Fried Mashed Potato Patties

No photo of today's dish- we were too hungry and just ate it. 
This is something my dad used to make when I was a kid and I always remember really liking it. I feel like I tried to make it once and it failed miserably and I had to toss it...... but honestly, I'm not THAT bad of a cook so I'm not sure how I would have messed it up so much?

Yesterday (Thanksgiving) when we were making the mashed potatoes (my job) we were discussing the leftovers. One of my kids loves mashed potatoes more than just about anything, but only freshly made. Once they've been refrigerated, this child doesn't want anything to do with it. sigh. 
My dad said "but leftover mashed potatoes are great. You can also make the potato patties." YES. Tell me how!! He said to mix some egg into it and fry it in a little butter. 

Today, after a lot of nibbling on mostly sweet Thanksgiving leftovers, we needed some dinner! I decided to make the potato patties, and have everyone get some left over meat (we had turkey, ham and pork kabobs) and some kind of vegetable and made a potato patty for each of us. 

I googled "how do you make fried mashed potato patties". I got a dozen results and I read four recipes before deciding to proceed. 

Ingredients: 

Leftover (cold) mashed potatoes (mine already have sour cream, salt and veg broth)

1 egg, beaten

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Heaping handful shredded cheddar

Butter 

I put approximately a serving of mashed potato, per person, into a mixing bowl. I beat an egg with a fork in a small bowl and poured that over it. I added the flour and some cheese. Then I mixed it up like I do with meatballs- with my bare hand. yum.... I shaped it into five patties and then melted some butter, enough to cover the frying pan. I could cook three at a time, in the pan and I added butter as needed. I just cooked them maybe 7 minutes on each side and voila! Dinner! 

They need to cook longer than you think, to get brown and crispy, but everyone seemed to like it a lot! 

"Safe" Cheesy Potato Chowder

This is a version of THIS potato soup that is safe for our entire family now. 
It is lacking corn, chicken bullion, and the canned cheese sauce that uses wheat, corn and soy.

~~~

Soup Ingredients: 
3 slices bacon- all but burned
onion - minced
potatoes - peeled and cubed    (I do 1-2 potatoes per person, depending on size)
carrots - peeled and cut into coins     (I do 3-4 carrots)
1 part milk to 2 parts water
1 tsp Better Than Bullion for each cup water
minced garlic
black pepper
celery flakes
shredded cheddar, or other melty cheese (we used shredded cheddar, swiss, mozzarella and asiago)
chives

Thickening Sauce:

4 tbps heavy cream

2 tbsp tapioca starch

4 tbsp butter    - all mixed together for a gloppy paste

Instructions:

Cook the bacon in the soup pot. Set bacon aside for now. Pour off excess grease.
Put vegetables in pot, cover with liquid. Add spices and allow to boil/simmer til potatoes are soft. Smash a few times with a potato masher for a creamier texture.
Remove from heat and add the thickening "paste", mixing in thoroughly.
Add shredded cheese gradually, stirring and allowing it to melt.
Add chives and crumbled bacon, serve! 

Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes

A really long time ago, my friend walked me thru how to make mashed potatoes in the instant pot. It is still the only thing I know how to make in the instant pot, but don't worry, my husband uses it frequently. 

So for the most basic but clear instructions, here we go! 

Peel and slice or cube potatoes
    (I do one per person, plus an extra or two depending on size)
Put the cubes in the pot.
Cover them in water.
Can add 1/2 tsp salt -sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, sometimes my husband uses bullion in place of salt.

Cook on manual for 8 minutes 
In my case, I push "pressure cook" and then the up/down button til it says "high" and "00:08" and then it starts. This is my machine: 

Eventually it comes to pressure, then it counts down from 8.

Then, I pour off most of the water, but save some in a glass measuring cup. 
I add butter, sour cream or plain greek yogurt, and salt if necessary, and the potato water, and I use the beaters/hand mixer to "mash" them. 

voila! 
Mashed potatoes! 

Tin Foil Dinner!

The other night I wanted to make tin foil dinners....but it's been so many years that I was a little concerned I'd forget something important..... I finally decided to look up a recipe or two to make sure I didn't skip anything, and ended up following THIS recipe almost exactly. Four out of five of us really enjoyed it, so we'll keep it here for next time! 

This was the ingredient list, and I'll tell you what changes I made.

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• ▢1 package dry onion soup mix
• ▢4 small potatoes peeled and sliced
• ▢2 cups carrots chopped
• ▢1 large or 2 small onions, sliced
• ▢2 tablespoons olive oil
• ▢1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢salt & pepper to taste
• ▢condensed mushroom soup

My quantities made 6 meals.
I used 1.5 lbs of ground beef, which I did mix with a packet of dry onion soup. I did five potatoes, peeled and sliced. I did two very large and three small carrots, and a little more than half an onion. I did not mix the vegetables, I layered them like I am accustomed to. I layered some potatoes in each, then sprinkled with a bit of seasoning salt. Then I added the carrots, then some onion, and then I drizzled on olive oil, with a bit of kosher salt and one twist of black pepper. Then I put the meat patty on top of that, and put roughly two tbsp cream of mushroom soup on top of that. I spread it a little over the meat, then folded the tin foil up around it, and laid four meals on a hot baking sheet that had preheated in the oven, at 375. After 45 mins, we ate!
Then I cooked the last two because someone came home from work late, and the 6th meal was eaten as leftovers the next night! 

I did toss maybe 1 tbsp of the cream of mushroom soup because I honestly didn't feel like I could add any more to the meals, and I had no idea what we would do with the leftover bit. That can was in our food storage a long time... 
The only complaints were that two people would have preferred a lot more potatoes and another would have liked a lot more carrots, so next time I'll do more vegetables. But it was tasty, and the flavors also worked well with A1 sauce on the meat! 

