Stove top potatoes with paprika

Oh, how I love potatoes. My sister once told me that if she were to open a restaurant, it would only serve potatoes.

These potatoes are super yummy and smokey and even though they are cooked on the stove top the taste like they were roasted in the oven.

Here's what you'll need:
2-4 Russet potatoes, washed and cut into 1 inch cubes
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 teaspoon paprika

Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the cubed potatoes. Cook the potatoes in 5 minute intervals, covered with a lid. Every 5 min shake and flip the potatoes. You'll do this for 20-30 minutes. The potatoes are done when they are soft enough for a knife to go through them. With about 5 minutes left, sprinkle the paprika over the potatoes and shake to mix.

SUper Bowl!

We had plans for a big super bowl party yesterday. Only one problem though. The host, my mom, was sick and the party got canceled. We switched plans, found some guests, and had a mini party at our house instead for the big game, which I didn't watch.

I was already planning on making potato skins so I just stood in my refrigerator for about 15 minutes and tried to figure out what else to serve our guests.

Our menu ended up being pretty simple but very yummy.
Potato skins
Home made chicken fingers (with a couple dipping sauces)
Nachos (with salsa and guacamole)
Chocolate chip nutella cookies.

It was total football food - Nothing healthy, everything tasty and from start to finish it only took me two hours to throw it all together. And even better, I have left over potato skins for today.

Potato Skins
(adapted from Pioneer Woman)
6 Russet Potatoes
10 slices of bacon
cheese
green onions/chives
sour cream

Bake the potatoes at 400 for 1 hour. Pull from the oven and let cool until you're brave enough to handle them, 10-20 minutes.
Cook your bacon.  When it's cooled, crumble it up.
Grate cheese.
Slice in half and scoop out the majority of the potato.
Brush the skins, both sides, with vegetable oil and salt both sides liberally.
Bake for 7 minutes. Flip and bake for another 7-10.
Pull from oven. Add cheese and bacon. Put the skins back in the oven until the cheese is melted.

Top with green onions, chives, and sour cream as desired.

Hasselback Potatoes

So easy and yummy is this one.

All you need:
Russet potatoes, one per person
Garlic, at least one clover per potato
Butter, 1 tablespoon per potato
olive oil
coarse salt
pepper

Scrub your potatoes till they shine.
Thinly slice the potato into rings but DO NOT cut all the way through. The sliced need to stay hooked together.
Between each slice of potato stuff a thinly sliced piece of garlic.
Douse the potato in olive oil, salt and pepper and put a pat of butter on top.

Bake at 425 degrees for at least 55 minutes. You'll probably need to cook them longer than that though, because every 15 minutes or so you need to open the oven and baste the potatoes in the butter/olive oil that's floating around on the pan.

Once the potatoes are knife soft and thoroughly cooked, remove from the oven and tent with foil for 5-10 minutes. Add a little extra butter, salt and pepper and enjoy.

Comfort Food

Everyone does it - has a few dishes, candies, treats that they eat when they just NEED it...comfort food.  That one thing (or in my case, dozens of things) that you choose to eat when your happy, sad, sick or whatever else.

Stuff like hot chocolate with ice cream in it, a chocolate shake, some chocolate frosting.  You see where I'm going with this?  Or, homemade chocolate frosting with some pretzels for dipping?  Yes, you definitely see where I'm going with this.

Sometimes though I like comfort food, not just comfort chocolate, when I'm neither sick nor sad.  My kids are sick and that's wearing on me a bit.  It's really hard to figure out what to cook for dinner when everyone is coughing and crying and snotting all over the place.  That's where the comfort food comes in...comfort for me anyway.  Last night we had balsamic marinated chicken for dinner with fried potatoes.

mmmmmmm, fried potatoes.

This you see, as I was diving in last night, is one of my comfort foods.  One of those things that always sounds good, that I'll always eat, something that warms me up and makes me happy.  They were absolutely delish by the way.

Go out and fry yourself up some tonight - the more butter the better.

Fried Potatoes:
4-6 Yukon gold potatoes
butter
salt and pepper

In a large pot on the stove top, boil your potatoes.  Depending on the speed of your range, you'll boil them at least 20 minutes, probably more.  You want them soft enough that a butter knife can cut through them easily.

Remove the potatoes from the water and drain in a colander.  Let them sit about 10 minutes to work off a little heat.  Once they are cool enough for you to touch, slice them up thin.  They will start to crumble a bit but that's okay.  You want the crumble.  Leave the skins on, too.

Once the golden beauties are sliced, melt some butter in a large skillet.  Okay, melt a lot of butter, a couple of tablespoons just to be safe.  When the butter is nice and melty and bubbling add the potatoes and spread them out as evenly as possible.

The potatoes have already been cooked so basically you're just browning them up and "crustifying" them.  Oh, I love crusty potatoes.  If I were you, I'd leave them about 7 minutes per side and flip them over.  Cook and flip until you've got them nice and golden.  Add a little more butter if they look sad.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy.

Italian French Fries

I have a new cook book.  Mad Hungry!  The book?  Holy cow.  Reading it is like reading a novel that I cannot tear myself away from, except that my mouth is watering the entire time.

The recipes are amazing, yummy and fantastic.

I'm making a couple of the recipes this week and the first was last night - Italian fries.

Super easy and they were awesome.

Here you go.

Russet potatoes (for our little family I used 3, but use enough for all the people you're going to feed)
dried oregano
dried thyme
garlic salt
Romano cheese
butter
salt and pepper to taste

heat your oven to 400 degrees and lightly coat a cookie sheet with olive oil.

wash, dry and slice your russet potatoes like french fries.  I left the skin on mine.

arrange your potatoes on the cookie sheet - they can overlap - and generously season with the oregano, thyme and garlic salts.

once seasoned, sprinkle the shredded Romano cheese all over the top.  Then, using about 2 tablespoons of butter, spread little pats of love all around the pan.

coat the top with a little drizzle of olive oil and put them in the oven for about 45 minutes.

At this point, for me, the potatoes were done, but the cheese wasn't yet crusty so I turned my broiler on high and broiled them for about 5 more minutes.

Serve and enjoy.  They were so good I'm tempted to fix them for dinner tonight, too.