Sometimes I crave a fun twist on potatoes to keep any meal interesting. One of my favorites is wedge-cut home-baked fries.

Alright, scrub down 3-4 russet potatoes. Cut them into inch-sized wedges as pictured above, 3 russets will yield about 20 fries or so.

Place the potatoes in a bowl, add with oil (a couple tablespoons should do the trick) and your favorite seasonings — remember, you can use whatever you like as far as seasonings. May I suggest paprika, garlic powder, salt, pepper, with a pinch of cayenne pepper. Turn the potatoes using a pair of tongs to evenly coat them with the oil and seasonings.

Heat your oven to 450 degrees. Place the potatoes in the oven on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Pull out the cookie sheet out of the oven and turn each of the wedges over, putting the pan back in the oven for about 5 more minutes until the wedges are golden brown and cooked through.

You should end up with something that looks like this….

Boom! Serve this your favorite condiment of choice, such as ranch, bbq sauce, ketchup, or anything else. These are a great side dish for steak, chicken, pork and fish.

Enjoy!

Seriously, I think we are missing something. I mean all my options listed above are good, right? Yeah, something just isn’t right. Okay, how about I offer up one more suggestion for what you can serve with these amazing potatoes?

Ready……

Set……….

Deliver……..

This is the coup de grace. My cover page, my masterpiece! A beef burger with cheddar cheese, grilled zucchini, arugula, mayo or mustard, and some homemade BBQ sauce. We will still cover that sometime in the near future.

Feel better everyone? Still not satisfied, eh? Alright, here is one more photo.

OK, now we are done! 

May the burger and P. Wedge be with you.

When it comes to how to have dinner on the table, I have a 30-45 minute rule. If I can’t get dinner on the table within that time, then I have spent too much time on dinner. One of my favorite, go-to options is chicken. No shake and “rattle” chicken, and no chicken in a tub, but delicious homemade chicken.

I prefer using bone-in, skin-on “split” chicken breasts for this application, or chicken thighs work just as well. Truthfully, you can use just about anything, but keep an eye on the cook time as boneless or smaller pieces of chicken will cook differently than the bone-in, skin-on breasts.

Ready? Here we go!

Before putting the chicken in the oven, you’ll want to grease the breasts with a bit of Olive oil before seasoning it with your favorite blend of spices. Any guesses? Chances are good that you can probably guess my recommendations, but let’s review! Seasoning blend: Salt, pepper, paprika, garlic salt, onion powder, and barbecue seasoning.

After 28 minutes at 400 degrees you will achieve this! Oh, in order to make sure you deliver with the perfect crispy skin and amazing color at the 28 minute mark, turn your oven to broil at 450 degrees for 2 minutes. You will need to watch this carefully because the chicken will turn dark in a hurry.

Once the chicken comes out of the oven, cover with foil while the meat rests so it stays hot and juicy for your dinner.

Below you’ll see our final plate with asparagus, carrots and mushroom pilaf, plus a juicy, crispy-skinned chicken breast to delight your senses.

This will be a go-to recipe for any occasion, and a must for a casual dinner with friends.

If you want your chicken to be crispy, but you don’t want to put it in the oven. What else could you do with it? Well, no surprise here, I say throw it on the grill! The real trick here is to get color on skin, those perfect grill marks and then move it to a cooler part of the grill to let it cook through. I would say probably 3-5 minutes on the skin side, then move off to a lower flame and heat to let it finish.

Enjoy!

I have made it pretty clear that I love a good steak. Like most things in life, moderation and portion size is key. If you have 4-6 oz of a better quality steak  you shouldn’t need more than that. If you cook it properly, the flavor, the richness, and the quality should satisfy that desire for steak. So, perhaps this is my shortest post yet, I can’t resist posting this photo. We have covered the how to deliver a perfect steak and corn, but review “Not Your Mama’s Corn” if you want more detail.

This is the first of many posts to come today.

It’s the weekend and you are ready for breakfast, but you don’t have really much around the house but a few eggs, potatoes, an onion, some leftover steak or other meat, mushrooms, and some bell peppers.

Guess what? You have a super easy, delicious breakfast at your fingertips. Food doesn’t need to be fussy to be amazing. So what the heck do you make with all those ingredients? We are making breakfast hash.

Like all the recipes I post, I tell you that you can customize this according to your likes or needs. Recipes should be interchangeable otherwise you may lose out on the creative energy that being in the kitchen provides.

Ready to get this started? OK, let’s go!

Cube up some potatoes, I recommend either russet potatoes or red potatoes as a base. Looking for another twist? Do what I’ve done in this photo and use some garnet sweet potatoes mixed with the regular potatoes. Not only is it a nice color contrast, and we eat with our eyes first, but these potatoes provide a little sweetness and are a great counterpoint to the other flavors.

With about three tablespoons of oil and on medium high heat throw the potatoes into a cast iron skillet or a heavy-bottomed nonstick pan. Like with steak, once you put the potatoes down, don’t touch! Leave the potatoes alone for at least 3-4 minutes until you start to see color like in this photo. Season with salt and pepper and you can add other seasonings if you like.

If you are doing a more savory profile you can add some garlic powder or paprika. I did use paprika here as the earthy, smokey notes are balanced with the sweetness of the sweet potatoes. Oh, after you start to get some color on the potatoes begin adding things like onions, or bell peppers. If you use cast iron, keep an eye on the heat so your potatoes don’t get too dark!! That doesn’t make for a good start to the weekend, I assure you.

When you have all your base ingredients cooked most of the way through, crack some eggs into your pan. Set your oven to about 400 degrees on broil, or you can finish the eggs in the oven on “bake.” Keep in mind, we want to cook the eggs through, but leave the yolks runny. The eggs will have some carry over heat so keep an eye out for overcooking the yolks. Good tip: You can press very gently on the yolk once its begun to cook, the more give it has the softer/runnier it will be.

Here is the finished hash……what? You want a finished plate? OK, if you insist!

 Perfect hash a runny egg all in a single pan

Hash’s photo shoot close up.

This is a delicious hearty breakfast any time, and also can be doubled-down for dinner as well. Enjoy!