Mom always told us not to play with our food.  Well… this is one time I didn’t pay attention!

There is a great website out there that has pictures of food (from various blogs around the world) like you wouldn’t believe.  I stopped by today and came across a photo of a Peruvia Causa made with multilayers of multi-colored mashed potatoes.  The person used food coloring to get some pretty deep purples and oranges that weren’t necessarily appetizing, but the pictures were excellent and it gave me an idea for tonight.  The Peruvian Causa is a cold layered potato salad. I thought the concept could be translated to a hot potato dish, so I set out to see what I could do.

I didn’t want to use food colors, so I grabbed a sweet potato and a white potato.  I cooked them and mashed them separately, the white with butter, garlic, and a tiny splash of cream, and the sweet with butter and a hint of brown sugar.  Both got salt and pepper.

I finely shredded a carrot and a zucchini, and cooked each of them up separately in a bit of butter, dill for the carrots and a bit of garlic and basil for the zucchini..

For a mold, I used an empty chipotle pepper can with both top and bottom removed.  (I saved one end to use to push the potatoes out.)

To assemble, I put in a layer of sweet potato, some shredded zucchini, then the white potato, the carrot, more zucchini, and topped it with more sweet.  Placed the lid on the can and pushed while lifting the can.

I was really pleasantly surprised!  They were really, really good!  A bit time-consuming to make, and I dirtied lots of pots and pans, but since the chicken took so long to cook, I actually had time to clean up most of the mess before dinner!

I can see where this would make a great cold salad, because you could mold and plate in advance and they would probably stay together easier.

The chicken was cooked on the barbie with a rub of Mozambique Piri Piri spice blend and topped with a chipotle mango sauce.  Sweet, spicy, and smoky.  Peas on the side and dinner was served!

While we were eating, we talked about the different foods we have seen cylindrically stacked.  When we were in the Cayman Islands a couple of years ago, we had a Caprese salad that was a perfectly cylindrical six layers of tomatoes, mozzarella and basil.  (It was at the Ritz Carlton…)  We’ve had desserts with mousse and cake.  It’s nothing exactly new, but it’s been brought to the forefront and  it definitely is fun.

And there really is just no end to the amount of things that can be created.

Time to play with my food!