Crash Hot Potatoes

A year or so ago, I learned about all the food blogs out there. Well, that's not quite true. I learned there were such things as food blogs a couple years ago. It was when I was hunting new recipes and Googling for stuff that I learned that a good food blog would be a very worthwhile resource to have, especially for someone like me who was "relearning" how to cook and attempting new recipes.

Though I came across Ree at Pioneer Woman Cooks then, I never gave any of her stuff a try, while I certainly admired the images. Back then I didn't buy red potatoes, never mind new potatoes, so while I liked the looks of this particular recipe, thought "pfft, maybe later". Recently I looked up that potato recipe of hers (yeah, 18 months later, I still remembered I wanted to try it -- my mind is a steel trap I tell you) and found what I was looking for. In addition to all kinds of stuff! Her site (I wouldn't call it a blog anymore) has really become a giant thing and it turns out Ree has a cookbook out!

Ding dang! I was hooked, even on her Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, Harlequin Romance meets Green Acres meets the Godfather love story. Anyone who knows me knows I won't read that sort of thing unless I have time to kill at a meat-packing plant between protein determinations and the book is free. Even if you hate potatoes, cattle, and kids, you have to look that up, I'm tellin' you! You will be hooked too.

So anyway, I dug up the recipe and tried it out, though I did take a short-cut. Read on to see what I did or click the link below to get the original scoop.

Crash Hot Potatoes

whole red potatoes -- I used 10
olive oil

3 tbsp butter
Kosher salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in as many potatoes as you wish to make and cook them until they are fork-tender.

On a baking sheet, generously drizzle olive oil.


Place tender potatoes on the sheet leaving plenty of room between each potato.


With a potato masher, gently press down each potato until it slightly mashes, rotate the potato masher 90 degrees and mash again.


Put a small pat of butter on each potato. Sprinkle potatoes with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.


Bake in a 450°F oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.


Dayum!  These potatoes were just as good as I'd anticipated 1.5 years ago!  Both Rodney and I enjoyed them immensely and will be trying them again very soon.  And I might even try the original recipe to a T.

Cost:

• I paid $4.28 for a bag of red potatoes at Costco, which means it was likely a 10 lb bag.  I probably used 2 lbs, maybe three: $1.28
• other stuff including oil, butter, salt and pepper: $0.72

Total: $3.  And there were a couple of potatoes left over.  Imagine that...two people eating 3-5 potatoes each.  Crazy.

We had our crash hot potatoes with broiled lemon chicken and steamed broccoli. You should try it. The combo was good.