Muenster & Chive Potato Stacks Recipe!

“I participated in an Ambassador Program on behalf of Influence Central for Hood Cream. I received product samples as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.”

Don't you love how there are practically a million ways to make potatoes? Its probably the most versatile vegetable I've ever seen. Potatoes make their way into nearly every traditional holiday meal, but not always in the same way. I could have made a respectable bowl of mashed potatoes for our Thanksgiving dinner this year, but I saw the carton of Hood Half & Half in my fridge and thought I'd get a little fancy. There are all sorts of dishes you can make using Hood Cream, from soups to ice cream, sweet and savory, and its not like Hood Cream is hard to find or expensive. This is the stuff used in our favorite restaurant kitchens, and its available in our grocery stores.

Actually, it was the Chef Creations Inspired by Hood Cream E-Cookbook that has gotten me all experimental in the kitchen. Its chock full of mouthwatering recipes that are made with the home cook in mind so that restaurant chefs and the stay-at-home-mom can both create delicious works of art, and all incorporating Hood Cream. These are exclusive recipes that result in chef-quality meals that taste as impressive as they look. You can find things like Pumpkin Bisque, Braised Pork Nachos, and Banana Cream Pie.

When I attended an Immersion Dinner at Deuxave in Boston last summer, I got to taste Chef Chris Coomb's Potato and Carmelized Onion Gratin, which is also included in the eCookbook. Chef Coombs is the renowned Boston chef/owner of Deuxave, dbar, and Boston Chops. I was enthralled with all the layers like you'd usually see in a gratin, but how these were thick and they held their shape so well when cut into cubes. I wanted to see if I could try something similar, but that didn't need to be cut into pieces. Thus, the Muenster & Chive Potato Stacks, made in muffin tins, were born!

Ingredients:

• 1 t. parsley
• 1 t. onion powder
• 2 T. minced garlic
• 1 t. ground pepper
• 1 ½ t. salt
• 2 cups Hood Half and Half cream
• a dozen medium red potatoes
• 12 slices Muenster cheese

Directions:

Combine all of the spices in a skillet and stir on low heat until combined. Slowly add the Hood Half and Half cream to the skillet and continue to stir on low heat.

Next, slice up your red potatoes into thin slices. Unless you have some mad knife skills, I think the key to this recipe's success is in using a mandolin or a food slicer to get your potatoes thin and evenly sliced. Like the Chef Creations eCookbook recommends in its gratin recipe, I kept my sliced potatoes soaking in water until it was time to use them. Since we like red potatoes a whole lot more than basic brown or yellow, I wanted to make sure they were the staple. Plus, I think red potato peels are meant to stay on the potato, so this eliminated another step of having to peel them.

Use a cookie cutter to cut out two circles of cheese from every slice. My stacks consisted of 4 layers of potato, then one cheese, and repeat, making sure the potatoes you choose are small enough to fit inside a muffin tin.

Place the stacks in your tins, avoiding them reaching higher than the top of the tin, then pour your milk mixture into each cup until it is full, but not overflowing.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20 min.

Let them cool and set up a little in the pans before removing. Top your stacks with a few sprigs of chives and get ready to hear some praise from your dinner guests!

Lovely, right?! These were the hot commodity at our Thanksgiving feast! They were such a gourmet alternative to mashed potatoes and so easy to serve. I thought they were delicious and will totally be making these again!

If you want to see the inspiration for these Potato Stacks, as well as an array of 25 mouthwatering recipes using Hood Cream, download the E-Cookbook HERE! Its the first-ever eCookbook from HP Hood, and it is totally free. There are a few feature that make it noteworthy: the notes from Chef Coombs with special tips and his inspiration behind each dish, a step-by-step "cook view" mode, social media sharing buttons for each recipe, and the ability to take it anywhere you go because you can download it on multiple devices.

*TIP: There are two specially recommended seasonal menus in the cookbook, one of which is a holiday spread! You could lift that entire menu off the pages and have all the recipes for one remarkable Christmas dinner on your hands.

Download it: The interactive Hood Cream E-Cookbook is available at Hood.com/ecookbook and will soon be available on iTunes, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.com.

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