Skillet Potatoes

I cam here thinking I was just going to post a nice picture of tonight's dinner, but I discovered - to my surprise - that I had not yet posted the recipe for skillet potatoes! So instead, that's what you get tonight. I also made chicken (with Parmesan and salt and pepper and garlic powder) and zucchini (with Parmesan and salt and pepper and dried garlic and dried onion) but the recipe is skillet potatoes, which are... just amazing. I'm astonished that I haven't posted this yet.

Skillet Potatoes

Adapted from here

Ingredients

a pound of Yukon gold potatoes (that was about 5 of them)

half an onion, diced

1 Tbsp and 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil

salt

1 Tbsp minced garlic

Equipment
microwave-safe bowl, microwave, skillet, stove

Instructions
Peel and dice your potatoes and put them in the microwave-safe bowl. Toss them with a tablespoon of oil and some salt. Microwave for 10 minutes, stirring after each minute or two. Add minced garlic and onions and toss. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a skillet and add potatoes. Cook for a few minutes until they start to brown, then stir/flip until potatoes are browned and your life is delicious.

Yields
two big servings (I really like potatoes... a whole skillet of these sounds like a serving to me)

Total time
about 20 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5
You have a couple dishes to do here (cutting board, microwave bowl, skillet, etc.) and they're all oily, but it isn't that bad.

Flavor rating 9/10
Have I ever given anything a 10/10? If so, this is probably a 10 instead of 9. It's really amazing and delicious and makes me so happy.

Difficulty rating 6/10
You have to be very present (taking something out of the microwave and stirring it every minute for ten minutes takes a lot of attention, plus the whole skillet thing requires a bit of presence).

Adjustability: low
Other than adding seasonings or maybe some other vegetables, there isn't much else you can do to this. The original said you could use red potatoes instead but I like peeling Yukon golds.

Make it with...
Everything. Or nothing. Just make them. Always. Now. Go make them. Right now.

Baked Potato

No, I'm not going to tell you how to make "the world's best baked potato" or "the perfect baked potato, every time" because people have different opinions on what makes the best baked potato. I will, however, tell you what I do to make my baked potatoes, for selfish reasons... If anything ever happens to the site I Pinned, I won't have a handy reminder of the temperature I bake them at. That would be fairly devastating for me, because baked potatoes are one of my favorite foods, and this is my favorite way to make them. (Seriously, I might just carve the oven temperature into the wall of my kitchen when I own a home one day.)

Baked Potato

Ingredients
potato
vegetable oil
kosher salt

Equipment
foil, baking sheet, oven

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425F. (I REPEAT: 425F! THIS IS THE INFORMATION YOU'RE LOOKING FOR, ALEX OF THE FUTURE! IT'S 425!) Rinse off your potato and pat it dry with a paper towel. Stab it a few times with a fork. (Don't stab your hand.) Holding it over the sink, drizzle vegetable oil on it and rub it with another paper towel to evenly distribute a thin layer of oil all over the potato. Still over the sink, sprinkle it with kosher salt. Set the potato on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake for an hour.

Yields
A potato. Scalable: use more potatoes.

Total time
An hour.

Cleanup rating 1/5
Don't forget to rinse out the sink, it's all oily and salty now.

Difficulty rating 2/10
I mentioned not stabbing yourself in the hand, right?

Flavor rating 10/10
My favorite food, basically. Obviously you need to dress the potato when it's done, but that's on you. When you make it my way, you get really crispy potato skin. If you don't like crispy, wrap it in foil before you put it in the oven (and then you can skip the pan if you want).

Adjustability: high
Were you just reading that flavor rating bit? You can put ANYTHING on it. I like butter, garlic, cheddar cheese, fresh green onions, and sour cream. I also like pulled pork barbecue. I was just thinking, I'd like to try sauteeing some peppers and onions like you would for a Philly cheesesteak and chopping them up really small and putting them on a potato. And there's always other classics: bacon, broccoli, etc.

Make it with...
Nothing or anything. Great side dish; great main dish. I make mine as main dishes. It's a perfect "Birk's working tonight, what can I make for just one person" dinner. It's a great "I'm not so hungry and/or I ate a late lunch and/or I worked until 9 pm so I need to go to bed soon but I still should eat something" dinner. It's also a steak's best friend. Gets along well with chicken, too. And it's vegetarian (as long as you don't cover it in bacon bits or smother it in bbq) so it's an excellent choice for when you don't really know all your dinner guests very well. Guess what? It makes a good - if unorthodox - breakfast, too!

