Oven Roasted Breakfast Potatoes

I generally make my menu for the week and go food shopping on Saturday morning. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what I want to eat all week long, and I'm not always crazy about the idea of buying veggies and things on Saturday for a dish I'm not going to prepare until Friday, so I've been making "breakfast for dinner" for the past couple of Fridays. Nothing too fancy, a six-egg mushroom and cheese omelet, some sourdough or whole wheat toast, and some potatoes. I really like being able to come home at the end of the week and make a simple yet satisfying meal, and the thing that's really been making this meal has been the potatoes. Now I've extolled the virtues of potatoes with breakfast before, but I've refined my technique and seasoning a bit after trying many different recipes and cooking methods, and I think I've come up with something pretty good (and really easy).

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Start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees and cutting up some Russet potatoes into 3/4 inch cubes. I like to leave the skin on, but peeling the potatoes would be fine.

Season the potatoes with salt, black pepper, paprika, onion powder, and garlic powder. Mix in a little vegetable oil and spread the potatoes out on a baking sheet that has been generously coated with cooking spray.

Roast the potatoes on the center rack of the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, flip the potatoes, and roast for another 20 minutes until the potatoes are nice and brown and crispy.

Serve immediately with your breakfast item of choice and a little ketchup.

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Oven Roasted Breakfast Potatoes
about 50 minutes - serves 4

• 3 medium russet potatoes, washed well and dried
  
• 3 teaspoons vegetable oil (I use canola)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Cut potatoes into 3/4 inch cubes
3. In large bowl, mix potatoes with salt, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and oil until well coated
4. Generously coat a non-stick sheet pan (1/2 sheet size) with cooking spray
5. Spread the potatoes evenly on the sheet pan and place the pan on the center rack of the oven
6. Roast for 20 minutes, flip the potatoes over, roast another 20 minutes until the potatoes are brown and crispy (roasting time may be extended 5 to 10 minutes for darker, crisper potatoes), serve immediately
   

Creamy Cheesy Scrambled Eggs

I was never satisfied with my ability to make scrambled eggs. I tried adding milk or water to the eggs, cooking them in butter or bacon fat, with and without cheese, scrambling them in the pan rather than in a bowl, but the end result was invariably disappointing. If I was making eggs, they were gonna be fried or omelets because I could do those much better. Despite my low scrambled egg self esteem, I'd still try to make a batch every once and a while and with a little inspiration from Alton Brown, finally came up with something pretty good. Alton was making scrambled eggs over a double boiler using very gentle heat and stirring quite a bit resulting in tender, creamy looking eggs. I wasn't ready to go the double boiler route, but I tried lower heat and a bit more stirring than I usually do. The result? My wife regularly asks me for "cheesy scrambles", which has supplanted the omelet as her most requested breakfast.

This technique for making scrambled eggs takes about 10 minutes total and results in eggs that are so tender and creamy that you can literally spread them on toast, which is what I usually do. Scramble the eggs and add them to a cold, nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray. Place the skillet over medium-low heat. Tear a few slices of American cheese into small pieces and scatter the pieces over the egg (I like using Land O Lakes white American cheese, but any white deli-sliced American would probably suffice - just don't use individually wrapped singles which have a weird flavor, a gross plastic texture, and make me nervous just thinking about all that unnecessary packaging). A few grinds of black pepper and you're ready to give the whole thing a stir.

At this point you let them set for a few seconds then give the eggs a good stir. Continue this pattern of setting and stirring until the eggs begin to form small curds. Keep stirring all the eggs to the middle of the pan and chopping them up with the spatula. The eggs are done when they are all pretty much set and just glistening slightly. I suggest spreading them on some good toasted and lightly buttered bread (or english muffins, bagels, etc).

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Creamy Cheesy Scrambled Eggs
About 10 minutes - Serves 2

• 4 eggs
• 3 slices white American cheese
• fresh ground black pepper
• cooking spray

1. Scramble the eggs in a small bowl
2. Coat a medium nonstick skillet with cooking spray
3. Pour the eggs into the skillet and set it over medium-low heat
4. Tear the cheese into small pieces and scatter it over the egg
5. Grind pepper over the eggs (I use about 6 twists on my pepper grinder which is a little over 1/8 of a teaspoon)
6. Stir to combine everything, the cheese should start to melt a bit as you stir
7. Allow the eggs to set for about 30 seconds, then stir very well, continue this process
   
8. As the eggs begin to cook, stir them towards the center of the pan and chop them into bits with your spatula - the idea is to not have any large curds of egg
9. When the eggs are chopped into uniform consistency and just slightly glistening, they are done, serve immediately

