Tag: potatoes

Categories
Crockpot Main Dish

Parsnips can help keep your pot roast rooted

At the start of the stay-at-home order, Joey and I made our normal trip to the grocery store, planning to get ingredients for some meals that would yield plenty of leftovers for our freezer and keep us out of the public for a couple weeks.

We already had a roast in the freezer, so we were on the hunt for ingredients to put with it in the crockpot for a good, old-fashioned crockpot.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who made a trip to our local grocery store that day, and we found ourselves staring at a lot of empty shelves, especially in the produce section.

I was surprised to see there wasn’t a single potato to be had, and while I’d normally add carrots to my roast, there was only a tiny package of shredded carrots left, and I didn’t think that would do.

We weren’t sure how to pivot until Joey began examining the shelves for what was still available and wondered aloud what we could substitute for potatoes or carrots in our recipe.

A quick Google search yielded the solution: parsnips.

I’ve never cooked with parsnips before, but there they were, on the shelf, in abundance, so we bought a big bag and decided to see what would happen.

So, this week, I’m sharing with you how we normally put together a pot roast and highly recommending that you give parsnips a try.

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Pot Roast with Parsnips

Pot roast is a versatile dinner. This roast was made using parsnips instead of potatoes and carrots due to quarantine shortages.
Course Main Course
Keyword beef, carrots, crockpot, mashed potatoes, onions, parsnips, pot roast

Ingredients

  • Chuck roast we normally get a 3- to 5-pound roast, thawed
  • 4 to 5 stalks celery cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 6 to 8 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 small yellow onion cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 4 to 5 carrots cut into 1/2-inch rounds
  • 2 pounds potatoes or parsnips cut into 1-inch pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 3-4 cups beef broth or a medium to dark style of beer

Instructions

  • While you prepare your vegetables, pull the roast from the refrigerator to get it closer to room temperature.
  • Start with adding the roast to the center of your crockpot and then sprinkle in the vegetables, herbs and spices around it. Pour over the broth and Worcestershire sauce and place the lid on the crockpot. You don’t need to have the broth all the way to the rim or completely covering the roast, but I’d recommend having it at least three-quarters of the way up the meat and veggies.
  • Cook on low for six to eight hours or on high for about three to five hours. (The cook time will really depend on how big your roast is, but that’s pretty standard.)
  • For proper doneness, a pot roast should be at least 145 degrees in the thickest part.
  • Check the doneness of the vegetables by piercing them with a fork. If they’re done to your liking, serve the roast by slicing it and then spooning lots of vegetables with it. We like to eat ours in a bowl so we can serve it with some of the juices from the crockpot.
  • Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. Make sure you include juice in the containers, too. It will help it stay moist when you reheat it.

If you’re curious, a parsnip tastes a bit like a carrot but with a bit more of an earthy, nutty flavor. We didn’t miss the carrots or potatoes too much with the addition of the extra flavor.

There are probably a million ways people make pot roast. I have a friend who uses French onion soup mix, water and frozen, mixed vegetables in hers.

A lot of folks also like to thicken up the juices to make gravy and serve the roast over top of mashed potatoes.

The best part is that it’s a flexible dinner to make, and as we discovered, despite potatoes generally being considered a staple with pot roast, you can even get away with leaving those out, too.

Our local store is certainly returning to normal for the most part, but if nothing else, I suppose this quarantine has taught me how to be flexible—both in life and in the kitchen.

This piece first appeared in print on April 23, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Soup

Chicken mushroom soup is ‘chowder’ this world

Creamy chicken mushroom chowder is a hearty soup for a cold night's dinner.
Creamy chicken mushroom chowder is a hearty soup for a cold night’s dinner.

Thanks to this column, I’m constantly on the lookout for recipes I have never tried. If you look at a lot of food blogs and recipe books like I do, you’ll find several common words and phrases in the titles of recipes.

There are quite a few that include the descriptor “Amish” in the title, and while I’m not necessarily qualified to say what makes a recipe particularly Amish or not, there are some I wouldn’t peg as particularly authentic.

And, of course, people love making recipes that claim to be like “crack.” I’ve also always found that one strange, considering that the bios of most of these online chefs don’t seem to indicate drug problems on their end.

