Inspiration from all quarters.

I haven’t posted for a while having had a full on Christmas. I have put on some weight but know how it get it off again. However this doesn’t stop me looking for interesting new recipes to try whilst ‘getting it off again’.

This one landed on my door step courtesy of Sally Taylor, who forwarded this link to me.

Scalloped Potato Roll

Now I am not going write out the whole recipe as the video is quite easy to follow as long as you let yourself pause and rewind every now and then.

What I will do is share how I have changed it and why. Before I do this I will let you know what the feedback from Maggie and Reuben was. Reuben was not a fan, although this is not unusual. His direct quote was ‘What’s wrong with a plain chicken breast on the plate?’ That says it all about Reuben and not a lot about the dish.

Maggie was more appreciative but felt there was two much of the spinach mix.

My main feedback is that I sliced the potatoes too thinly. As a result I used far fewer potatoes but my roll was a little flimsy. Allow your self the thickness in the video which looks like a 1.5 to 2mm. More importantly have the potato slices on the edges a little thicker than in the middle as the cook more quickly and might burn. I took. Mine out early because of this and this might have added to the flimsyness.

I would also have a thinner layer of each filling. Mine held in the middle but pushed out of the ends which suggest it was a little over filled.

Now for the changes . The first and most obvious of these is the amount of oil. The recipe cooked absolutely fine with spray oil. This also goes to prove that oil is often over used in cooking.

I also added no salt. It is thrown in at every opportunity in the video. I rarely add salt to my cooking and in my opinion this did not need it. Your taste buds may still be reliant on the salt so you can allow yourself a little if you wish.

I was very precise about the amount of cheese as I was serving three from the roll. I used 45g of Parmesan and 50g of mozarella. My third of this was what I can allow myself when losing weight (like after Christmas). I replaced the ricotta with quark which is a tasty, but fat free, alternative to other soft cheeses when cooking.

As part of my aim to use less meat I also used only 150g of minced beef and added 7 medium sized mushrooms chopped into small pieces. This is a technique I have shared before and always works well.

Overall mine involved smaller quantities as I was making a smaller roll but you could easily feed four with my version with a good selection of vegetables alongside it. Apologies that this final picture is poorly orientated. I am sure you will cope this however.

I will try this again making the changes suggested but will also look for alternative fillings as things like a spicy chilli filling would work really well with this.

If you give it a go please show me the outcome and maybe share alternative fillings.