Obviously I need more toys!

During our recent trip to the California wine country, our best trip yet, we were fortunate enough to dine on an amazing dinner created by Chef Peter Janiak at Seghesio winery.  One of the tidbits on the plate was Short Rib-Stuffed Yukon Gold Potatoes with horseradish and beet relish.  These were delicious little bites of perfectly braised beef and roasted potato.

These are the beautiful bites Chef Janiak made.

I thought these would wow my friends as an appetizer during our next dinner party so I had to try to make them.  They look easy don't they?  Just cut some circles out of some potatoes, roast them fill them with beef, top them with horseradish, poof you have an appetizer!

The beef, no problem, I've done that before.  It was the potatoes!  I did ask Chef Janiak if I should roast the potatoes first or cut them raw.  He told me to cut them raw because they tend to crumble if you cut them after they are cooked.  I should have asked more questions!

These are all of the round cutters I have.  OK, not ALL of them but the others I have are this big or bigger so this is what I had to work with.  Hence the need for new toys I need... smaller circle cutters! 

I sliced the edge off the potato so that there would be a flat surface then I cut out the "bigger" circle.  Not as easy as it might seem and next time I'll trim both sides of the potato so the potato is the thickness I want.

Once I had that cut I cut the center out with a smaller cutter.

Why are they oval?!  The cutters were round?  It's like the potatoes relaxed after I cut them and decided they wanted to be oval.

This does leave a bit of left-over potato so I just cut the excess up and roasted them with some carrots, butternut squash and radishes.  I brushed the potato rings with oil and roasted them along with the veggies.  Pretty right?

I filled them with the braised beef and topped them with a little horseradish.  This was after work so I didn't have time to make a nice horsey sauce but I will next time!

They tasted fine but they looked like Fred Flinstone versions of those petite bites we'd had at the winery.  I definitely need practice and smaller "potato cutters"!