But this week, Joey and I ended up trying to figure out what makes a “chowder” a “chowder,” and after searching online quite a bit, I’m not sure if that isn’t just another random adjective cooks use. The only official explanation that seemed to show up more often than not was that a chowder must be cream based, but folks differed on that rule, too.

I found this recipe on the blog “The Chunky Chef.” You can find the original post at https://www.thechunkychef.com/creamy-chicken-mushroom-chowder/. I changed the amounts of some of the ingredients in my version. I also actually doubled the recipe below to give me some leftovers for the freezer.

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Creamy Chicken Mushroom Chowder

Creamy chicken mushroom chowder is a hearty soup for a cold night's dinner.
Course Main Course
Keyword chicken, chowder, mushrooms, potatoes, soup

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 3 carrots peeled and diced
  • 3 stalks celery diced
  • 8 ounces mushrooms sliced (I used baby bellas, but use what you like)
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • 1/4- cup flour
  • 4 cups chicken stock or broth
  • 5 medium-sized red potatoes diced
  • 3 cups shredded or cubed chicken cooked
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2/3 cup heavy cream or half and half

Instructions

  • Heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat in a large pot.
  • Add the onions, carrots and celery and saute until they’re soft (about five minutes). Add the mushrooms and garlic and stir, cooking for about two more minutes.
  • Add the salt and pepper, thyme and flour and stir to soak up any liquid in the pan. Let the flour cook for about one minute.
  • Stir in the stock, making sure the scrape the bottom of the pot.
  • Add the potatoes, chicken and bay leaf and bring the soup to a very low boil. Let it cook for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are to your desired tenderness, stirring occasionally.
  • Add the cream and let the soup simmer until it’s hot again.
  • Serve.

I went about this a little differently by boiling my chicken in the broth to cook it to start and making my veggies in a saute pan on the side. I did all the steps up to adding the broth in the saute pan and then dumped my veggies in with my cooked chicken that was already boiling in the stock pot.

If you do it that way, you will probably need to add a little water or more broth to the pot.

And while the recipe is called a chowder and does meet a lot of the definitions of what a chowder should be, I’m still not sure if everyone would agree.

What I can tell you is that I’m pretty sure it’s not Amish, it certainly doesn’t mirror any drugs I’m aware of, and it’s an extremely satisfying, good soup, especially when served with a thick slice of crusty bread.

I may never figure out what a chowder is, but it won’t stop me from eating seconds until I figure it out.

This piece first appeared in print on Nov. 14, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Be ready to fall for a casserole with autumn flavors

Fall casserole has squash, potatoes and spinach in addition to cheese and plenty of great herbs.
Fall casserole has squash, potatoes and spinach in addition to cheese and plenty of great herbs.

As the leaves began falling off the trees recently, I got the chance to spend some time with my now two-year-old niece.

She’s in love with being in the backyard, so we went outside for awhile, and she showed me the crunchy leaves laying in the grass.

She would carefully pick up each one she found, hold it where the two of us could both hear and then roll it in her hand, saying, “Crumple, crumple, crumple.”

Fall is my favorite time of year, especially when it comes to the squash and cinnamon and other warm flavors it immediately becomes in vogue to cook with.

In that vein, I found the perfect fall recipe by Andi Gleeson, which comes from the blog “The Weary Chef.” You can find the original at https://wearychef.com/fall-potluck-casserole-with-turkey-and-squash/. I changed up the spices and the amounts of some of the ingredients.

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Fall Casserole

Fall casserole has squash, potatoes and spinach in addition to cheese and plenty of great herbs.
Course Main Course
Keyword butternut squash, cheese, ground turkey, potatoes, spinach

Ingredients

  • 1.5 pounds butternut squash diced
  • 12 ounces frozen spinach thawed and drained
  • 1 1/2 rounded cup of frozen hashbrowns shredded or diced
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 1 pound ground turkey
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon dried sage
  • 1 teaspoon dried parsley
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1-1/2 cup milk I used skim
  • 1 cup shredded parmesan cheese divided

