ON FOOD: Add a few special touches to holiday table

There's nothing like the holidays to try some new recipes and discover some tasty new products. Here are a few of my latest discoveries in both of these departments.

New products first.

When The Cliff House opened in 1999, Craig Hartman, the executive chef and innkeeper, made an amazing Caesar salad. The piece de resistance was his signature whole white anchovy draped over the romaine leaves. I like the flavor of a tiny bit of anchovy, but never thought I could manage to eat a whole one. Those babies - the Agostino Recca brand - were so mild, however, that I found I craved them if I hadn't been to The Cliff House in a while. Back then I could buy that brand of white anchovy at Par Avion, but not anymore, since that wonderful gourmet grocery store has closed.

On a recent shopping trip to Whole Foods Market, 7635 N. Academy Blvd., I was thrilled to spot another brand: Fruits de Mer Marinated Anchovies. They are the white anchovies and very tasty.

Next to them in the seafood case I spotted a product from the same company: White Anchovies with Stuffed Green Olives. These are whole green olives with a white anchovy wrapped around them. Two of the anchovy-wrapped olives are held together with a toothpick. They are a delicious treat eaten as an appetizer.

Each come in 7-ounce packages and cost $7.99 each.

Next up, new recipes.

I tried three new-to-me potato recipes for our Thanksgiving dinner. Two were for sweet potatoes and the other was for white potatoes.

Move over, sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. You'll never go back to those once you try these easy recipes.

First up, my husband found a recipe for Coconut Milk Mashed Sweet Potatoes in the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal. I used fresh sweet potatoes, but I'm sure you could use canned if you're pressed for time or oven space. The potatoes are baked, peeled and mashed, then made ultracreamy with a can of coconut milk (not Coco Loco) that has been simmered about 20 minutes with a cinnamon stick. The cinnamon stick infuses the milk with a nice spicy flavor. Remove the cinnamon stick and stir into the potatoes.

There was an optional 1/4 cup brown sugar that could have been added, but I skipped that. Between the sweetness of the potatoes and the coconut milk they didn't need more sugar.

The other recipe, Roasted Sweet Potatoes With Macadamia Nuts, came via my Pilates instructor, Ashley Kipp. She had found it online at www.wholefoods market.com.

This time, four medium sweet potatoes are peeled, quartered and tossed with a tablespoon olive oil. Place the potatoes on a shallow baking pan and roast at 400 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes.

In a toaster oven toast 1/4 cup macadamia nuts until they are lightly browned. Chop them and save.

A glaze for the potatoes is made by whisking together 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 tablespoon pomegranate balsamic vinegar, 2 teaspoons maple syrup and 1/2 teaspoon

Dijon-style mustard. I didn't have pomegranate balsamic vinegar, but I had white balsamic vinegar and pomegranate syrup, so I used equal portions of those as a substitute.

Pomegranate syrup can be found at Indian grocery stores. The glaze makes the potatoes look beautifully glossy.

Since I had used pomegranate syrup I decided to peel a fresh pomegranate and add the seeds as a garnish along with the nuts. The dish was very colorful and festive looking and tasted wonderful, too.

On a Cook's Country television show they were showing how to make twice-baked potatoes. They had added a package of garlic and herb Boursin cheese to the mashed potatoes to flavor them. I thought that was a great idea and decided to gave it a try. The result was a winner. I pressure-cooked four medium Yukon gold potatoes, drained the water from the potatoes and mashed in a 5.2-ounce package of garlic and herb Boursin. A little salt was all that was needed to prepare nicely garlic-flavored mashers.

The family voted that these potato dishes along with the white anchovy-wrapped olives will become new traditions for our holiday table.

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Reach Farney at 636-0271 or teresa.farney@gazette.com. She appears Tuesdays on KOAA's Comcast Channel 5 at noon.