My step-cousin-in-law (Hi, Diane!) requested this recipe after I mentioned it on Facebook. Thanks to Troy working super-late and putting children to bed, we didn’t manage to eat dinner tonight till almost 10 o’clock. That might have made this taste extra-fabulous, but I doubt it. I think it would have been that tasty no matter when we ate it.

Two-Cheese Mashed-Potato Bake with Rosemary
Serves 4-6 as a side, 2-3 as a main dish.

• large sweet onion, diced
• 3 Tbsp + 1 Tbsp butter
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 medium potatoes (~2 lbs)
• 2/3 c. milk or half-and-half
• 3 ounces cream cheese or neufchatel cheese
• 3/4 to 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 tsp. dried rosemary)
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400F.

First, caramelize the onions because that’ll take a while: Melt 3 Tbsp. butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and saute for a minute. Reduce heat to low and let onions cook, stirring occasionally, till very soft and golden brown. This will take a half-hour or more, so be patient.

While the onions are cooking, let’s get the potatoes going: Peel, rinse and quarter the potatoes. Place in a large pot with just enough water to cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10-15 minutes or till potatoes can be pierced easily with a fork.

Drain potatoes, return to pot and mash well with a potato masher. Add milk and cream cheese and mix well.

When the onions are done to your liking, scrape the onions and all that butter into the potatoes. Add rosemary and salt and pepper and mix. Reserve a handful of cheddar for the top of the casserole, then sprinkle half the remaining cheddar over the potatoes and stir carefully. (You want to get the cheese mixed in but not all melted in a clump.) Repeat with the second half of the remaining cheddar.

Melt remaining 1 Tbsp butter right in your 8″x8″ casserole pan, in the oven for a few minutes or in the microwave for 30 seconds. Tilt the pan so the butter covers the bottom evenly, then spread potato mixture in pan. Sprinkle reserved cheddar on top. Cook at 400F for 20-30 minutes till cheese is melted and starting to brown.

Not terribly photogenic, especially under fluorescent lights, but deeeeelicious.

Notes:

I invented this recipe one evening at Brenda‘s when we had leftover sticky rice we wanted to use up. It was deeeeelicious, probably mainly because there is so much butter involved. But as Bonnie and Sonja are fond of reminding me (bless them both) according to Nourishing Traditions, butter is a health food! I really need to read that book one of these days.

Anyway, this is a yummy side dish. We gobbled it up with baked apricot-glazed chicken breasts and roasted asparagus. Well, most of us gobbled it up; Bug declared she didn’t like the butter rice and wanted plain sticky rice. Brenda, Annalie, Elliora and I were all fine with that since it meant more butter rice for us!

All measurements are approximations because I didn’t measure anything when I made it. But I think this is the kind of recipe you can adjust to your own liking, anyway. Please note that you really should be using butter, not margarine. Margarine is NOT a health food, and—perhaps more importantly—it’s not nearly as delicious as butter. If you cannot eat dairy, by all means use coconut oil instead, or an equivalent amount of olive oil.

Garlicky Butter-Thyme Rice
Serves 4-6

• 3-4 cups cooked rice
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2-3 Tbsp butter (or coconut oil)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tsp dried thyme
• sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste

In a medium stock pot, heat the olive oil and butter over medium-high heat. (The olive oil has a higher smoke point than butter and helps prevent burning.) Once the butter is melted, add the garlic and saute briefly, till it smells delicious and garlicky.

Turn the heat down to medium and add the rice. Cook stir for a few minutes, till the rice is all coated with oil/butter and there are no large clumps left.

Add the broth (and dried thyme leaves, if that’s what you’re using) and turn heat down. Cover and simmer on low for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, till almost all the liquid has been absorbed.

Remove from heat and add fresh thyme leaves, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and let sit another five minutes or so before serving.

Troy and I made these for a late dinner last night, and they probably took twice as long to assemble and bake as they did to eat. But they were so delicious we didn’t even care. And then we made them again for dinner tonight.

Black-Bean Oven Nachos

• tortilla chips—preferably scoops*
• salsa
• can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• sliced black olives
• chopped avocado
• grated Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese*
• minced cilantro

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with foil for easy cleanup because scrubbing melted cheese off metal is no fun.

Place as many chips as you want on the foil-lined baking sheet. It’s okay if they’re touching but try not to let them overlap. The point of these is that each chip is a little individual serving.

Spoon a bit of salsa into each scoop. Add a few black beans, one or two sliced olives, a chunk of avocado, and a sprinkle of grated cheese to each scoop. Sprinkle cilantro over the top of the whole shebang.

Stick in the oven and check every 5 minutes till the cheese is melted.

Notes
* We used baked tortilla scoops for the chips to make it easier to load them with good stuff, but regular flat chips would work too. It just might be a little trickier to keep the toppings on.
* I know the cheese that comes already grated in the bag is easy, but please don’t use it. There’s cornstarch on it to keep it from sticking together but it doesn’t melt very well.
* The way we made these, they’re vegetarian. But if you wanted to cook some ground beef with chopped onion and minced garlic and season it with cumin and chili powder, and then put a spoonful on each chip, I wouldn’t stop you.