Smashed Potatoes

Mar 18, 2015


These are easy and get rave reviews.
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Wash as many potatoes as you like, put them on a cookie sheet, and bake them at 400°. Small ones are best, but you can cut up larger potatoes and bake the pieces. Big russets are a little too tough for this process. How long you bake will depend on how big the potatoes are: at least 30 minutes.

potatoes 1

Take the potatoes off the pan you just baked them on and drizzle lots of olive oil on the same pan. This helps the crisp factor, as well as preventing the potatoes from sticking to the pan.

potatoes 2

Place the baked potatoes back on the olive-oil drizzled pan.

potatoes 3

Smash the potatoes with a potato masher until they look like this. Drizzle plenty more olive oil over the potatoes. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and herbs. You’re looking at kosher salt, chopped fresh rosemary, and smoked paprika. You’re not seeing black pepper because I don’t like it. Your guests can add as much pepper as they want when they eat them.

potatoes 4

Bake at 450° for 25–35 minutes, until the potatoes are crisp around the edges. You’ve already baked them, so this step is just for the crispy party. The dark pieces on this pan are the cooked small bits of potato resulting from using the potato masher.

potatoes 5

Serve the potatoes as is, or top with sour cream. Here, I added fresh chives because they were available in the chive pot outside.

potatoes step done

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Smashed Potatoes

Tender and crispy potatoes that are really easy to make.
Course vegetable/side dish
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • small potatoes
  • olive oil
  • salt to taste kosher salt is my favorite for this application
  • fresh cracked pepper to taste
  • herbs to taste fresh rosemary is good

Instructions

  1. Bake as many small potatoes as you like until they are tender.
  2. Drizzle/pour olive oil over a cookie sheet with sides, so the oil doesn't run off the pan.
  3. Place the baked potatoes back on the oil-drizzled cookie sheet.
  4. Use a potato masher to break open the potatoes and flatten slightly.
  5. Drizzle tops of potatoes with more olive oil. Don't be stingy with the oil.
  6. Sprinkle potatoes with salt.
  7. Grind pepper over potatoes if you like pepper.
  8. Garnish with sour cream and sprinkle any kind of finely chopped herb you like over potatoes: fresh rosemary, thyme, paprika,

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Potato Salad

Mar 9, 2014

Captain OCD used to run down to Fred’s and come back with potato salad that was a bit unusual in that it came from a store in a plastic container, but had lots of flavor and was delicious in a sturdy, potluck-picnic kind of way. Turns out that Diane, who worked there, made all the salads (her macaroni salad was also excellent), soups, baked beans, and most of the other typical deli-case dishes. While what you see in those glass cases in small, unfancy stores is usually mass-produced, bland crap, what resided in Fred’s case was a delightful surprise. I’m pretty sure she made them in her kitchen, which assuredly was not a certified kitchen, but no one cared: her stuff was good. Like all good cooks, she didn’t adhere to specific recipes, but she finally obliged Captain OCD and wrote down an approximation of her potato salad recipe. That’s below, exactly as she wrote it.

I found this recipe, scribbled on the back of part of a cigarette carton. A hastily scribbled favorite recipe on a torn-off part of a cigarette carton is a pretty good description of this potato salad. Bring this to your next picnic and, when someone condescendingly asks if that’s mayonnaise dressing those potatoes, say, no, it’s just a simple rustic emulsified vinaigrette.

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potato salad

Potato Salad

Ingredients

  • 4 –5 pounds red potatoes boiled and diced
  • 1 medium onion finely chopped
  • 6 hard boiled eggs chopped
  • 1 cup relish: sweet or dill whatever you like
  • 1-1/2 –2 cups mayonnaise
  • 1 –2 tablespoons mustard the kind you choose greatly influences the flavor of the salad
  • 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons Mrs. dash
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  1. Gently combine all ingredients.
  2. Chill thoroughly.

 

Make-ahead Mashed Potatoes

Dec 29, 2013

Never again will I make mashed potatoes the day of a big dinner. With this recipe, I make them up to 2 days before, then just plug in the crock pot a few hours before dinner and get on with the rest of the cooking.

If you’re limiting your fat intake, I suggest not making these potatoes. To substitute low or nonfat ingredients would render this almost inedible.