~~~
7/20/2022
I forgot what I was doing and diced the onion, so I put that down first, then a hamburger patty, with a couple drops of worcestershire sauce, a bit of black pepper, then cream of mushroom soup, potatoes, carrots, and a bit of seasoning salt. 

Sunday Dinner!

Tonight, we tried two new recipes, and this is what my dinner looked like:

That would be Apple Cider Glazed Pork Chops. Click the title for the link, but I am going to also copy the recipe here because we liked it enough to keep it.
First, thaw the pork chops. We have boneless chops, which works much better for us. Get the glaze started before you bother doing anything else at all...
Glaze: 
1 1/2 cups apple cider
1/4 cup maple syrup
Tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt
Combine in small sauce pan and let it simmer down to a glaze consistency...mine took around 20 minutes to reach that point...
In the meantime, rub your chops down with the spice rub:
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Mix together with a fork, then add 1 Tbsp olive oil to make the rub a paste. Completely rub each chop with that paste, then set on grill. I used a grill pan on the stove, since it's February, haha. Cover in glaze and allow to cook 10 or so minutes, then flip and cover with more glaze, and allow to cook another 10 or so minutes. Flip it a third time and add more glaze. Cook until the chops reach 145* internal temp. Then remove them from the grill and allow them to rest about 5 minutes before eating.
These are flavorful and! not dry! Yeay!

Then, I don't know what the name is for the potatoes, but it's been going around on facebook for a lonnng time, and I found it on Pinterest HERE.
I sliced them, and let me tell you, that is not a fun sport!!! Do you have one of those friends you can vent at, no matter what crosses your mind or how you happen to feel? Oh yeah, my friend got a screaming text when I was in the middle of cutting these potatoes!!! In a perfect world, I would have had a half inch dip in the middle of a cutting board to set the potato in, and just sliced to that. This is not a perfect world, this is the real world, so I just tried hard to remember not to cut thru...and I didn't do terribly well. OH WELL! hahaha.... I drizzled them with olive oil, sprinkled them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. And 20 minutes was not quite long enough...30 would have been better.

And, a classic favorite around here...the roasted broccoli....which I haven't written out on this blog either!
It's better with fresh broccoli, but today I used frozen. Make sure it's dry (as possible...). Cover a cookie sheet in foil. Lay broccoli out in a single layer all over cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper (and garlic cloves if you have them). Bake 20-25 mins at 425*. Then when it's done, drizzle with lemon juice, and sprinkle on lemon zest and Parmesan. YUM. But...my kids don't love the lemon, so sometimes we leave it off.

Kabobs in Tin Foil!

Last night we did something just a little different...I saw an idea to skip the skewering of kabobs, and instead wrap it all in tin foil and grill it! That's about perfect for the super busy nights we've been having- I prepped it all ahead of time and my husband put the packets on the grill as soon as we got home!

