Recipes – The Idaho Minute

Fresh Fruit Salsa: A Bright, Flavorful Twist for Summer Meals

Looking to elevate your summer dishes with something quick, vibrant, and incredibly fresh? This fruit salsa is your answer. Inspired by tropical flavors and easy island living—like those warm Hawaiian evenings filled with grilled fish and ocean breezes—this simple salsa brings color, sweetness, and just the right amount of tang to your plate.

Elevate Your Southwest Cooking with Homemade Red Chili Paste & Enchilada Sauce

If you love the bold, smoky flavors of Southwestern cuisine, mastering a basic red chili paste is a game changer. This easy, versatile recipe is the perfect way to deepen the flavor of dishes like enchiladas, tacos, soups, and even roasted meats. Best of all, it’s completely customizable—you choose the types of dried chilies to control the heat level and flavor profile to suit your taste.

Freezer Friendly Sauces

Sauces are the unsung heroes of the culinary world—simple additions that can elevate any dish from ordinary to unforgettable. Whether you’re drizzling a velvety white sauce over vegetables, crafting a rich cheese sauce for your favorite comfort foods, or experimenting with bold flavors like herbs and spices, mastering a few basic sauce recipes can open the door to endless kitchen creativity.

Mastering White Sauce: A Kitchen Essential

A well-made white sauce is one of the most versatile tools in a cook’s repertoire. Whether you’re preparing a creamy soup, a comforting mac and cheese, or a luscious fondue, this simple yet essential sauce forms the foundation of countless recipes. Best of all, it’s easy to make with just a few basic ingredients—flour, butter (or oil), and milk—yet it can be transformed with endless flavor variations, from velvety cheese sauces to herb-infused delights.

Polenta: A Versatile and Delicious Gluten-Free Staple

Polenta is one of the most underrated yet versatile ingredients in the kitchen. Made from simple cornmeal, this traditional Italian staple has transformed from a humble dish into a gourmet favorite, appearing on restaurant menus worldwide. While pre-made polenta is available at grocery stores, making it from scratch is affordable, easy, and allows for endless customization.

Chili Variations: Creating your own Chili Recipe

Creating your own chili recipe is all about experimentation and personalization, blending tried-and-true recipes with your unique culinary touch. The best way to start is by using a recipe you’ve already tested and enjoyed as your foundation. Familiarity with the base recipe gives you a solid understanding of the essential components—such as meat, beans, tomatoes, and spices—so you can confidently tweak it without losing the dish’s core appeal.

Desserts with Chef Doughty & Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding

A note from Chef Doughty…my days of laboring over complex, multi-step preparations for a dessert are over. There are enough wonderful dessert recipes on-line to last a lifetime and engage any level of experience. They all have merit. Nowadays my desserts tend to be simpler, somewhat unique and of course delicious!

Holiday Potatoes with Chef Doughty – Variations of Mashed & Twice Baked

A note from Chef Doughty…making mashed potatoes is not an exact science. You are allowed tons of flexibility and because of that I am reluctant to include a recipe. That said, this recipe will demonstrate some essential ingredients that should generally be included (butter, dairy, salt and pepper). This recipe is the standard recipe that we used at the restaurant. It holds well and provides good body and texture and is a good base for added ingredients, should you choose to use them.

Soups are the Miracle of the Kitchen

A note from Chef Joyce Doughty…I studied French cooking techniques at Le Cordon Bleu and I appreciate the rigorous instruction I received in classical cooking. But practically speaking, there are times when one must put on a simpler hat which will still yield wonderful outcomes. That is true when speaking of stocks. There are cookbooks devoted to the complexities of making a delicious stock. But for our purposes we are going straight to the practical.