Rev: Italian Potato Torta CL 4/03

[Chocolate Rose]

MMMM, mmmm, mmmm, this was comfort food!! Yum yum!!

I LOVE potatoes. When I was pregnant I craved mashed potatoes. My daughter loves potatoes. My husband - not so much.:D So, when he's not here for dinner we have our potatoes. Tonight was one of those nights!!

I put it together earlier in the day and then just popped it in the oven. Since it spent some time in the frig I cooked it an extra 15 minutes just to be sure it was cooked. The only hard part was after taking it out of the oven and smelling it and seeing it's golden top and not being able to eat it for 20 more minutes!:D

I had some dried tomatoes and went ahead and slivered them up (as she suggested) and added them to the potatoes. They were yummmmmmy!

We will definitely make this again even though it was 9 WW points!!

[Paula H]

I was just about to post a review Chocolate Rose!

This was goooooood. Very very yummy, and so easy to make after a horrible day at work. I'm so impressed, I'm making it again later this week to take to a potluck dinner.

Reheats in the microwave really nicely. I served it up with some salad and bread.

[Barb856]

Could someone please post the recipe? Potatoes are my favourite food...you can take anything else away from me, but don't take my potatoes. I absolutely love them. Thanks in advance if someone could post this recipe.

[Chocolate Rose]

Paula, I'm glad to know it reaheats well. I know that my daughter has plans to have it for breakfast. :D

I was thinking that there is no reason that this couldn't be cut into 8 servings and served as a side dish.

Barb856, here's the recipe:


* Exported from MasterCook *

Italian Potato Torta ~ 9 Pts.

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Main Dish Pies - Savory
Potatoes Vegetarian

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
6 cups baking potato -- peeled and cubed (about 1 3/4 pounds)
1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg
Cooking spray
1/4 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
2 cloves garlic -- minced
14 1/2 ounces Italian-style tomatoes -- drained
1 cup mozzarella cheese, part skim milk -- shredded (4 oz.)
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese -- grated fresh (3 oz.)
thyme sprigs (optional)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water. Bring to a boil, cook 15 minutes or until tender. Drain. Return potatoes to pan; add flour, oil, salt, and egg. Mash potato mixture with a potato masher until smooth.

Spread potato mixture into a 9-inch round cake pan coated with cooking spray. Combine seasoning, garlic, and tomatoes; spread evenly over potato mixture. Combine cheeses, and sprinkle over tomato mixture. Bake at 450 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden. Let stand 20 minutes. Cut torta into 4 wedges. Garnish with thyme, if desired. 4 servings (serving size: 1 wedge).

Description:
"A gnocchi-like mixture of mashed potatoes, flour, and an egg is patted into a cake pan, topped with tomatoes and cheese, then baked. What emerges is part pizza, part potato pancake. This torta makes a great vegetarian entree."
Source:
"Cooking Light April 2003; pg. 128"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 450 Calories; 13g Fat (26.2% calories from fat); 23g Protein; 60g Carbohydrate; 6g Dietary Fiber; 74mg Cholesterol; 748mg Sodium. Exchanges: 3 1/2 Grain(Starch); 2 Lean Meat; 1 Vegetable; 1 Fat.

NOTES : " Sometimes I intensify the flavor with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, black olives, and - if we have it around - a bit of leftover prosciutto. Serve this with a zesty green salad for a complete, inexpensive feast"

Nutr. Assoc. : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

[KathrynY]

Thanks for your reviews! I've got this on the menu later in the week, so I'm glad to hear people are enjoying it so far. :)

[Tizzylish]

Wow this looks delish! I can't wait to try it, thanks for posting the recipe, my April issue is still a no show. :(

[tracey]

I made the Torta tonight and it was delicious. I tried to speed up the process by using instant Idahoan potatoes. We did not let it sit for 20 minutes, so the potatoes were very soft. I will be making it again.

[JJ40]

I plan to make this tomorrow night but I only have Yukon potatoes...do you think I could use Yukons for this recipe??

