except for russet. My Yukon golds don't bake well.

Chowder?

What kind? Can I do a chicken chowder? (I have to make this clarification because Jessie has an affinity for the various kinds of seafood chowder at a local restaurant here in Juneau and I do not... I prefer land-based animals in my bowl, thank-you-very-much)

Yeah. Or corn

I've tried making corn chowder and I don't care for it. (I'm starting to sound like a whiny little bitch about now, aren't I?)

Chicken would be ok

Have I bored you yet? Yeah, it was a really intense conversation about potatoes and chowder options... I know... But the recipe for wallpaper paste is included in these messages, I swear... There's a bunch more that extol how much work sucks and food is better, etc, etc... On to the recipe!

Purple potatoes broasted (I'm assuming that this is supposed to be "roasted") with cauliflower and pureed with cream is delightful. (See, I told you!)

Yum!

Get an already cooked chicken and pull some to eat with the puree and you're set.

Is it like a soup? Or more like mashed 'tatos?

Kind of like grits.

Sounds easy and tasty.

It really is. Some salt and pepper and you're good. Could even throw some leftover Alfredo in (we made homemade Alfredo sauce for New Year's Eve)

What temp for roasting veggies?

375

K. I might make that tonight and make the soup tomorrow (one of the omitted conversations from above was about soup... my specialty)

Toss in some olive oil and maybe one of the seasonings I gave you. Then roast. Will give everything a nice flavor!

So, there you have it... We are so bad ass at recipes that we don't need more information than that... What? You do? OK... Here is more info:

Roughly chop up 1 head of cauliflower

Peel several potatoes (I used 3 med. sized yukon golds and 3 med. sized purple potatoes... feel free to use whatever you want) and chop into chunks... it's not too precise, but roughly the same size.

Put the chopped veggies into a cake pan or roasting pan. Drizzle the veggies with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with the seasonings of your choice.... salt, pepper, etc... whatever you like. Toss to coat.

Roast at 375 F until the cauliflower is golden brown and the potatoes are soft (pierce with a knife)... My oven took about an hour or so.

Here's where I took my liberties (and it probably resulted in why it turned out like wallpaper paste). After roasting, I mashed the veggies with a potato masher (so much for not making mashed potatoes), added about a cup of cream, a squeeze of crushed garlic from a tube (you could probably add some garlic cloves to the roasting pan, but I didn't think of this until after my veggies were roasted). I took my stick blender to puree it, because I don't own a food processor. I needed to add some more regular milk to it to loosen it up a bit. After tasting, it needed a lot of salt and pepper, but it was still pretty darn tasty. To save me some time and grief, I bought a rotisserie chicken from the store. The chicken and wallpaper paste combined was awesome! 

This is why I think that Jessie has awesome superpowers when it comes to food and recipes... She can be super stressed out, in the middle of "nowhere" with limited resources and electronic services, and she can knock it out of the park! I had absolutely no idea what I was going to have for dinner tonight and lucked out that she was available to give me some pointers... I probably would have ended up eating a bowl of Captain Crunch (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, unless my mom is reading this...)

Completely satisfied in Juneau...

Jen