A day we thought might never come. And we’re so glad you’ve stuck around for it! We’ve laughed together, bickered and complained, cried together and now it’s time to bid adieu to our starchy spuds.

I will indeed miss the potatoes. Mostly the fact that I’ve spent the last four months with a constant ”oops, the refrigerator is empty again” back-up plan. The terrifying surplus we started out wasn’t so bad after all. But if I may, some expert advice: should you be tempted to accept the offer when your own doorbell rings, don’t buy more than 50 kg (100 lbs) at a time.

I searched high and low for some clever potato humor to mark the occasion but it seems like potatoes are less comically inspiring than carrots. This one, though, is pretty funny:

Q: Two potatoes are walking down the street. One of them is a prostitute. How can you tell which one?

A: The one stamped IDAHO.

If you’re not sure why it’s funny, I would explain it to you but by the time I would finish I’m afraid it just wouldn’t be funny anymore. It’s a hard lesson I’ve learned in my time living abroad. Humor just doesn’t translate. Nonetheless I often cannot help myself with a little sarcasm here and there in a foreign language. The effect is just not quite there. Blank stares, a raised eyebrow, “she must mean something else”… Jan says, unless you are 100% sure that the rest of what you say is grammatically and linguistically correct, don’t go there.

So while you’re left trying to sound out I-DA-HO and wondering what that forlorn state has to do with prostitutes, here it is, the final dance of the potatoes:

Morillenknödel (a German potato dessert)

And then this delicious and quick apple recipe because there are still apples left to eat!:

Crousti-moelleux aux pommes (a French apple cake)

Morillenknödel (a German potato dessert)

We really have to hand it to the Germans for coming up with ways to eat potatoes at every course. But most admirable of all are these potatoes cooked up into a delicious round knödel with a tart apricot hidden inside. Jan had never heard of them, other Germans I mentioned the recipe to were very excited, so it seems to a regional specialty. Likely from the same Buchenberg where this recipe hails.

Preparation is very straight-forward and relatively quick. My biggest challenge was getting the apricots I had bought for the purpose to ripen. A German friend suggested that one could use even not-quite-ripe apricots since they will be cooked in any case. Since she is German and fond of Morillenknödel, I followed her advice to quite satisfactory results.

Potatoes, 2 lbs (1 kg)

Flour, 1-1/2 cup (200 g)

Eggs, 2

Salt, 1 Tbsp

Nutmeg

Butter ½ cup (120 g)

Apricots, small ones, 1 lb (500 g)

Sugar cubes, 1 per apricot

Breadcrumbs, 6 Tbsp

Powdered sugar

Peel and cook the potatoes. Press the hot potatoes through a potato ricer or mash them very well. Let cool.
Mix the cooled potatoes together with the flour, eggs, salt, nutmeg and 3-1/2 Tbsp (50 g) of softened butter into a dough. Roll the dough into a log measuring 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) in diameter. Divide the log into ½ inch (1 cm) slices.

Wash, dry and pit the apricots. Place one cube of sugar into each apricot.

Wrap each slice of potato dough around a filled apricot to form a ball.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the balls in the water. They are ready when they rise to the surface (like gnocchi) which should take about 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the balls with a slotted spoon and dip them briefly in a bath of cold water.
In a frying pan lightly roast the breadcrumbs in 5 Tbsp (70 g) of butter. Add the cooked apricot dumplings to the browned breadcrumbs and fry them lightly while turning them over in the lightly browned breadcrumbs.

When you are ready to serve, sprinkle the dumplings with powdered sugar.

If you don’t eat all of the Morillenknödel in one go (they are, after all, pretty much just giant gnocchi with an apricot in the middle), store in the refrigerator and reheat them slowly in a lightly greased frying pan until they are crispy again on the outside.