It was quite a bit like a tin foil dinner, but we used our kabob ingredients instead. This night was cubed russet potatoes, our marinated chicken, thinly sliced zucchini and frozen corn!
Super easy, super tasty!

Tin Foil Dinners

This is traditionally a camping dinner, but it works out in the oven too! We have a lot of hamburger patties, left from grilling season, so I thought I'd use up four of them! And I'm adding this meal here so I don't forget how I assembled it.

First I put out two sheets of foil, criss-crossing incase of leaks.
I sprinkled some dehydrated onion and laid down the hamburger patty.
I added a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and fresh black pepper to the patties.
I peeled and sliced 3 potatoes and split them between the 4 dinners.
Then I dolloped some cream of mushroom soup for moisture and flavor.
I peeled and cut 5 carrots and split those between the meals too!
Then I wrapped it all up and stuck it in the oven on 400* for an hour.
That was all- easy and filling!

before cooking...

 and after!

The best part was that the kids loooved it! haha!

 

*My husband noted that the hamburger patty probably didn't need the soup, but if you were to do a chicken breast instead, it would definitely need it.

Dinner was a hit!

So you know I gotta share it here! We made kabobs and flat bread, the kids loved assembling them and they even loved eating it!

We started by thawing two steaks and three chicken breasts.
We marinated the chicken for about three hours, with just:

• 1/4 cup olive oil  
• 1 tbsp granulated garlic
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp lime juice

We quartered and boiled some "new harvest" red potatoes, and sprinkled them with seasoning salt and olive oil. Then we chopped up half a white onion, a package of button mushrooms, one zucchini and one corn cob. Then we set it all out and let everyone assemble their own kabobs. My husband made a few extras to use up stuff including a steak and potato only skewer, and we still ended up with two chicken-only skewers to cook the leftover chicken.

When we were done making the kabobs, and they were lined up on the cookie sheet at the top of this picture, he drizzled them all with olive oil and a sprinkling of seasoning salt. Then they all hung out on the grill til they were done! (the steaks were quite rare....)

While the kabobs were grilling, we also made THIS flatbread recipe. I added about 1/2 tbsp of dried basil to the mix, and since we have a jar of yeast, rather than packets, we used 3 tsp of yeast as our guessed amount. We pinched off blobs of dough and then rolled it very thin. We brushed the electric griddle with olive oil and threw the dough on sort of like a pancake, flipped it once and that was that!

This is my plate, to give you an idea! (a potato fell off from the middle...) My husband pushed the contents of his skewers onto his flatbread, and ate it sort of like a taco, and my kids discovered they could deal with the mushrooms better if it was with the flatbread.

The chicken was amazing! The flatbread was amazing! The potatoes were fabulous! The zucchini was rather bland, and the corn wasn't great, but the meal was a hit! We have leftovers and definitely plan to make it again!

Cauliflower Soup!

Tonight, I mixed up my potato soup recipe and created this:

1 head cauliflower
4 small potatoes
3 cubes chicken bouillon
2 cups milk
4 cups water
granulated garlic
black pepper
1/3 cup dehydrated onion 
When the veggies were soft I pureed it all together using my stick blender...

Then added 1/3 cup crumbled bacon
chives
frozen carrots
frozen corn
1 can cheese sauce
handful parmesan cheese

and served it with french bread. YUM!!
*My husband thinks it needed some shredded cheddar or other cheese to make it smoother, but the kids ate it just fine.

Grilled Chicken!

Last time I showed the yummy birthday treat. This was my husband's birthday dinner!

That's grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and mixed vegetables, with root beer! yum!

He made the chicken marinade based on what sounded good and what we had on hand.It turned out *really good! All of us enjoyed it. So that's today's recipe! You are welcome! haha!

He mixed together the following ingredients in a measuring cup:
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup bbq sauce
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp onion powder
1/2 tbsp garlic powder

Then he put three large chicken breasts into bag, poured the mixture over it, rubbed it all around, and allowed the chicken to marinate a bit. He put the chicken on the hot grill, squeezed the remaining marinate mixture into a bowl, and thinned it out with A1. And he brushed the mixture on a couple times while cooking. It was juicy and flavorful and delicious! I strongly recommend you give it a try!

