Recipe of the week: Galicky mashed goodness

NOLA'S MASHED RED POTATOES
4 servings

This is my favorite recipe for mashed potatoes, and it comes from one of my favorite chefs, Emeril Lagasse — and though some of the comments on the Food Network site suggests it's too garlicky, I would never say such a thing. They're delicious and a perfect addition to any table, but especially a Thanksgiving one.

Ingredients:
• 3/4 lb. small red bliss potatoes, uncoooked, quartered with skin
• 12 whole roasted garlic cloves*
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp. butter
• Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp. chopped green onion, for garnish (optional)

Directions:
In a saucepan cover unpeeled potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook just until tender — do not overcook or potatoes will be watery. Drain well, return pan with potatoes to low heat and shake to dry. Squeeze in garlic cloves, cream, butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Mash together with a potato masher until ingredients are combined but potatoes are still lumpy.

* Make the roasted garlic yourself, it's easy and oh so much better. Just make sure to cook the cloves long enough to really get the sugars cristalized. Yum. (My mouth's watering just thinking about it!)

Just One Plate, but so much more

One of the owners of Just One Plate e-mailed me recently and I just got around to visiting the site, and wow, I can't believe I waited so long. The site, which is just starting up and will be greatly expanded as the months go on, takes one restaurant, one dish from that restaurant and interviews the chef with 10 questions about the inspiration. Beyond the amazing eye candy of the gorgeous photography, the recipes run the gamut of simple for the everyday chef to complex new trends in gastronomy. I am definitely going to go home and make some of these creations, namely the marinated skirt steak with avocado corn relish from Border Grill and the tuna tartar cannoli from Charlie Palmer (pictured above).

Equal play

The repeating Iron Chef America episode this week is from a couple years back, and I have to say, is now (I'd never seen it before) one of my all-time favorites. Each of the chefs get their own mixologist who created a cocktail for each course. And they looked yummy! Anyway, the reason I bring this up now, is that Iron Chef Batali's mixologist was Tony Abou-Ganim, who I interviewed a couple years back — probably right around the taping of this episode, and I didn't even know about it! Tony, among owning his own bar and touring the world teaching his skills, is also the mixologist for Equal, which is how I came to interview him. You're probably wondering why Equal has a "modern mixologist" on payroll, as did I, but surprisingly, you can make a lot of great cocktails using the powder filled packets. My favorite, and the one Tony made for me:

MIXED BERRY MOJITO
Ingredients:
8-12 fresh mint leaves
3-4 fresh blackberries
3-4 fresh blueberries
3-4 fresh red raspberries
1/8 cup lime juice
2-4 teaspons Equal Spoonful or 1-2 packets Equal sweetener
1/4 cup soda water
1/4 cup light rum
1 mint sprig

Directions:
1. Carefully press mint leaves into the bottom of the glass with the back of a wooden spoon to release their oils (do not tear leaves).
2. Mix mint, crushed wild berries, lime juice and Equal in a highball glass.
3. Fill glass with crushed ice (cubed ice will not work).
4. Stir well until the ice is reduced by 1/3 and then top with more crushed ice, stirring until the glass begins to frost on the outside.
5. Pour in rum and soda water and stir again. Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

Food fever

Forget "Top Chef," if you want real drama (not really, keep doing the league!), but do check out "Hell's Kitchen," which has started it's third season on Fox. Chef Gordon Ramsay's kitchenside manner isn't for the faint of heart, as he regularly belittles and berates the chefs in his kitchen vying for the top prize. There's no playing with weird ingredients or conversations about the subtleties of the dishes. It's all straight-forward cooking classic dishes during a dinner rush. It's definitely a pressure cooker, complete with crying, cursing and week after week of brutal cuts. Rating: two knives up!

Fattening food for skinny people

The actors may not show up, but those who do will be treated to a feast as celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck announced yesterday his "simple but refined" menu for this year's Governors Ball following the Oscars. The menu, which is all organic and natural, is full of fattening comfort foods which there is no way the celebs are going to eat, especially the gals stuffed into those little dresses. But it sure does look tasty as Puck shaves black winter truffles into a dish of macaroni and cheese. Other food of the night includes passed hors d'oeuvres, a ceviche station, noodle station, shellfish station, pizza station, sushi station and antipasti and a wagyu beef entree. Not to mention all the desserts...

Tomei, Portman dish out fav dishes

Barilla wrangled up some famous faces — Chris Daughtry, Debra Messing, Natalie Portman, Stanley Tucci and Marisa Tomei — for their annual "The Celebrity Italian Table" cookbook. The quintet contributed their favorite pasta dishes, which Mario Batali umphed up a bit. Party planner David Tutera then took the delicious menus and created a stunning whole dinner party for of them, complete with theme, music, lighting and decor. It's a tad cheesy, but isn't that what you love about Italian cooking? The best part about the book, though, is that it's free, available for download at BarillaUS.com — and, for each copy downloaded, Barilla will donate $1, up to $100,000, to America's Second Harvest.

This chef can rescue me!

Food Network's introduced a few new shows as of late — namely Down Home with the Neelys starting in just a couple days — but we're most excited for Rescue Chef. Hunky Brit Danny Boome will be "rescuing" everyday cooks from their culinary catastrophes in the like of Tyler Florence's old standby Food 911 — and if you think you have a mess in your own kitchen, you can enter here. Set your TiVos, Rescue Chef starts March 1.

No reservations

There's no denying it, Bravo has taken the top spot in reality TV. "Top Chef" has come into its own from behind the impressive shadow of "Project Runway." Drawing on the show's popularity, the cable channel has a host of bloggers charting the episodes, from season two cutie Sam Talbot to host Padma Lakshmi. But the best blogger is definitely Anthony Bourdain. The author, TV star and, most importantly, chef, writes about the food and frolics of the competing chefs every week, sparing nothing. His ascerbic style has many fans, and probably many more enemiies, but it's always entertaining. Check out the war of words between Bourdain and Rocco DiSpirito to see how sharp knives can get in the kitchen.

A delectable duo

Gwyneth Paltrow's minor "gastrointestinal situation" this week that put her in the hospital (she's OK now) only slightly pushed back the shooting of "On the Road Again in Spain." But this isn't her typical role — she's on the road with celeb chef Mario Batali for a new PBS show. They have two weeks of filming left and will resume shooting in March in Majorca, Valencia and Madrid, Batali told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. We are beyond excited about this teaming; hurry up and get better Gwynie so we can live vicariously through your palettes as you dine on sorts of Spanish dishes, while the camera captures it all.

» As a preview, check out this WSJ article about Spain's "hot potato," potatas bravas. Molto magnificent!