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  • Prepare a 9×13-inch baking pan by coating it in cooking spray and set it aside.
  • Cut up the vegetables and make sure you squeeze all of the excess moisture out of the spinach. Combine the squash, spinach, and hashbrowns in a large mixing bowl and set aside.
  • In a skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat and saute the onions until they’re soft. Add the ground turkey and salt and pepper and cook through, crumbling it as you go. Add the garlic, oregano, basil, sage and parsley and saute for another couple of minutes.
  • Sprinkle on the flour and stir. Let it cook for about a minute to get rid of the flour taste and then add the milk, stirring to bring up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
  • Let the mixture simmer, stirring often, until it thickens into a gravy-like consistency.
  • Remove the turkey mixture from the heat and add it and one-half cup of parmesan cheese to the mixing bowl. Stir to combine all the ingredients and dump it into the prepared pan.
  • Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.
  • Remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until the squash can be pierced easily with a fork.
  • Spread the remaining cheese on the top and bake for about five more minutes to melt it, and then serve.

This was an amazing dinner, and as we were eating, we discussed how good it would be with a runny fried egg on top as well, which is how we ended up enjoying the leftovers the next morning for breakfast.

It would also be a great side dish on a Thanksgiving table, if you’re looking for something new.

And I’d especially recommend making this for dinner on a night when you can go outside and crumple leaves with a two year old.

It beats raking any day.

This piece first appeared in print on Nov. 7, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Expand your ‘chorizo’ns with potato tacos

Chorizo con papas, or chorizo and potato, tacos are a crowd pleaser with tons of great flavor.
Chorizo con papas, or chorizo and potato, tacos are a crowd pleaser with tons of great flavor.

My sister and I have a fundamental difference in opinion when it comes to potatoes in Mexican food. 

I’m in the “absolutely” camp, and she’s in the “never, ever” camp. I discovered this philosophical divergence one day when I recommended a local restaurant’s chorizo and potato fried tacos to her, and we were both shocked by the other’s preference.

But since she is absolutely wrong, I decided to make a homemade version of chorizo and potato tacos without the fried shell this week, and they were awesome.

If you’re not familiar, chorizo is a sausage that is full of lots of great spices. For this recipe, you’ll want to get the Mexican kind that is raw rather than the Spanish kind, which generally comes already cooked. It’s also a beautiful color, and I always enjoy cooking with it, since it creates this gorgeous red hue in the pan.

And if you’re not well-versed in Spanish, “con papas” just means “with potatoes” in this recipe’s title.

The recipe I used comes from the blog “In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen” by Maggie Unzueta. You can find the original post at https://inmamamaggieskitchen.com/chorizo-con-papas-or-mexican-chorizo-with-potatoes/. I added more spices and some peppers to my version. I also eliminated the oil in the recipe, since chorizo generally has plenty of grease on its own, but if you have trouble with it sticking, you might add that back in. Finally, I just cooked the potatoes in the pan rather than boiling them first to eliminate dishes.

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Chorizo con Papas

Chorizo con papas, or chorizo and potato, tacos are a crowd pleaser with tons of great flavor.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Mexican
Keyword chorizo, potatoes, tacos

Ingredients

  • 1 pound Mexican pork chorizo remove casings, if applicable
  • 1 small onion diced (I used yellow)
  • 1 jalapeno diced (remove ribs and seeds to decrease spiciness)
  • 1 Anaheim pepper diced
  • 1 pound potatoes diced into 1/4-inch pieces
  • 1 packet of Sazon Goya seasoning
  • garlic salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • In a large skillet with a lid, brown the chorizo, breaking it apart. Once it is cooked through, transfer the chorizo to a plate lined with a paper towel to drain.
  • Leave only about one tablespoon of grease in the pan and add the onion, peppers, potatoes and spices.
  • Stir to coat the ingredients in oil and cover the pan. Every few minutes, remove the lid and stir, scraping the bottom to remove any bits.
  • If the pan becomes too dry, either add a little oil or add a little water (which is what I did) to help steam the vegetables.
  • Once the potatoes are fork tender, add the chorizo back into the pan and stir. Let the chorizo heat back up and then serve in your favorite taco vessel. (We used flour tortillas.)

