milk; cheddar cheese; green onions; sour cream; butter; potatoes; olive oil; salt and pepper, too.
And then I rub the olive oil all over the potato. It kind of gives the skin a crispier skin. Throw these potatoes in the oven for about an hour.
In a small bowl, we will be mixing ingredients. Now, you don't have to measure these if you don't want to, but remember that you'll be adding the cooked potatoes to the mix and you won't want it too sloshy. So, kind of eyeball it while you're mixing to make sure it's not to runny.
sour cream (I used 1/2 a cup)...
a little less than 1/4 C. of milk (or cream if you like)...
and one chopped up stick of butter (and/or cream cheese if you'd like).
This would be Julia saying, "Mommy, I eat? Juju eat?". It's a daily occurrence while I cook.
The potatoes are done!! Now, slice them down the middle.
And using a towel, because those buggers are going to be H O T, take each half...
and scoop out the innards and toss them into the bowl with the other ingredients. Leave enough of the potato in the skin as a kind of wall.
Oops. I attacked this potato and ruined it's wall. No worries, it'll be fine.
Now, take your fabulous potato masher your husband bought you because he loves you and would like you to make mashed potatoes often,
and mash everything together in the bowl. Of course, I had mine a bit too runny, so I added some cheese to the mixture to thicken it up. Next time, I will eyeball it better. I promise.
Because I had company over while I was finishing these up and because I can't do more than one thing at a time, I did not take pictures of the next few steps. But, you will take the mixture in the bowl and put them back into the potato skins. They might be wobbly, but it's okay. You can top them with cheese and bacon if you so desire. Then, put them carefully back into the oven and cook them again for another 15-20 minutes. Mine kind of spilled a bit, but I just scooped the spilled parts and put them back into the potato skins when I served them.
We ate ours with beef brisket and salad. My family loves these potatoes and ate them even before the beef! They also reheat nicely in the microwave as leftovers. But, what I love, is that you can add whatever you want to these to make them your own!
potatoes; olive oil; Kosher salt; pepper. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Then I cut the halves in half aka fourths.
Then I cut the halves halves in half aka eighths. (I know, you'd never survive in the kitchen without me. I'm the reason you know fractions. Does it scare you I used to teach children?)
Take all the cut up potatoes and throw them in a bowl and add some olive oil. I don't measure, I just pour until I think it's enough. If I had to guess how much I pour, I'd say it's around 1/4C.
Then I toss in some Kosher salt. Kosher salt is muuuuch more forgiving then table salt, so I don't panic if I accidentally add more than intended. But, please remember, I do love salt and would love to have a salt lick in my home like they have for deer. I'm just saying.
Then I add some pepper. I stir the potatoes around until I'm sure they're evenly coated.
Place them on a greased cookie sheet. Make sure they're all touching the cookie sheet and none are overlapping each other or they won't cook evenly.
Oh, look! It's Julia! She's spinning in the kitchen until she gets dizzy, her favoritest thing to do while I cook.
I leave my oven fries in for a good 20-30 minutes, checking on them occasionally. Evan hates hates hates mushy oven fries, so I'm looking for crispness.
See how brown they are? Yum...
We ate ours with Pioneer Woman's Marlboro Man sandwich. It's Evan's favorite sandwich now and he asks for it all.the.time. You should go check out her website because it's fabulously fantastic and even my girls love it. And the oven fries are PERFECT as a side with the sandwich. I promise!
2 packages of cole slaw mix; green onions; 1/2 C. sunflower seeds; 2 packages of Ramen noodles (make sure one of them is the oriental kind); 1/2 lb. of cooked chicken; soy sauce; red wine vinegar; sesame oil; vegetable oil; water. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Take the two packages of Ramen noodles and crush them to smithereens and put them on a cookie sheet. Then take the 1/2 C. of sunflower seeds and also add them to the cookie sheet.
You will be putting these into the oven for about 5-10 minutes. We're just browning them, so keep an eye on them. Burnt Ramen noodles are way nasty. Not that I have ever burnt them before or anything.
While the noodles and sunflower seeds are roasting, take your green onions
and chop them up! Add them to the cole slaw mix.
(I must tell you that, when I first started making this salad, I refused to add the green onions. I felt like they ruined the dish and I hated hated hated green onions. But, as time has gone by, as my taste buds have changed, and as Evan has cried tears of sorrow each and every time that I neglected to add the green onions, I have learned to enjoy the taste in moderation. So, I only use 2-3 green onions. You can always use more--my mother-in-law uses an entire bunch of them--or you can omit them completely.)
Oh, look, perfectly roasted noodles and sunflower seeds! Hooray! Add them to the cole slaw mix.
Now it is time for the dressing. In a microwaveable bowl (or measuring cup, as I apparently used), add 1/2 C. of sugar.
The entire packet from the oriental flavored Ramen noodles.
2 Tbsp. of soy sauce.
1/4 C. of sesame oil.
1/4 C. of vegetable oil.
1/4 C. of water.
1/4 C. of red wine (or white) vinegar.
Stir together and then pop that into the microwave for 1 minute.
After you've nuked it, give it another stir and then pour it over the cole slaw mix. Stir the entire salad, being careful not to spill the contents out of the very full bowl and getting it on your khakis and then saying bad words.
When you are done, chill it in the refrigerator (after you've cleared an entire shelf to make way for your OBSCENELY GIGANTIC bowl) for an hour or so.
I neglected to take a picture of this wonderful salad being presented on a plate because, once it's time to actually eat this dish, there is no picture taking. There is only shoving as much of this deliciousness into your pie whole as fast as you can before the kids and Evan eat it all. Oh, and we do tend to add more soy sauce on top before eating it, but please remember, we do love us some soy sauce. Also, please note how the crunchy noodles and sunflower seeds are such a compliment to the tangy dressing and crisp slaw. Yum...
It's a Whirlypop. We received it as a wedding gift (5 years ago this month!!) and we have put it to good use. We actually kind of forgot about it once we'd moved out here. But, when I bought real kernels instead of microwave popcorn, our love of the Whirlypop returned.
Here's the inside.
So, what you do is you take 4 Tbsp. of the kernels.
Dump them in. Add about 1/2 Tbsp of salt or less. Add 2 Tbsp. of oil and get to whirling!
We set our heat at medium-high. You just have to continuously turn the crank so the kernels are moving around. It takes about 3-4 minutes.
Look at Evan. He's such a happy whirler.
And, PRESTO!, you have delicious popcorn!
The nice thing about the Whirlypop is that it came with a little recipe book. Our favorite is the cinnamon popcorn recipe, but there's tons of others--cheesy popcorns, chocolate popcorns, even spicy popcorns!