Ingredients

Potatoes 2 lbs (1 kg)
Flour 1-1/2 cup (200 g)
Eggs 2
Salt 1 Tbsp
Nutmeg
Butter ½ cup 120 g
Apricots small ones, 1 lb (500 g)
Sugar cubes 1 per apricot
Breadcrumbs 6 Tbsp
Powdered sugar

Instructions

Peel and cook the potatoes.
Press the hot potatoes through a potato ricer or mash them very well. Let cool.
Mix the cooled potatoes together with the flour, eggs, salt, nutmeg and 3-1/2 Tbsp (50 g) of softened butter into a dough.
Roll the dough into a log measuring 2-3 inches (5-7 cm) in diameter. Divide the log into ½ inch (1 cm) slices.
Wash, dry and pit the apricots. Place one cube of sugar into each apricot.
Wrap each slice of potato dough around a filled apricot to form a ball.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the balls in the water. They are ready when they rise to the surface (like gnocchi) which should take about 10 minutes.
Carefully remove the balls with a slotted spoon and dip them briefly in a bath of cold water.
In a frying pan lightly roast the breadcrumbs in 5 Tbsp (70 g) of butter.
Add the cooked apricot dumplings to the browned breadcrumbs and fry them lightly while turning them over in the lightly browned breadcrumbs.
When you are ready to serve, sprinkle the dumplings with powdered sugar.

Notes

If you don’t eat all of the Morillenknödel in one go (they are, after all, pretty much just giant gnocchi with an apricot in the middle), store in the refrigerator and reheat them slowly in a lightly greased frying pan until they are crispy again on the outside.

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Crousti-moelleux aux pommes (a French apple cake)

Much like the tendancy I have to underestimate quantities given in the metric system, I have also been known to underestimate the amount of food needed at any given lunch or dinner. Fortunately it has not often been the case when we have invited guests, as there is nothing worse than being invited to a sparsely-decked table (my apologies if you’ve been the unfortunate victim of a miscalculation). So how does this happen in a house brimming over with stocked surplus fruits and vegetables? I could point to the fact that our youngest family member is just coming into his full eating capacity and my kitchen has not yet caught up, but I’m afraid the real culprit is laziness. This scenario almost without fail occurs when the meal plan states “leftovers” and what’s left over is just not enough for four hungry mouths.

Which leads us to Crousti-moulleux aux pommes, or how to quickly make up for a mediocre meal. Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) is a German institution and one that we happily embrace on slow weekend afternoons. And this apple cake can be easily pulled together in the window between lunch and cake, while permitting even a short nap for a tired parent.

This recipe is from the special dessert edition of the French cooking magazine: Saveurs. I don’t normally indulge in perusing the magazine rack at the grocery store but this one with its “over 280 ideas for all occasions” was impossible to resist. (Saveurs, Hors-series N° 24, 2016)

Flour, 4/5 cup (100 g)

Baking powder, 1 tsp

Ground almonds, 1 oz. (25 g)

Egg, 2

Sugar, ⅓ cup + ¼ cup (120 g)

Milk, ¼ cup (5 cl)

Oil, 4 Tbsp

Salt

Apples, 2-4, peeled, cored and cut into small pieces

Butter, 4 Tbsp (60 g)

Cinnamon, ½ tsp

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter a loaf pan and dust with flour.
Beat together one egg and ⅓ cup (70 g) of sugar. Add the oil, milk and a pinch of salt, followed by the ground almonds, the flour and the baking powder. Mix well.

Add the chopped apples. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake for 25 minutes.
In the meantime, melt 3-1/2 Tbsp (50 g) of butter with ¼ cup (50 g) of sugar in a sauce pan. Let cool slightly, then add in one egg and the cinnamon. Beat together vigorously.
After the 25 minutes are up, increase the oven temperature to 460°F (240°C). Pour the butter-sugar mix onto the baked apple cake.

Bake for an additional 8 minutes.

Probably the best part of this dessert special is that each recipe includes the appropriate wine or other adult beverage recommendation. For our moelleux: un cidre doux (a hard apple cider, of the lighter variety).