Twice Baked Potatoes & Broccoli

This was a *really* tasty dinner. The twice baked potatoes were a long time staple in our house and I am shocked that I either haven't made it or haven't photo'd it since creating this blog!! My original recipe was a mix of recipes we found, edited to suit our tastes. The measurements were enough for two large potatoes and one small, perfect for our very small family at the time. Now I simply add "more"!

Wrap potatoes in foil and bake for 1 hour. (I spray the foil with cooking spray, poke the potato with a knife or fork, and spray the potato with cooking spray too)
Remove potatoes from oven, unwrap from foil. Slice off top bit of potato, enough that the skin stays totally in tact. Scoop out insides, and put it in a bowl to mash. I find it easiest to use a small eating spoon to scoop out the potato.

In the bowl of potatoes, add the following and mix well:
1/2 cup chopped broccoli
1/3 cube butter or margarine
3 tablespoons parmesan cheese
1/4 cup ranch dressing
chives
black pepper
dash parsley

Stuff potato skins with potato mixture - it will be heaping! Sprinkle with cheddar cheese, put top back on, like a lid. Bake again for 20-30 minutes, until warmed again and cheese is melted.

Now for the broccoli...!
My friend sent me THIS link after they had it for dinner, and was excited for me to try it too. It was so good!! I used the same edits the original poster did- leaving out the pine nuts and eye-balling the measurements. However, I used thawed broccoli and it never did fully dry. Also it was a bag of broccoli, rather than just the florets. The florets were absolutely the best part so next time I'll use fresh! Also, I finished off the parmesan with the potatoes, thinking we had more! So when we started eating, there was no parmesan on the broccoli. My husband came home about 20 minutes later, with parmesan and the kids liked it better with. I thought it was just fine without. And SO yummy!!

I get two bunches of fresh broccoli. Cut into bites. Put on a sheet pan. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Slice 4 garlic cloves and toss that too.
Roast at 425* for 20-25 mins until the tips are browned.
drizzle with lemon juice, a little more olive oil, and 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese. ENJOY.

*I left out lemon zest, pinenuts and fresh basil.

More Success!

Remember that link I shared HERE? Well we've tried two more meals off that site and they were both great!

First up, Pepper jack Potato Soup! (listed under Comfort Food)
We served it with homemade bread for dinner, and then with left overs I've had crackers on the side.
The first thing I have to say about this, is that the time listed on that link is very misleading. It took nearly an hour to make this soup so I was glad I started it way before time to eat! I did not use fresh bell peppers, I had some frozen bell pepper strips and I just chopped up whatever came out of the bag- green, red, yellow. Also, because one of our kids is going thru a phase where she removes anything green found in her food, we pureed the contents of the soup pot before adding potatoes and bacon. hee hee hee.

and then we had Taco Salad! (listed under Mexican)
While I have no doubt I could have easily thrown together foods to create a taco salad, it was nice to have the list right in front of me.
I used 1/2 lb of ground beef (instead of 1lb), black beans (instead of kidney beans) and left off the olives and the ranch dressing (my kids do not like olives, and I didn't think it needed the ranch, so why add the fat?), LOL! Also, instead of crushing the chips and topping them with the salad, I served a scoop of the heated meat/beans/corn, put cheese, lettuce, salsa, and sour cream on top and ate it as a dip. I've mentioned before that my kids tend to eat anything better if it works like a dip, so I take advantage of the opportunity to do so! This picture shows my husband's take on the meal, he got home late and finished off all that was left!

Burger & Fries Casserole

Tonight was one of those nights I didn't want the food in my house but I wanted a good and quick dinner... I was perusing websites looking for something fast that I had all the ingredients for, lol, and THIS is what I found.

It was fast.
It was easy
and it was good!

On the side of that recipe link was a "what people are saying" box and I loved the ideas from "msuavacado". I combined the original recipe with this person's changes and here's what I came up with:

• 1 lb ground beef cooked with dehydrated onion/freshly ground black pepper, and drained
• 2 tbsp flour
• few big squirts ketchup
• about the same amount A1 as ketchup
• 3 drizzles worcestershire sauce

Put meat mix across bottom of casserole dish

• topped with shredded cheese,
• an even row of tator tots and
• a little shredded cheese on top of that.

baked at 425* for 20 minutes, 40 minutes.
served with carrot sticks!
It was a hit!