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Make-ahead Mashed Potatoes

Much like twice-baked potatoes. Frees up time and stove space on the day of a big dinner.
Course Side Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 4 hours

Ingredients

  • 5 pounds potatoes yellow, and I usually throw in a few russets
  • 1 tablespoon garlic minced or roasted & smashed
  • 8 oz sour cream
  • 8 oz cream cheese softened
  • 8 oz cheddar cheese shredded (or use a combination of whatever you like; I usually add Parmesan)
  • handful of green onions chopped fine
  • 2 cubes butter or more
  • half & half as needed (I never need it)
  • salt to taste that will be a fair amount
  • pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Cut potatoes into good-sized chunks. Don't peel yellow or red potatoes, but do peel russets.
  2. Cook potatoes in salted water until done.
  3. Drain and mash potatoes. It's okay to leave them a little chunky.
  4. Add sour cream, cream cheese, and garlic.
  5. Mash some more. If the mixture is too dry, add half & half until the consistency you like.
  6. Fold in grated cheese and green onions.
  7. Dump potato mixture into a well-buttered crock pot. If you're saving for another day, keep crock pot liner in refrigerator.
  8. Take crock pot liner out of refrigerator about an hour before you plan to turn the crock pot on.
  9. When ready to heat up again, place a kitchen towel (not a color that will leach into the potatoes) on top of the potatoes to absorb the condensation that will drip off the inside of the lid while heating in the crock pot.
  10. Place the lid on top and turn on crock pot.
  11. Cook on low for a few hours, stirring well every 30 minutes or so the potatoes don't brown against the sides and bottom of the crock pot.

 

Spicy Bread and Butter Pickles

Sep 28, 2013

The spicy comes from the hot peppers, should you choose to use them. I was told by tasters that the jars with the hot peppers were the best.
For general canning directions, start here. Unless you really know what you’re doing, do not adjust the vinegar/water/sugar ratios in any pickled recipes if you’re going to can the results.

pickles

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Spicy Bread and Butter Pickles

Course pickles
Prep Time 3 hours 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 4 hours

Ingredients

  • 25 cucumbers sliced however thick you like your pickles
  • 4 onions cut into large chunks
  • 2 bell peppers sliced or chunked
  • 3 cloves garlic chopped
  • 1/2 cup pickling salt
  • 3 cup apple-cider vinegar
  • 5 cup sugar
  • 1 – 2 tablespoon mustard seed
  • 1 – 2 teaspoon celery seed
  • 1/2 teaspoon cloves whole
  • 1 tablespoon tumeric ground
  • handful hot peppers whatever kind you like; use these to taste to make each jar however hot you want them

Instructions

  1. Mix together the sliced cucumbers, cut-up onions, bell peppers, garlic, and salt.
  2. Allow to rest for about 3 hours (will help draw moisture out of cucumbers).

After the cucumbers are done soaking:

  1. In a large stockpot, mix the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, cloves, and turmeric.
  2. Bring to a boil and boil for a few minutes.
  3. Drain the liquid from the cucumbers into the boiling vinegar mixture.
  4. Return to a boil and remove from heat.
  1. Fill sterilized jars with cucumber mixture to about 1/2 inch below top of jar.
  2. Add as many hot peppers as you like (or none) in each jar.
  3. Screw on lids and process in a hot-water bath for 20 minutes.
  1. Allow jars to cool before you store them. Overnight is best, to be sure lids have sealed.

 

Pickled Beets

Sep 27, 2013

I don’t understand why, absent a gun to the head, anyone would choose to eat beets, so I’m no help in judging how these taste. Captain OCD grew beets for the first time this year and wanted old-school pickled beets with no fancy herbs or spices. He said these were exactly what he wanted.

* If you don’t know much about canning, you’ll find more specific (and official, so you don’t poison your family) canning directions here.

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Pickled Beets

Course Appetizer
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 10 pounds fresh beets peeled; quartered, if large
  • 4 cups white sugar
  • 2 tablespoons pickling salt
  • 2 quarts white vinegar
  • 4 cups beet water the water left after you boil the beets
  • whole cloves a few for each jar

Instructions

  1. Boil beets in more than 4 cups of water until almost tender (or however crunchy you want them).
  2. Drain beets and reserve 4 cups of the by-now red water.
  3. Slice or chop the beets into whatever size or shape you want.
  4. Place the beets into sterilized jars.
  5. Add a few cloves to each jar.
  1. Combine the sugar, beet water, vinegar, and pickling salt in a large pan. Bring to a boil and boil for a few minutes.
  2. Fill the jars with the sugar/beet water/vinegar mixture, to within 1/2" of the top.
  3. Screw on sterilized lids.
  4. Process jars in a hot water bath for 30 minutes.*
  5. OR, if you don't want to can the beets, put the beets in a container, cover with pickling liquid, and keep in the refrigerator.