Thanks!
Julie :)

[CompassRose]

Julie, if you like the kind of mashed potatoes Yukons make (a bit stickier, not fluffy) then you should be fine with them in the torte. (Me, I love Yukon mashed, but I'm not a huge fan of "floury" potatoes anywhere -- they make me cough -- and I like the richer flavour Golds give.) I use them in gnocchi, anyway...

If you want to cut down just a bit on the stickiness, and have some time, what I sometimes do with my gnocchi is bake the taters in the oven, instead of steaming/boiling them; then the cooked potato is drier for the mashing.

[anadimae]

JJ40

The Yukons should be okay. Your cake will just be a little more dense but should still be good! (The same difference between mashed Idahos and mashed Yukons. The Idahos are a little lighter.)

diana:o)

[Elbows]

I made this just this past Thursday. I made a couple of modifications/additions to the original recipe... really not that much different though. It looked a little bland, so I added some red pepper flakes and ground black pepper to the tomato mixture, and doubled the garlic. I didn't use nearly as much cheese as the recipe calls for, maybe half cup max. Still cheesy enough. Next time I may try adding some chopped olives with the tomatoes. Tasty enough, leftovers were great for lunch too.

[magdon]

A definite hit! I used Yukons and thought it was fine. And wow! almost 2 cups of cheese in a CL recipe! DH would've eaten the entire pan if I'd let him, he liked it so much. Very easy and tasty.

[loxiemom]

I guess I'm in the minority here. I made this last night (with Yukon Golds-all I had) and my DH and I didn't really enjoy it too much. It wasn't awful, it was just a little weird to me. I couldn't help wishing there was a crust where the potato was, since it tasted to much like pizza. Oh, well. To each his own.

[Kuvy]

This would be perfect with the Sundried Tomato Meatloaf with Red Currant Sauce (March CL) - the meatloaf is a little dry and needs "wet food" on the side...!
:D

[karen w]

MMMMMM! I really liked this. Italian comfort food! My only changes were to season the mashed potato mixture with S & P and GARLIC! I also added a few rehydrated chopped sundried tomatoes to the topping, and a little extra GARLIC! I thought it was quite a bit of cheese for a CL recipe, but since we were eating it as a main dish, I used it all:D . I think it would be a very nice side dish sliced in smaller wedges too. Serving size was very generous. We had it with a salad and some steamed broccoli. Yum!

Karen

[pbchipses]

I also thought this was very good and a great deal calorie-wise with all the cheese and large servings! I added more garlic and more Italian seasoning to the tomatoes, but otherwise kept it the same!

[sushibones]

I also made this a couple of days ago. I added a couple of teaspoons of Foxpoint seasoning to the potatoes, used Glen Muir fire roasted diced tomatoes mixed with 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning and some Northwoods Fire seasoning, and sprinkled sliced green onions over the tomatoes before adding the cheese. I used the full amount of cheese, but agree that it was a lot. The mozzarella browned and and got chewy. Next time I would probably leave the parmesan the same and cut the mozzarella in half. DH and I both liked this a lot, and it was easy to put together. I didn't pay close attention to the recipe and didn't realize that it was supposed to sit for 20 minutes. We were going out and didn't have time to wait. I assume the sitting time is to allow the potatoes to firm up a bit. Ours were soft, but tasty anyway.

[sweatpea]

Okay, well i was all geared up to make this while DH was out of town--I used a mixture of yukons and idaho potatoes (i can buy them all mixed together with red potatoes--cool!) and it tasted very sweet to me...any ideas why? maybe the yukons? usually yukons taste buttery to me so i am not sure! TIA :confused:

[Ralph]

Thumbs up here, too! And easy to make, to boot!

[foodfiend]

Had this for dinner tonight. It was quite tasty and very filling (I was surprised by that). I added some sun-dried tomatoes as suggested, and it came out nicely. I didn't have any mozzarella, so I just used some grated Parmesan and that was fine.

[2HUNGRY!]

I finally made this last night. I make the red beans and rice from the same article all of the time, and look at this one, but never get around to it. Well, it only took me 6 years, but the wait was worth it.

I used red skinned potatoes, and added some caramelized onions and mushrooms I had left over from something else to the topping. Other than that, I made it as written.

It's hard to find something cheap, easy and filling that tastes good, so I wanted to bump this up!