Next time I'll use the full 1.5 lbs of meat. maybe even more....
....make that 40 minutes. The tator tots in the middle were still frozen after 20 minutes today....

Meatloaf from meat balls!

Remember my meatballs post? I really like those meatballs. My kids both like them now too. We have eaten them at least once a month since that first post, sometimes much more often. I've made them for my parents at least three times, and we actually don't have a nice dinner together all that often! lol!

Well. it is hot here, and I am very, very busy (as so many of us are) and I didn't want to take the time to shape out a bunch of meatballs. I just wanted to eat it. I asked my husband-the-cook if the mixture could be made into a meatloaf..? (my mom didn't make meatloaf one single time until after I was married so this is not a staple I grew up with. but since I do love those meatballs, I bet I'd like the meatloaf just as well...!) He thought it absolutely could, so that is what I did!

Since we used to watch Good Eats every night (until food network got so competition-heavy), I had vague memories of AB not liking square pans because casseroles get dry corners and uncooked centers...and something about dry meatloaf being bad...so I put the meat into a foil lined loaf pan for the first 45 minutes...

and then I turned it out into a rounded baking dish,smothered it in sauce and let it bake that way for the last 15 minutes. I added the extra five minutes to make extra sure the meat in the middle was totally cooked (I like my cows goooood and dead thanks).

As far as meatloaf goes, it was perfect! But it turns out I like the sauce in all three bites of meatloaf and unless you have the end slice, its hard to get the sauce in every bite. But that's okay, it was quicker, less messy and soo tasty!

While I'm on the subject, I should mention the alterations that my-husband-the-cook made to the meat mixture. He added minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce and a drop or two of liquid smoke. He might have changed up a couple other things, but at this moment I don't know what... if I think of them I will add them, so feel free to check back!

how to eat eggs:

Either baked into yummy treats like cookies, cake, cheesecake...
or chopped up and hidden in Mom's Potato Salad!
*sorry if you thought this was actually eggs, I really don't like them...

So this is really the only potato salad I actually love. I will eat others, but I don't have to pick anything out of this one, hee hee. I don't like to make it, but someone's gotta do it!

Here's the recipe my mom gave me a few years back:

10 boiled potatoes (or at least one per adult)
6 hard-boiled eggs (or at least one per 2 adults)
a lot of Miracle Whip
squirt of yellow Mustard
squirt of Ketchup
Salt
ground black Pepper
Paprika
Celery Seed

I cube the potatoes and use an egg slicer about three times on the eggs. I didn't have celery seed so I used just a smidge of crushed celery leaves. This time around I wanted to eat it well before the flavors had a chance to sit so I also added onion powder. It was tasty!!

Meg's Meatballs!

This recipe comes from my favorite stranger-blogger Meg! On her side bar she has rainbow boxes and one is full of yummy-sounding recipes. So tonight my husband and I made her recipe for meatballs which you can find HERE.

My husband the foodie added garlic salt and onion powder, and we used green onions instead of white because we had them. Once again, 3 out of 4 liked it!

We made mashed potatoes with butter, milk, garlic salt and chives, and then had some frozen mixed vegetables to round off the meal. YUM!

Unique Deliciousness!

Okay, so on those recipe emails I get, a meal of Mexican Shepherd's Pie was featured.

I thought "hmmmmmm..... we hate every shepherds pie we've ever tasted, but I do love me some Mexican....and that's easy.....and its got rave reviews.....okay, we'll give it a shot."
Last night was the night. SUCCESS!!! Yep, this one's a keeper!

It sounds a little bit strange, putting mashed potatoes with Mexican, but it was really, really good. My husband also thought that if we just made the meat and veggie part, and scooped it onto baked, or even twice baked potatoes, that would be dreamy too. The kids ate without complaint and the adults had seconds. Its that good.

My edits: I put fresh ground black pepper with meat. I put in only 1/4 tsp cumin because I like the flavor and my husband doesn't. Also, we put on the cheese and then stuck it in the oven to broil for about 5 minutes. Then added chopped tomatoes and green onions at the table.

