One potato, two potato

Potato Galette

Since I was forced to move my lunch meal idea to an early brunch due to P's inability to remain human after coffee and no food, I decided to pair my Mexican inspired gyro with a potato galette. That's french! I got the idea from Woman's Day dot com because I'm a an old nerd that surfs woman's day dot com. I bought a bag of potatoes so I have to find fun ways to use them without adding a ton of fat or cheese.

That is really not a big problem when you add herbs and spices and bring out the true flavor of the potato. I used to think you had to cover potatoes with sour cream and bacon and cheese but that's so not true. I diced up some fresh 'penos and added them to the onion and garlic. I grated the potatoes right over the pan so they wouldn't brown and because my kitchen is so small that I ran out of room to work. Then I topped that with some of Big Ed's fresh cayenne pepper seeds and sea salt.This had a super-good condensed potato-ey flavor and it was extra tasty with the pepper both dried and fresh. I did this on the stove burners but you can stick it in the oven too. If you do it on the stove, you have to flip it, which can be dangerous in a barbie-sized space.







Another idea for this is to crack four eggs over the top, bake it and sprinkle some diced crispy chorizo and fresh cilantro all over for a one pan breakfast fiesta!

Big Ed's Squirt Alert!

This food monkey has gone undercover to create a wicked hot habanero chili powder as gifts for Big Ed, the pepper grower and also mi padre.

The B-in-law sent a four finger bag of habanero peppers and seeds. This stuff was so potent that I had to let the blender sit unopened for five minutes each time, before I could open the lid and stir. I had to wear a scarf around my nose and mouth,glasses and of course gloves. And I STILL sneezed and coughed all night.





A couple of quick thoughts while making this chili powder blend; I can't believe how many peppers it takes to make a small amount of powder, no wonder they charge so much. I can't believe I never thought about doing this before because it is super fun and right up my alley! I don't see saving much money, if any, by making your own. But its SO cool to add your own mix of spices and play around with the different peppers and honestly the difference in taste and level of flavor is indescribable!

I'm using what I feel would be good as a rub, or in a soup and in chili. Good, that is, if you enjoy painful movements, rectal bleeding and profuse sweating. The mix: Habanero (the whole pepper, seeds and all!), cayenne, ancho chiles, new mexican chiles, garlic, mexican oregano, spanish paprika, dried cilantro and lots of toasted whole cumin seeds.

Let's talk Mexican oregano a second: for me, just as important as the cumin in a lot of mexican dishes. It is way less sweet but its strong and has a lemony scent. It is a completely different plant then the greek version, not a mint at all. Its hard to find it in New York unless you hit the gourmet shops. They even carry dried cilantro. I finally found it at The Green Grape on my corner. I haven't gone there out of protest because everyone says how wonderful it is and I thought it was a lot of pretentious hippety-hoo-haa, but you you know they have great stuff and exactly what I had been searching for all day so I should just shut my mouth and enjoy them being so close. I had to brave Sahadi's for the whole cumin earlier that day too. I wanted to make sure it was fresh and not sitting on the store shelf for 2 years. When it was toasting I wanted to really smell it, and I did.




Since I had the blender running and all the spices out, I went ahead and made a little chipotle blend for myself and a lighter version of the devil dust.

I saved just enough of the good stuff to add to my Holiday Pork Pozole that I made last weekend.

The serrano doesn't fall far from the plant

After a week of good, but fried and pretty fatty food, I felt the need for green and clean. I started thinking I wanted some type of Asian vegetable rice dish with heat, not a heavy sauce. I found some cheap pork and thought it might be dressed up quite nicely with some orange, garlic pepper sauce. I also found some fresh green beans looking really sharp. I wanted the vegetables to be really crisp and bright. Basil in the rice and a big bunch dropped in at the last minute to the pork and vegetables also made this dish almost medicinal. The heat came with more of those fresh dried peppers sent to us by my aging brother in law.

It was cool to chop up all my own vegetables and choose exactly what I wanted inside. You know, I couldn't wait to eat out on vacation and just 5 days of it left me longing to be in my own tiny kitchen and doing all the work again. Go figure.

I wonder if I'm going to end up like my parents, where all their dining out experiences left them a little disappointed in the world. I used to love to ask them for a review after they came from eating out. I wanted to see their faces scrunch up and contort. They hated to complain buuuuut... especially with Mexican food, most meals fell way short of perfect. My dad would be on the verge of being pissed and it was great hearing him describe what they did wrong. 'No, they put all the Damn sauce all over everything and everything was soggy! Why do they gotta put so much Got'damn sauce on everything! They don't flavor their rice!" My mom used to just shake her head and seemed amazed that someone could screw up her enchiladas so badly. In his and her defense, they made some amazing Mexican food. Of course, they were in the mid-west and in small towns too where pickin's were slim. They also had their own restaurant so....that had a lot to do with it.

But I have amazing choices here in NY and so many of even the cheap ones do what they do so well. Now Florida...they could use some work. Uh oh.

Hot Potato

Holy smokes! I had a few old spuds that I had to use up before we flew the coop for Florida. So I remembered I found a good recipe for baked fries on another blog awhile ago that looked really good. I tried them once before but this time....this time, all the stars aligned and let me tell you these little suckers were pert' near perfection.

What made the difference this time? I turned up the heat son! By adding a good heaping spoon full of these amazing freshly dried pepper seeds to the garlic oil. The heat was mellowed a bit but the flavor of the peppers was enhanced somehow but then mixed with all that garlic and slow crisp baked in that flavored olive oil.... Girrrrrrrrrrl! You gotta make these, like right now. And when I say make, I mean make hot sweet monkey love to them. They are what you need. Put cold ketchup on them and maybe a little vinegar or just some sea salt and maybe a dash of hot sauce.

Sure it's August in NYC, and in the hottest summer on record to date but get that oven on low and set yer ass down and relax. This old potato still has some gitty-up to it.

Here's the link: http://purplefoodie.com/garlicky-baked-fries/