We served our tacos with shredded cheese, fresh spinach and some avocado. The recipe author suggests fresh cilantro, too. Really, anything that you like on other kinds of tacos will probably be good on these, although I saw no need for any salsa or tabasco sauce on these, since they had a great amount of flavor on their own.

We also had a lot of leftovers from making this recipe, and the tacos reheated really well in the microwave, which made for some good lunches for us to take to work.

The only regret I have is my sister will never realize just how delicious a batch of chorizo con papas can be, but you can’t win them all, and I can’t help it if she doesn’t know what’s good.

Maybe someday she’ll come around.

This piece first appeared in print on Aug. 8, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish

Shredded cheese, potatoes make ‘grater’ casserole

If you need an easy, crowd-pleasing dinner, keep this recipe handy.
If you need an easy, crowd-pleasing dinner, keep this recipe handy.

Glancing at my pantry this past week, I noticed a forgotten bag of Yukon gold potatoes nestled on the shelf.

I pulled it out, nervous for what I’d find, and discovered they were still mostly good but weren’t long for this world, so it was at that moment that I decided potatoes were on that evening’s menu.

Looking through my list of recipes to try, I remembered a simple one that was really just three awesome main ingredients: potatoes, hamburger and cheese.

You can’t go wrong with that combo, in my humble opinion.

The recipe calls for Russet potatoes, but my Yukons worked well, too. I probably used 10 to 12 of them, since they’re smaller, and it decreased my bake time by around 20 minutes, since they cook faster. I also used ground turkey instead of hamburger to make it a bit lighter.

This comes from the website “Genius Kitchen.” You can find it at https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/hamburger-potato-cheese-casserole-187672. I changed up the seasonings just a bit in my version.

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Cheesy Hamburger Potato Casserole

If you need an easy, crowd-pleasing dinner, keep this recipe handy.
Course Main Course
Keyword casserole, ground beef, hamburger, potatoes

Ingredients

  • 5 large Russet potatoes sliced about 1/4-inch thick
  • 2 tablespoons onion powder
  • 4 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 1 pound ground beef or turkey
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 cups milk skim is fine
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 8 ounces sharp cheddar shredded (or cheese of your choice)

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • In a large skillet, brown the hamburger/turkey. Drain off any excess fat, and mix in the onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
  • In the meantime, place a layer of potato slices in the bottom of a 2- to 3-quart casserole dish with a lid (it’s fine if the potatoes overlap a bit if you have lots).
  • Dump half the meat mixture on top of the potatoes and spread it evenly.
  • Place another layer of potatoes in the dish and cover with the remaining meat mixture.
  • Finish out with a final layer of potatoes.
  • Set the dish aside and make your cheese sauce (you can use the same skillet).
  • Melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the flour to make a roux and stir for about a minute to cook the flour taste out.
  • Add the milk and salt and pepper and whisk to break up any clumps.
  • Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to stir regularly to keep the milk from scalding. Once the mixture is thick and bubbling, remove it from heat (mine would not thicken to save my life, so I ended up adding quite a bit more flour, a little at a time, until I got a “sauce” consistency).
  • Add the cheese and stir until it is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Pour the cheese sauce over top of the potatoes and meat. Shake the dish a bit to help work the sauce down into the entire dish.
  • Place the covered dish in the oven for about 1-1/2 hours, taking the lid off for the last 20 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tender and the top is browned.

This was a very simple recipe and reheated wonderfully as leftovers. If you’re cooking for picky eaters or kiddos, this is a great one to try. 

If you’re cooking for a more sophisticated adult palate, you might try adding some more spices to it. Crushed red pepper flakes, minced garlic and a real onion in place of powder, and even some basil or paprika could have taken this to a new level. It’s a pretty blank canvas.

I was just happy to not let a bag of potatoes go to waste, and it was a good reminder that I should peer into the back of my pantry more often. Who knows what other treasures lie within?

This piece first appeared in print on March 21, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Side Dish

Just ‘fry’ to resist these scrumptious potatoes

Italian fried potatoes are a relatively simple recipe with lots of flavor.
Italian fried potatoes are a relatively simple recipe with lots of flavor.

When I was younger, I knew it was going to be a great supper if I saw my mom’s electric skillet sitting out on the counter.