Baked Potatoes

Tonight's dinner is actually a two-fer but I'm making two posts. First up: baked potatoes! Super easy, but super yummy.

Baked Potatoes

Ingredients:
potatoes
kosher salt
vegetable oil

Equipment:
oven
foil
baking sheet

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet with foil. Wash your potatoes and pat them dry. Stab them several times with a fork (don't stab your hand). Coat with vegetable oil (usually I just hold them over the sink, pour a little bit of oil on the top, and rub it onto the rest of the potato with my hands) and put on the pan. Sprinkle with kosher salt and bake for an hour.

Yields:
Depends on how many potatoes you use.

Total time: about an hour

Cleanup rating: 1/5
Remove foil; throw away. It does not get easier. It really does not. Unless somehow you could eat the pan, too. I don't recommend that.

Difficulty rating: 1/5
If you can remove a hot pan from the oven without disaster, you can make baked potatoes. Oh and avoid stabbing your hand with the fork. But I only did that once. And it wasn't tonight.

Flavor rating: 10/10
To be fair, this is pretty much my favorite food ever. Plus, it sort of depends on what you put on the potatoes. I use butter, salt, and this time, leftovers of Elaine's cheese sauce, which I must get the recipe for and make for you guys some time. By which I mean make for myself and tell you how to make.

Here it is in all its cheese-sauce-y glory (along with the sauteed green beans):

Allie Potatoes

My family calls me Allie, not Alex. That is - probably obviously - where these potatoes (or at least their predecessors) got their name.

When I was little, I'd stay over at my grandparents' house, and my grandfather would be posed with the challenging task of making a dinner I would eat. I was a super picky eater before about mid-high-school or so.

So one of the tried-and-true foods he figured out I loved no matter what you did to them was potatoes. This holds true today, but below, you will find my favorite method of preparing potatoes to be put into my mouth.

The original Allie potatoes were sliced thinly (but a little thicker than if you wanted crispy chips) not diced, and he used, if I remember correctly, garlic and onion powder and paprika. I use basically whatever spice I grab first. But the basic idea is still there, and it's totally customizable, which is one of the best things about it.

Allie Potatoes

Ingredients:
A potato (russet or white is what I usually go with)
Oil (vegetable oil is my favorite, or use canola, peanut, olive... whatever)
Spices/seasoning (literally whatever you want... in this batch I used Penzey's Sate seasoning which is just so oh-my-gosh-yum)

Equipment:
Cookie/baking sheet
Foil (optional for easier cleanup)
Plastic bag
Knife & cutting board for dicing potatoes
Oven

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 375F. Dice your potatoes into even-sized pieces. (If you're cooking something else to go with it, make larger pieces if you need to use more time or smaller pieces if the other thing will cook faster.) Put them in the plastic bag. Add oil (enough to coat the potatoes) and spices/seasonings to the bag. Seal the bag and shake it up to evenly coat the potatoes. Open the bag and dump them onto a foil-lined baking sheet. (I also spray my foil with a little cooking spray but that's probably overkill... the oil usually keeps them from sticking.) Spread the potatoes out evenly on the sheet, and sprinkle with a little more seasoning. Bake for about 25-30 minutes (baking time will depend on the size of your potatoes... the pieces seen in the photo above - I know there's nothing there for scale - took 30 minutes).

Yields:
2 servings as a side (1 serving if you're a potato nut like me and could eat a bag of potatoes alone)

Total time:
a little over 30 minutes (depends on the size of your potato pieces)

Cleanup rating: 1/5
If you use foil, cleanup involves rinsing your knife and cutting board, and throwing away a plastic bag and a piece of foil. I would give it a 0/5 if that made sense.

Difficulty rating: 1/10
This is literally one of the handful of things I could make all by myself when I left for college. (I could make a lot of things after checking the details with my dad or grandfather, but this one is idiot-proof, or at least as idiot-proof as real cooking gets.)

Flavor rating: 10/10
This is one of my favorite foods, so of course I think it's a solid 10. Sometimes I try a new seasoning and it falls a little flat. My favorite is the basics: garlic powder, onion powder, paprika and a little salt. This time, with the Sate seasoning, was really good too. I've also used taco seasoning, garlic and cumin, Italian seasoning from a package, nothing but salt... the possibilities are endless. Another great addition? Use one potato and one sweet potato. YUM.