Roasted Potatoes

Everything is easy once you make it your own. I used to be intimidated by oven roasted potatoes until I realized it comes down to three basic parts. Mix and match to make your own favorites.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces. These can be Idaho, Red, Baby Red, Yukon Gold, Fingerling...and potatoes you want. I've never met a potato that didn't taste good roasted! I usually use an average of 2 small or 1 large potato per person. You can always have leftovers!
• Cooking liquid, your choice. I've tried cream, white wine, broth, olive oil, other cooking oils or butter. You'll want about 1/4 cup of liquid for every 4-6 potatoes.
• Spices or herbs or flavoring. Almost anything you like the taste of will complement potatoes. Some of my favorites are: a packet of onion soup mix, a packet of Ramen spices, a few tablespoons of Mrs. Dash, and packet of Barbecue sauce spices. Get creative, it is almost impossible to mess this up!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 
2. Put the liquid and the spice in a large ziplock bag and mix by agitating the bag.
3. Add potatoes, seal and shake to coat the potatoes in the seasonings.
4. Pour into a 9x13 oven safe dish. IF your cooking liquid is not oil based, it is best to spray the dish before you add the potatoes.
5. Bake for 30-45 minutes, or until you can mash a potato with a fork.
6. Allow to cool 5 minutes before serving.

This evening, my family had red potatoes, roasted with olive oil and onion soup mix. And if the empty dish says anything, it was a good choice! I'd love to hear your favorite combinations!

Don't Waste Gravy!

Time saver twist...If you make Tangy Pot Roast or any other gravy recipe, and are left with a bunch of gravy in the crockpot when the meat is gone, throw that gravy in a Tupperware and put it in the freezer for another night. Today I was caught unprepared when it came time to make dinner, and I ended up pulling off a pretty good meal anyway. The trick was my leftover gravy!

I grabbed some pork chops from the fridge, and the frozen block of gravy from the freezer. I could have used chicken, or steaks. I put the pork chops into a skillet to brown and microwaved the gravy to thaw it. After the pork chops were browned, I put in enough gravy to cover them, and covered the skillet. I let them simmer while I cut up and roasted some red potatoes, and threw some frozen peas under the hot tap to thaw and heat. Presto! Comfort food, ready in 35 minutes.

I'll throw my recipe for roasted potatoes up on the blog next. Like all my favorite recipes, it includes three ingredients!

Saucy Chicken and Peaches

As regular readers will know, I get many of my recipes passed to me from my sister, Mercy. She even sent me a whole cookbook put together by her church group. This is one of the gems I found in that cookbook, and it was submitted to the book by my awesome sister!  I had forgotten to post it to the blog until I was talking about it with my friend Carrie tonight.

Saucy Chicken and Peaches

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 2 c. canned peaches (1 large can)
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon basil

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium high heat until hot.
2. Add chicken, cook 4-5 minutes. Turn chicken over, cover and cook another 4-5 minutes until juices run clear.
3. Remove from skillet; keep warm. You can also cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces to cook more quickly and for better serving sizes for small appetites.
4. Meanwhile, drain peach syrup into glass measuring cup. Add water to make 1 cup of liquid.
5. Whisk cornstarch, brown sugar, vinegar, soy sauce and basil into peach liquid.
6. Pour liquid into hot skillet. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.
7. Gently Stir in Peaches and chicken.
8. Serve over hot rice.

Mercy's family likes the sauce so much, she makes double. Then she saves half of the peaches in custard cups for the kids to eat cold.

Banana Streusel Muffins

I've always been a big fan of banana nut bread, but when I needed to whip up a dessert for a recent potluck, I spied the very ripe bananas sitting on the counter and decided they needed to become a sweet, rather than a bread. I found a recipe for banana streusel muffins on food.com and altered it to create the recipe below.

Ingredients:
Muffins:

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 bananas mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Topping:

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 375 degrees
2. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with paper liners. I wanted bite size treats, so I used 36 mini muffin cups (without nuts, probably just 30-32).
3. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
4. In another bowl (or stand mixer bowl), beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Add nuts if desired.
5. Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture.
6. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins. be sure to only fill cups 2/3 full. You need room to place the topping or it will fall off the muffin and caramelize the pan!
7. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon.
8. Add melted butter and stir until well blended.
9. Spoon evenly over muffins.
10. Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Enjoy!