Buffalo Meat for Cheap

Wouldn't you know it? Just when I finally get the hang of cooking with beef (well, I can make burgers), Avo's doctor tells him to keep his cholesterol down by cutting out the red meat.

At the same time, I'm still trying to come up with a recipe which will use up the potatoes left over from Passover (I made so much kugel and yet somehow I still have a ton of potatoes). In my truly undomesticated days, I used to mock Avo for his obsession with using every last bit of food we had in the fridge. Now I think I'm worse than he ever was. Can't let one potato go to waste!

I found a recipe for meat loaf and mashed potatoes in an old copy of "Everyday Food" that one of my neighbors left on the window sill in our front hallway. But, not surprisingly, it calls for ground beef.

"Why not use buffalo meat?" asked Avo. "It's leaner and they sell it cheap at Trader Joe's. And instead of using the potatoes for mashed potatoes, why not make potato gratin?"

Well, for one, the potato gratin recipe in Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking calls for 1 cup of Gruyere cheese and 1 cup of heavy cream -- somehow I am guessing Avo's doctor wouldn't approve of that!