Twice Baked Potatoes #SecretRecipeClub

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Have you ever heard of The Secret Recipe Club? I found out about it through a few blogs that I follow and thought it was a very neat idea. The way I explain it to people is that it’s like Secret Santa. You get assigned a blog “buddy” and visit their blog to pick a recipe you want to re-create. Once you find a recipe from their blog, you make it, photograph it, and post it. Everyone reveals their assigned blog at the same time and date. It’s fun to go around to different blogs and see who had who. It’s also a great way for smaller blogs to reach out to a different or larger audience.

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For my first SRC match-up I was paired with Sarah from Curious Cuisiniere. I was torn between a few different recipes that I wanted to make, but her Twice Cooked Broccoli Cheddar Potatoes called out to me. Baked potatoes are something that I rarely eat now that I’m an adult because I don’t want to heat up a whole oven for 2 potatoes. I had all the ingredients for this recipe in the house after I made some substitutions, including some potatoes that had been lingering in my crisper for far too long.  I swapped the broccoli out for some green bell pepper and added some wasabi mayo, barbeque sauce, and breadcrumbs into the mix.

This recipe is easily adaptable and surprisingly filling. I ate 2 halves for dinner and was pretty satisfied. I re-heated one for leftovers and it was revitalized quite well after a minute in the microwave.

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Secret Recipe Club

Baked Ratatouille with Morels

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I was given some dried morels from Marx Foods as part of their 5th Annual Morel Recipe Challenge and challenged to use these special mushrooms in a recipe where the primary method of cooking was baking.

You may not have heard of morels before. I have had a few dishes that used morels in a very special way, including a chicken fried steak with morel gravy, but it is not something that pops up on menus too often. Morels are great at soaking up whatever they’re in. They’re great, earthy, sponges.

From Marx Foods’ site:

Morel mushrooms have a honeycombed, hollow, cone-shaped cap from 1 to 3 inches high. They grow naturally in a range of colors from tan to almost-black. Morels are one of the most prized and beloved wild mushroom varieties. People go wild for their buttery-earthy flavor and aroma.

Unfortunately, their fresh season is fleeting, lasting roughly from May to July. Dried morels allow you to enjoy the flavor and beautiful appearance of morel mushrooms year round, and they’re very easy to rehydrate & cook with.

Dried mushrooms are a great value. It takes about 5 pounds of fresh mushrooms to create 8 ounces of dried mushrooms. In addition, they can be shipped much more affordably than fresh or frozen mushrooms.

One of my favorite savory, baked recipes is ratatouille. It’s a very flexible and predictable recipe that can be easily adapted to whatever ingredients you have on hand.

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The first recipe I tried was Ina Garten’s Chicken with Morels, but I realized that while it has baking steps in it, the ingredients are cooked stovetop more than in the oven. I used the chicken I created using that recipe in this dish, but any protein can be used. You can also leave out meat all together and serve it with more quinoa to get the same protein punch. This keeps great in the fridge for leftovers, or frozen into lunch-sized portions.

Go check out all the other entries in the 5th Annual Morel Recipe Challenge, and if you’re up for it, vote for my ratatouille!
Thanks again to Marx Foods for the chance to play around with this funky ingredient.

5th Annual Morel Challenge

Note: I was given the dried morels free of charge from Marx Foods, though all thoughts and recipes are my own.