Cooking Purple Potatoes

It seemed that all at once, I had a number of ingredients that had to be cooked.

At the farmer’s market last week, I picked up a bunch of stinging nettles. The food blogs have been a-flurry about stinging nettles, so I wanted to see what that was all about. (It turns out, I love them.) I also picked up some purple potatoes because they were just so beautiful. And somehow, I found myself with about 3 dozen eggs, and a fridge with little room for them all! Finally, I still had about a quart of soured milk to use. I had to come up with something.

I trolled the food blogs until I found this on Cook Local. It seemed just about perfect, though I would need to make a few modifications. My final recipe left out the onions (because I don’t really like onions), and it added spinach, soured milk, cream, and cottage cheese. It came out wonderfully! The nettles give it a wonderful wild, herby flavor, and the spinach brings familiarity, almost a Florentine type flavor, especially when combined with the farm fresh cottage cheese.

It is a flexible dish, hearty enough for a dinner, but also suitable for a breakfast or brunch. There is a lot of room to play with this one – for a more breakfast style casserole, add bacon or sausage. Use a different kind of cheese instead of cottage. Don’t have nettles? This would also work with kale, chard or all spinach.

This post is submitted to Real Food Wednesday – wild crafted greens, heirloom potatoes, dairy the way our grandparents drank it – these are real foods.

Layering Nettles and Spinach on Purple Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of nettles
• Half a bunch of spinach
• 6 small purple potatoes
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 6 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon of cream
• 1/3 cup soured milk (if you do not have raw, naturally soured milk, you can use yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, or turn fresh milk soured with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice)
• 3/4 cup cottage cheese
• Salt and Pepper

Boil the spinach and nettles until they are soft and turn a bright green. Try not to boil too long, just 3 minutes is about right. Chop them up finely and set aside. Slice the potatoes into thin slices. Melt the butter over medium heat and add the potatoes. Cook until they are nearly done. About 5-10 minutes. Preheat the over to 350 degrees. In a mixing boil, beat the eggs, then add the cream, milk, and cottage cheese. Arrange the cooked potatoes on the bottom of a baking dish. Top them with the chopped spinach and nettles. Then pour the egg mixture over the top. If you like, you can top with little dollops of cottage cheese. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the top, and then bake in the over at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until done.

Finished Gratin Right Out of the Oven

Tags: blog carnivals, Breakfast, eggs, Milk, Real Food Wednesdays, recipe