Smashed Breakfast Potatoes

Like many other teachers, I'm on February break from school this week, so when I woke up this morning to a blanket of snow the first thing I thought of was breakfast instead of possible school cancellations. I came downstairs and put on the TV to see what the weather situation was going to be for the rest of the day, but I never made it to the local news, no big deal there (as Bob Dylan says, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows", or in this case, the snow). I got stuck on channel 185, which is Create on my cable system, and an episode of Lidia's Italy. I caught it in the middle, but just in time to see Lidia throw some onions and bacon into a large saute pan with some oil which eventually turned out to be a potato side dish for the feature recipe of the show, Italian goulash. The goulash looked amazing, but at 7:00 this morning it was the potatoes that stuck with me. Instead of leaving the potatoes in chunks, Lidia smashed them up and then cooked them over high enough heat to get good caramelization on the bottom of the potatoes. Then she stirred them up and repeated the process. The resulting potatoes were nicely brown all over, but somewhat smashed like extremely lumpy mashed potatoes.

A nice hearty breakfast is a wonderful thing on a cold, snowy morning and in my opinion, breakfast is elevated to another level by the presence of some form of potatoes, be they home fries, hash browns or whatever. The fact that potatoes take just a bit longer to prepare, so you can't really make them unless you have some extra time in the morning allows them to retain their special quality. Lidia was all the inspiration I needed this morning, as my mind was now set on potatoes and a slightly more "special" breakfast than usual. I went into the kitchen and heated a bit of oil in a saute pan, chopped half an onion and threw it in the oil with a few drops of liquid smoke. My wife doesn't eat pork, so I often use a few drops of liquid smoke (very few drops because the stuff is potent), some butter, and some salt as a substitute for bacon in most recipes that call for it. It's not the same, but it works pretty well. Anyway, when the onion had softened a bit, I added one russet potato that was peeled, chopped, and sliced into pieces about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. I let this sit untouched for about 4 minutes, then stirred it up a bit. I also added a little bit more oil (about 1 teaspoon) and a pinch of salt.

After about 8 minutes, the potatoes had softened a bit and I smashed them up with a fork. I added another teaspoon of oil, another pinch of salt and continued to cook them for about 8 more minutes (repeating the stirring, oiling, and salting, after 4 more minutes).

When the potatoes were done, I moved them to another burner on low to keep them warm, and got going with the rest of breakfast. My wife requested an omelet (which she pretty much always does when she knows I have time to make breakfast) and I went with my standard Friday morning egg sandwich. I had baked some bagels yesterday morning, which made for an excellent sandwich, if I do say so myself. The potatoes didn't look quite like what Lidia had produced, but they were an excellent compliment to the breakfast. If you like your potatoes and onions at the absolute limits of caramelization, just sort of burned (like I do), then this is a recipe for you. If you like a bit more flavor, some garlic powder, paprika, chili powder, or really any spice that you like will definitely work here.

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Smashed Breakfast Potatoes
About 25 minutes - Serves 2

• 1/2 of a medium onion, chopped
• Olive oil
• 1 large russet potato, peeled, chopped into quarters, and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces
• Salt

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium skillet (preferably nonstick) over medium heat
2. Add the onion and cook until just softened, about 4 minutes
3. Add the potato and 1 teaspoon of olive oil, a pinch of salt, stir and then let the potatoes sit untouched for 4 minutes
4. Stir the potatoes, if they look a little dry, add another teaspoon of oil, another pinch of salt, and let them sit untouched for 4 minutes.
5. Smash the potatoes with a fork.
6. Continue to cook for about 8 more minutes (make sure you let the potatoes cook in undisturbed 4 minute intervals to get nice caramelization on the bottom) adding additional oil if the potatoes look too dry or the onions seem like they are going to burn.
7. Add salt to taste, keep warm over low heat until ready to serve

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Last night I made Braised Greens Tacos for dinner and they were awesome. Totally different than any taco I'd ever had, almost certainly healthier. Braised collard greens and onions on a corn tortilla, topped with crumbled goat cheese, and a fresh salsa made from pureed cherry tomatoes and jalapenos - brightly flavored and delicious. I couldn't find chipotles in adobo, so I used a fresh jalapeno pepper that I halved, seeded and tossed in the pan with the tomatoes. I added a little ketchup, cider vinegar, salt, cumin, garlic powder to simulate adobo sauce. I served it all with some lightly buttered quinoa. Give them a try.