1/20/15 ETA recipe:

Ingredients

1

lb extra lean (at least 93%) ground beef

1/2

cup sliced green onions

1

cup Old El Paso™ Thick ‘n Chunky Salsa

1 1/2

teaspoons chili powder

3/4

teaspoon cumin

1

can (11 oz) Green Giant™ SteamCrisp® Mexicorn® corn, drained

1

pouch (4.7 oz) Betty Crocker™ loaded mashed potatoes

Water, milk and butter called for on potatoes pouch

1/2

cup shredded Cheddar cheese (2 oz)

1

medium tomato, sliced into thin wedges

Tortilla chips, if desired

• In 10-inch skillet, cook ground beef and 1/4 cup of the green onions over medium-high heat 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occasionally until beef is thoroughly cooked; drain. Stir in salsa, chili powder and cumin. Spoon corn evenly over beef mixture in skillet. Cover and cook over low heat until mixture is thoroughly heated.
• 2Meanwhile, make potatoes as directed on pouch, using water, milk and butter.
• 3Spoon potatoes over corn in skillet; spread evenly. Sprinkle with cheese and remaining 1/4 cup green onions. Cover; cook over low heat about 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Arrange tomato wedges in spoke fashion over potatoes. Garnish with tortilla chips around outside edge of skillet.

Hash.

This is a great, quick meal for cold autumn/winter nights that we are using a lot.

For my family of four, I cut 5 potatoes into cubes and put in a pot to boil and turn soft faster. While they boil, I cut a can of spam into cubes. You can use ham (like a ham steak) but that means thawing meat and spam is faster. I pour enough veg oil to just cover the bottom of our frying pan, and put the spam in to start browning. then add the softened potatoes. Toss in a little dehydrated onion and pepper (and sometimes chives) while it cooks. Just as its finishing up, I top the pan off with frozen corn and serve as soon as that is ready to eat!

Fast, filling and tasty!

healthy...perhaps not.

Cheesy Potato Chowder

Winter has arrived.

Winter is the best time for soups and stews. I only like to eat a few meals like that and tonight's dinner is one of them. This recipe comes from my mother-in-law and is easy, filling and yummy so its a winner for me!

When I was a kid my mom would make soups or stews on bread baking day. I cheat and serve pillsbury biscuits or crackers. but homemade bread can't be beat!

Cheesy Potato Chowder
crispy, crispy bacon
potatoes (I do at least 8 for our family of four)
onion (1 diced, or 2 tablespoons of dehydrated)
corn (I use frozen...maybe 1.5 cups)
carrots (4-6 whole carrots, cut into 'coins')
garlic salt
pepper
chives
celery flakes (ground up in my hand, mortar and pestle style)
chicken boullion (about a cube per cup of water)
1 part milk to 2 parts water
1 can cheese sauce

I start by putting 2-3 slices fatty bacon in the bottom of the soup pot to brown. Basically I burn it, even by my standards of overcooking meat, haha... I take them out and rest them on paper towels, drain off the excess grease, and throw everything else into the bacon-ed pot.
Put everything but the cheese sauce into a pot to boil. (I do enough water/milk to cover the ingredients) Allow to simmer until the potatoes and carrots are soft. Put the cheese sauce in as soup is finishing up.

En. Joy!!!

Feel like Chicken tonight?

Menu:
     Fried Chicken
     Baked Potatoes - butter, salt, pepper, grated cheddar cheese
     Mixed Vegetables - frozen mix of carrots, green beans and corn
     Milk

Today I actually planned a head. Busy night meant little cook time. So in the afternoon I prepped enough baked potatoes for my family and pulled some frozen chicken breasts out to thaw (in a plastic baggie, in a bowl, in the fridge). In between running around I managed to stick the potatoes in at 400*. I got them out almost exactly an hour later!

Now to the chicken. It had thawed through so I cut them into strips/chunks. I find its easier to completely cook when working with a smaller piece. I mixed regular AP flour with Montreal chicken seasoning in a sandwich baggie and 'breaded' the chicken one piece at a time. Then I fried it in the cast iron skillet in perhaps too much oil...but it also cooked faster so that's ok, right?

I serve a lot of vegetables with dinner. Usually that means dumping some frozen selection in a large bowl with at least twice as much water, then sticking it in the microwave for 3-5 minutes. I then drain off the water and add a bit of butter/margarine.

And dinner was served!