That meant we were having fried potatoes as our side dish for dinner. I can still smell them cooking when I think about that skillet. It was one of my favorite things.

Mom would cut Russet potatoes into about quarter-inch rounds and add them with oil, garlic salt and pepper into the electric skillet.

They always came out creamy and delicious—especially if you got one of the crispy potatoes that was just a bit thinner than the others.

Now I’m making myself hungry.

Well, in the spirit of my Mom’s tried and true potato recipe, I decided to try one that’s extremely similar but adds Italian frying potatoes (or whatever long, mild green pepper you can find) into the mix. I wouldn’t recommend bell peppers for this, but if that’s all you can find, go for it.

I found this recipe on a blog with a fantastic name, “Panning the Globe.” You can find the post at www.panningtheglobe.com/2016/11/02/italian-fried-potatoes-peppers/. I added more seasoning to my version.

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Italian Fried Potatoes and Peppers

Italian fried potatoes are a relatively simple recipe with lots of flavor.
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Italian
Keyword garlic powder, onion powder, peppers, potatoes

Ingredients

  • about 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 5 large Russet potatoes
  • 4 long mild green peppers (I used Anaheim)
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder or to taste
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon onion powder or to taste
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Slice your potatoes into rounds as thinly as possible or no bigger than one-quarter inch. If you have a mandolin slicer, this would be a good time to pull it out. Slice the peppers into one-by-one-inch strips and remove the seeds.
  • Heat the oil in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat. (It may feel like a lot of oil in the pan, but the potatoes will soak it up as they cook. You’ll want somewhere around 1/4-inch of oil in the bottom, but if you want to use less and just keep an eye on it, go for it.)
  • Once the oil is hot but not smoking, add the potatoes and seasoning into the pan and stir to coat the potatoes.
  • Don’t stir them again for another three to five minutes—letting the bottom get nice and browned with the lid on the pan.
  • Add the peppers into the pan, and flip the pan’s contents so the browned potatoes end up on top.
  • Put the lid back on and let things set for another three to five minutes. Repeat that process until your potatoes are all either crispy or nice and fork tender.
  • Add more seasoning to taste.

I didn’t peel my potatoes for this, but if you’re not really into potato skins, you’ll probably want to. They’ll mostly separate from the potatoes into long strips in the mix.

These potatoes also reheated really well, which was good, because it made tons and tons of food. It certainly wasn’t my healthiest week of lunches to take to work, but I tried to rationalize the fact that I was also taking meatless lunches made it better somehow.

You might want to decrease the number of potatoes and peppers if you’re not planning on feeding a small army, though.

The only disappointing part of this recipe is that this was definitely not as good as my mom’s. I may have to sweet talk her into firing up that electric skillet again sometime soon.

This piece first appeared in print on March 8, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Side Dish

Get in the ‘spear’it with fresh asparagus

Balsamic potatoes and asparagus highlights fresh vegetables and simple flavors.
Balsamic potatoes and asparagus highlights fresh vegetables and simple flavors.

The other day, I was standing in the produce section of the grocery store, staring at a big bag of beautiful, fresh asparagus.

I had no idea what I wanted to make with the stuff, but I knew immediately that I wanted to make something.

So I stood to the side with my phone and scrolled through Pinterest and found one that looked delicious. I was especially excited about it, because it used balsamic vinegar. I have a huge bottle of it sitting in my pantry from a recipe I made long ago, and I haven’t had much use for it since.

The recipe I found is from the blog “Wallflower Kitchen.” You can find it at http://wallflowerkitchen.com/balsamic-roasted-new-potatoes-asparagus/. I simplified the amounts and swapped out an ingredient to make this easier and cheaper.

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Balsamic Potatoes and Asparagus

Balsamic potatoes and asparagus highlights fresh vegetables and simple flavors.
Course Side Dish
Keyword asparagus, balsamic vinegar, potatoes

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds small potatoes I used yellow
  • 1/2 pound fresh asparagus
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 390 degrees.
  • Cut the potatoes into quarters and cut the asparagus into two-inch pieces.
  • In a 9-by-13-inch pan, combine the potatoes, olive oil, vinegar, garlic powder, salt and pepper and toss to coat the potatoes.
  • Roast for 20 minutes and check the potatoes by piercing them with a fork. You’ll want them fork tender before you add in the asparagus, so keep checking on them every 10 minutes until they’re pretty well cooked through and then mix in the asparagus.
  • Roast for another 15 minutes or until the asparagus is done to your liking.
  • Season with more salt and pepper if necessary.

