Extending the Table

I want to share with you my absolute favorite cookbook. Extending the Table is the best recipe resource I have ever found. I love to cook international cuisine but many times cookbooks featuring dishes from around the world are fussy, expensive and time consuming.

This cookbook is filled with recipes gathered from the four corners of the world by people in missions work. They lived and ate with real people and learned how they ate and how they lived with very little but appreciated it all. I love the title because it can mean extending hospitality from your table or extending the amount of food your table offers. So wonderful!

The copy I have was printed in 1991 so this isn't a review or a plug other than that I think every home should have this in their arsenal. The recipes are fairly easy to make and actually quite economical at times.

Some of our favorite recipes are Koshary (from Egypt), Creole Chicken (from the Dominican Republic), Atole (from Mexico), Baji Dahl--Lentils and Spinach (from India), and on and on I could go. I will share some more of them with you in the days or weeks to come.

Even with all the great recipes to choose from we often have a tendency to fall into culinary ruts. My boys help cook dinners and T.J (17 y.o) especially likes his routines: Friday is soy mince spaghetti and Sunday is Tuna Macaroni Salad. However, this past Sunday he came to me asking if he could shake things up a bit and try a new recipe. He found one called Instant Potato Pizza.
According to the book it comes from Japan but unlike the other recipes there was no local name given. All the recipes have an english name so you can easily remember them but underneath is the actual dish's name in the country of origin along with a little bit of local information.--This recipe had neither. Also, I lived in Japan for a year and potatoes and cheese just doesn't say Japan to me.

Anyway, we went ahead with the recipe and discovered it was so ridiculously easy and delicious we could hardly believe it. We used two small non-stick skillets to make individual pizzas for everyone. We made two for each person but they were so filling some of us couldn't finish a second one.

Here is the recipe:

(we quadrupled this to make 12 personal pizzas)

Mix in bowl:

3 medium potatoes, grated

2 T. flour

1/4 tsp. salt

Add and stir in:

1 egg


Heat 1 T. oil in a nonstick frypan


Add 1/3 cup potato mixture. Fry one side until light brown and crusty. Flip over.

Spread (@ 2 T. ) savory tomato sauce on the potato crust.


Sprinkle any of the following on the crust:

sliced ham

green pepper, sliced or chopped

onion, sliced or chopped

mushrooms, sliced


Sprinkle with shredded cheese


Cover for 5-7 minutes.

There you have it. So simple and tasty. We only had the onions and bell peppers and Gouda cheese so we are looking forward to trying this again with a more appropriate cheese and more ingredients.

Let me know what you think if you try this. Also, any ideas what country this comes from? Dad? You live in Japan. What do you think?