Eat Something Good Today – Sweet and Salty Potato Heaven

Happy Father’s Day! We cooked up a hearty dinner for the daddy in our house last night. I call it Sweet and Salty Potato Heaven--I had something similar in a restaurant once and copycatted my own homemade version. Yukon Gold and Sweet Potatoes are fried to a golden brown and topped with fresh snipped chives from the garden along with a dollop of sour cream mixed with a bit of yogurt (adds a tang of sweetness to the sour cream). This potato heaven dish is sooo good, and makes a colorful presentation fit for company.

Adjust the amount to the crowd around your table. I peeled two large sweet potatoes and four large Yukon Gold potatoes, earlier in the day, and let them soak in a big bowl of cold water until I was ready (I always do as much prep ahead of time as possible--makes life easier). This would serve 4 to 6. Prep time: around 10 minutes. Cooking time: 35 to 45 minutes.

Chop the potatoes. Heat oil in a large frying pan so that when the chopped potatoes go in, you hear a good sizzle. I use a very large frying pan so that there is more surface and quicker frying, cooking on medium high to high. Give the potatoes a chance to start browning, and then use a long wooden spoon and turn them around to get every potato chunk browned. When tender and golden brown, ladle them out with a slotted spoon (draining the oil from them a bit with each ladle) into a bowl lined with paper towel. (CAUTION: you are working with hot oil, so be very careful during this whole process. Keep pan handles turned in and small children out of the kitchen during this time.)

Topping: mix one part yogurt to two parts sour cream. I use lowfat. I snip my fresh chives with kitchen scissors, rather than chopping. Serve the potatoes with toppings and enjoy with grilled burgers, seafood, chicken or steak! (Tip: I don't refrigerate the leftover chive snippings - they can really smell up the fridge! Trust me, I had an incident one time--could not figure out what the horrible smell was, and then wallah! a baggie of chives! So now I just get them fresh from the garden each time--you can keep a bunch in a vase or quart canning jar of cold water until you're ready to snip them up. Leftover potatoes heat up quite nicely in the microwave for lunch the next day with cold cottage cheese and a little cracked black pepper.)

Enjoy your eating, writing, dreaming and stitching today.