This was a great side dish for dinner, and since I actually ended up purchasing about three pounds of potatoes and a pound of asparagus to make this, I had lots of leftovers to heat up over the next week for lunch, too.

If you do decide to up the amounts a bit, I’d recommend spreading it out on a big, rimmed baking sheet instead of in a 9-by-13-inch dish so that it cooks faster.

I was super excited with how this recipe turned out, and it was an excellent way to enjoy some fresh asparagus. It would be a great one to store away in the recipe box for when gardens are in full swing.

And I was once again reminded what a sucker I am for fresh produce when I’m out grocery shopping while hungry. I supposed that’s why it’s a good idea for me to avoid the candy aisle.

This piece first appeared in print on Feb. 15, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Side Dish

Here’s an easy potato recipe you’ll really dig

Home fries use leftover baked potatoes and are a good side dish for any meal of the day.
Home fries use leftover baked potatoes and are a good side dish for any meal of the day.

While spending summer days alone at home, between bouts of trying to kill each other, my sister and I would often spend time creating stupid videos that our parents tactfully refused to watch when they came home (good move), playing with the farm cats outdoors and pretending to be world famous chefs as we prepared the few lunches we knew how to make.

Generally, lunch consisted of a sandwich, a bowl of canned soup, boxed macaroni and cheese or baked potatoes from the microwave, but that didn’t stop us from boldly describing our flavor choices as we mixed orange powder into our freshly boiled noodles.

I’ve always loved a good baked potato, and especially on cold days like we’ve been having, cutting into a hot potato and watching the steam escape makes for a comforting meal.

This past week, I had several leftover baked potatoes in our fridge, and I decided to do something more interesting with them than just warming them back up in the oven.

Apparently, a lot of diners use their leftover baked potatoes to make home fries, which explains why diner home fries are so delicious.

To get those same awesome flavors at home, I tried a recipe from “The Creekside Cook.” You can find it at http://thecreeksidecook.com/twice-baked-oven-home-fries/#_a5y_p=1845571. I didn’t change much, but I did decide to take out the amounts for the spices. I’d recommend just giving a good sprinkling of each. If you’re nervous and want to measure, I’d say you should start with about 1/4 teaspoon of each and then bump it up from there if you want more flavor.

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Home Fries

Home fries use leftover baked potatoes and are a good side dish for any meal of the day.
Course Side Dish
Keyword baked potatoes, fries, potatoes

Ingredients

  • Two to four leftover baked potatoes
  • 1 tablespoon butter or oil
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • onion powder to taste
  • garlic powder to taste
  • paprika to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with an oven-safe skillet already in the oven (I used my 12-inch cast iron pan).
  • Cut your baked potatoes into about one-inch cubes. Remove the skins if you like (I left them on, because I love a crispy potato skin).
  • Once the oven is done preheating, carefully remove your pan and melt/heat up your butter or oil and swirl it to coat the pan.
  • Add the potatoes, stir them around a bit to distribute the butter/oil, and get them in as much of a single layer as possible.
  • Pop them in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and turn the potatoes so that they evenly brown and pop them back in the oven for another 10 minutes. (Keep an eye on them so they don’t over-brown.)
  • After the second time in the oven, if they still need some browning time, give them another stir and let them go another five minutes or so at a time until you’re happy with the color on them.
  • Once they’re browned to your liking, pull them from the oven and stir in the spices to your taste (throw in some cayenne, too, if you like things spicy). Let the potatoes hang out in the pan for just a moment to let the heat release some of the spices’ aroma and then serve.

We ate these for brunch over the weekend with over-easy eggs and hot coffee. It was a good way to warm up.

So if you decide to bake up some potatoes one of these cold evenings for dinner, I’d recommend tossing in a couple extra for home fries later in the week.

Just be sure to really sell your chef skills while you’re making them. I’d recommend a poorly done French accent. It seems to help.

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 18, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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