Poideaten
This dish is one of Allen’s staples. AJ calls it “Mushi” hmm, maybe that’s spelled “Mushy.” I have been describing it to people as a more elaborate, mixed together version of Shepard’s Pie. For a couple of years now, I’ve been trying to document exactly how Allen makes it, but he’s fast and AJ is distracting, so I’ve always left parts out, gotten confused, etc. Well, right now he’s in China for two weeks and I had two back-to-back occasions that it would work well for, so just tried to do it myself. I liked my version even better than his, I bet you will like yours better than mine!
The basic idea is mashing cooked potatoes and carrots together. Allen’s Mom, Dot, stops there and serves it as a side dish. Allen likes to add more stuff, like parsnips or turnips. When I came into his life, he added ground buffalo to make it more substantial for a main course like dish. And I requested veggies. Sometimes we add the frozen carrots, corn and peas. But I prefer frozen spinach (be careful there are little to no stems, else the spinach is bitter. A year ago, there was a bad spinach crop and the frozen spinach we were getting was 1/3 to 1/2 stems, it was AWFUL!!!!!!! Now it’s good again.). Next I want to substitute some of the potatoes for cauliflower, since it does such a good job of impersonating potatoes and is less starchy. Amanda thought white beans would work well in it (but as an “O” blood type, I’m supposed to avoid beans, so I probably won’t make that a permanent addition to my version.)
Ingredients:
- 2.5 – 3 lbs red potatoes (about fist sized, washed, rootlings and bad spots removed, cut into 1″ to 1 1/2″ chunks)
- 1 lb carrots (washed, stems removed, cut into 1″ to 1 1/2″ chunks)
- 1 parsnip (washed, stem removed, cut into 1″ to 1 1/2″ chunks)
- 1 turnip (washed, stem and tail removed, cleaned up)
- 2 pinches of Ju’s garlic salt, divided
- 1 lb ground meat (buffalo, pastured raised beef, or your choice)
- 1 biggish onion (cut into large dice)
- 8 oz frozen spinach
- 11 oz goat cheese log
Directions (illustrated below):
- In big soup pot, start water to boil.
- Gather ingredients.
- Prep potatoes, carrots, parsnip & turnip. Boil until soft.
- In one large frying pan, brown meat with a bit of Ju’s garlic salt.
- In another frying pan, brown onions in your oil of choice, with a bit of Ju’s garlic salt.
- When one is done, add frozen spinach to warm up.
- When veggies are soft, drain in big strainers in the sink, returning to the pot.
- Mash with potato masher.
- Add goat cheese log, mash to mix.
- Add meat, onions & spinach, mash to mix.
- Salt to taste.
- Serve on flat plate, shallow bowl plate or bowls.
- Freezes well.
Potatoes, cleaned, bad spots removed.
Carrots – Allen prepped the veggies, then added water and brought to boil.
Here are the potatoes added too.
Imagine the turnip and/or parsnips in the pot too.
Add water, bring to boil.
While the root veggies are cooking,:
grab your Ju’s salt (1c salt pureed with one head (of peeled) garlic). Stored in fridge.
Preheat 2 frying pans, one with oil and Ju’s salt for onions.
Sauté meat and onions **************************************
1 lb ground buffalo, needs no oil to sauté. I put a large pinch of Ju’s salt on meat, spread it thin & sauté.
There’s some browning!
Done, good!
Meanwhile, in the other frying pan.
One Portobello Mushroom or other mushroom is a possible ingredient.
Slicing Portobellos
chopped into chunks.
Poised and ready to cook.
This time, Allen sautéd the onions and mushrooms together.
ready to add to big pot.
Here Allen heated up both frozen spinach and frozen corn, pees & carrots in the browned ground buffalo.
OK, when boiling root veggies are soft, drain into strainer in the sink.
Return to soup pot and start mashing.
When softly mashed together,
One large Goat Cheese log.
add your log of goat cheese.
Next add the ground beef, onion, mushroom, spinach, and other veggies.
and mash/mix more.
and mash/mix more.
In this batch, Allen added shredded parmesan cheese.
Serve
smile
and enjoy!
