Cheesy Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes [What's Cooking: Festive '12]

The last recipe from Kraft's 2012 Holiday season What's Cooking Magazine is what looks like a reasonably straightforward mashed potato recipe - the catch being that it's meant to be made ahead and then reheated instead of eaten straight out of the pot while being told to leave some for the rest of the guests.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs Yukon gold potatoes (about 6)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup shredded old cheddar cheese (being a branded recipe, they wanted Cracked Barrel but since there's literally no difference, I went for the brand I already had in the fridge)
• 1/4 cup Miracle Whip
• 1 green onion, sliced

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks. Boil in a large pot 15-20 minutes, until tender.

2. Mash potatoes, then stir in the milk, cheese, Miracle Whip, and green onion.

3. Refrigerate until ready to serve, then spoon into a microwaveable bowl and microwave on High 5-7 minutes, until heated through, stirring occasionally. (This is presumably for the entire dish).

The Outcome:

I really like mashed potatoes, but I  normally make it with just milk and butter. I tasted this three ways - hot out of the pot, cold from the fridge, and microwaved after cooling as the recipe suggested. Hot out of the pot, the combination of the Miracle Whip and the fresh green onion gave it a flavour similar to potato salad. It was also distinctly smooth and creamy, and generally pretty nice. Eating it cold out of the fridge was, well, cold mashed potatoes. I like cold mashed potatoes. However, reheating it according to the recipe gives you something distinctly different from hot out of the pot - the green onion has lost most of its flavour by then, and the texture turns into something almost too creamy and liquid. It wouldn't be able to hold a gravy pool like this, which is clearly a serious problem when it comes to mashed potatoes!

Chocolate-Marbled Banana Bread [What's Cooking: Festive '12]

I like banana bread, and I like chocolate, so I'm down for What's Cooking's Kraft-branded recipe. I don't normally eat mayo, so its seems a bit odd to put it in what is essentially a type of cake (sorry, not "mayo" - "Miracle Whip dressing spread") but I can see it working. Between following the recipe exactly plus the double boiler, this recipe uses a LOT of mixing bowls.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup Miracle Whip
• 1 1/3 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3)
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 squares Baker's Semi-Sweet chocolate, melted (I always find an impromptu double boiler of putting the chocolate in a small bowl inside a bigger bowl of boiling water works easiest)

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Beat the egg, bananas, and Miracle Whip with a whisk until blended.

2. In another bowl, mix the remaining ingredients except for the chocolate. Add to the banana mix and stir until "just moistened". Pour half the mix into a bowl and stir in the melted chocolate.

Dat swirl tho

3. Spoon the batters alternately into a greased 8x4 inch loaf pan. With a knife, gently swirl the batter. Bake for 1 hour - 1 hour and 5 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

4. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.

The Outcome:

This is pretty good banana bread - I really like the chocolate addition. The cool swirl pattern is lost a bit when baked, but it still looks neat. I was worried it would be too sweet (American baking recipes usually use too much sugar for my taste), but it tastes pretty decent. The only issue I have is that the outside was a bit too cooked - not burnt, but starting to head down that path, and gives a noticeably harder crust that tastes a bit strong. That can possibly be fixed by playing with different oven temperatures and cooking times.

Basque Green Bean Salad [The Achewood Cookbook]

This recipe from the Achewood Cookbook seems too close to the disastrous Perfect Deviled Eggs Every Time, but I need to use up this mayo somehow. There's less vinegar in here, so while I'm not optimistic, I'm less pessimistic about this. The intro is also endearingly depressing.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 cans cut green beans
• 2 hard boiled eggs sliced into coins (the cookbook suggested a less-optimal method in the deviled eggs recipe, but I stuck with my little egg steamer instead since their method just doesn't really work)
•  1/4 cup minced white onion
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp "regular old yellow mustard"
• salt and pepper to taste

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. Mix the mayo, vinegar, mustard and onion with a whisk "or whatever", as the cookbook states, until smooth. Season to taste. So far it's basically a similar sauce as the deviled eggs, but with slightly less vinegar pong.

2. Drain the beans. Add beans and eggs to the mixture. Stir to coat.

The Outcome:

Well, it's not terrible, at least compared to the deviled eggs. It's still heavy on the vinegar and the flavour mix is a bit weird - it's a bit too sharp of a sauce to go with soft and flavourless canned green beans. This might be better with fresh or steamed green beans. They also don't ask you to refrigerate it first, so you get the flavours all too sharp and independent. The flavours gelled a bit better after some time in the fridge, but it's still not a particularly good dish. It's edible, but you get a feel that it's missing something to make it good.

Perfect Deviled Eggs Every Time [The Achewood Cookbook]

Spoiler: "perfect"

First up from the Achewood Cookbook is "Perfect Deviled Eggs Every Time" by the Roast Beef, a depressive cat. This recipe looks pretty straightforward, like a basic solid deviled eggs recipe - there's nothing fancy here, and this is emphasized by the dialogue between the character and the editor. The ingredients list has commentary like: "Paprika (this is a fancy ingredient that you could sprinkle on top for color. You definitely don't gotta use it or anything)".

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• water
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise (the cookbook specifically says "real" mayo instead of low fat. It also warns against using the term "mayo")
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp yellow mustard
• 3 tbsp white vinegar
• paprika

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. The recipe starts with their particular method of hard-boiling the eggs. Cover the eggs with water, bring the pot to a boil, and then remove the pot from heat, cover it, and let it sit for 15 minutes. Run the eggs under cold water for 1 minutes. Peel the eggs. This method isn't the best method for the few reasons - a few of the yolks were a little of the soft side, but more importantly, this method makes it hard to peel off the inner membrane and take all the pieces with it, so after mangling one egg, I made a necessary change of shocking the eggs under cold water a bit longer. Next time I'll stick to my little egg steamer.

Poor mutilated egg.

2. Cut the eggs in half lengthwise. Pop the yolks out into a bowl and set the whites aside. Again, the softer yolks made it a bit trickier to pop them out smoothly, but I got a few clean drops.

3. Mix the yolks with the mustard, mayo, and vinegar until smooth. Another problem here - the recipe calls just to use a spoon, but it proved difficult enough to combine that I had to use a whisk and a lot more elbow grease to get it even moderately smooth.

I don't think it's supposed to be goopy AND chunky.

4. The recipe calls for you to use two spoons to scoop the mixture up and work it into a ball into the whites. However, this yolk mixture turned out almost liquid - way too goopy to form into balls. I did get it into the egg white halves, but it wasn't pretty. I topped the eggs with paprika.

The Outcome:

These....are not perfect. These are actually pretty shitty deviled eggs. The yolk mixture was liquid, and biting into one basically felt like getting kicked in the throat by a bottle of vinegar. I would suggest using only 2 tbsp vinegar, or putting the yolk mix in the fridge before putting it into the whites, or hard-boiling the eggs the way you find best, or just using a different recipe for deviled eggs. Sorry, Beef.

I've placed them in the fridge and hope they firm up and gel the flavours more. I'll report back on how they are after a few hours.

Addendum: Nope, they firmed up a bit but are still massively vinegary. I gotta find a way to salvage these because that's an awful lot of eggs to waste.