Hello dear friends! Guess what day it is.....HUMP DAY! YEAH!
Can you believe Thanksgiving is just a week away? The holiday season just started and it's already flying by! In honor of the upcoming holiday, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite quick and easy sides.
I love these guys for a few reasons:
1) They are totally easy to make and pretty foolproof in execution.
2) They look fancier than they are (especially if you use red potatoes)
3) They're POTATOES!!! What's not to love??
Let's pause for a minute and gather round into a nice little truth circle. It's confession time, and I'll go first. I may have called these guys a side above, and they're great for that. BUT that doesn't mean that I've never had them as the main course. In fact, they may have been my dinner last night. No judging remember, we are in the truth circle.
While I love cooking up something inventive and semi-complicated for dinner, more often than not I just want something quick and easy. Sometimes that means we are eating pasta with sauce from a jar. No frills. No sides. No salad first course. Just a quick and easy dinner. Even more often than pasta and sauce though, is the Potato Dinner.
Back in October (can you believe that "back in October" is a real thing already???), Mike and I went to an orchard and in addition to the apples, we bought a pretty large bag of sweet potatoes. Welcome to the era of sweet potato fry dinners. Yummy. After the sweet potatoes were all used up, we kept the potato dinners alive with grocery store bags of golden potatoes. Our preparation method of choice: Smashed!
Here's What You'll Need:
2-3 medium sized golden or red potatoes per person
Salt & Pepper
Hot Sauce or other favorite seasoning(optional)
Smashed potatoes require a two step cooking process. First preheat your oven to 450. Next prepare your potatoes to be boiled. Place the potatoes in in a large microwavable dish. Cover with water to about 2 inches above the potatoes. Microwave on high for 12-15 minutes. Microwave time will very depending on the size of your potatoes. The goal is to get them to a point where they can be easily pierced with a fork but aren't crumbling apart. Usually this is around the time that they start to float in the water.
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| Potato hot tub...yummy. |
If you don't have a large enough dish or would prefer to not use your microwave, you can boil the potatoes in a large pot on the stove.
Once your potatoes have been soften up, place them on an oiled cookie sheet. For easy clean up, I recommend lining the pan with foil.
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| Halfway there. |
Now comes the fun part. Pull out the potato masher and smash each tatter into a flattened disk. A fork and a little extra muscle would work fine too.
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| This could also be a good stress reliever after a long day. Just imagine the potato is that annoying person's face. |
Season your taters with oil, and salt and pepper to taste. I have a handy little oil mister that I use to get a thin layer of oil evenly over the taters. You could use a brush or just carefully drizzle and spread with a spoon or your Jesus spoons (fingers).
You can stop with the seasoning right here if you'd like, but I've been on quiet the spicy food kick for the past few months. Bring on the hot sauce!
Just drizzle over the potatoes as desired. Other fun topping ideas: steak seasoning, garlic and herbs, taco seasoning, chili powder...the possibilities are endless.
Pop that deliciousness into the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until little crispy brown edges start to form.
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| Behold, crispy, carb-y goodness. |
Plate and devour!
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