• 3 russet potatoes
• 4 garlic cloves
• bay leaves
• sprig of thyme
• vegetable stock
• salt
• black pepper

I made these because I didn’t have any butter.

Boil some water. Add salt, bay leaves and thyme. Quarter potatoes and place in boiling water. Boil until you can squish a piece of potato between your forefinger and thumb, easily. Make sure to use tongs and cold water before attempting to handle the hot potato. While the potatoes are boiling, cook the garlic in a little bit of oil to soften. Once the potatoes are cooked use either a large fork or a potato masher or a wooden spoon or whatever works best for you. Add the garlic and slowly add stock while mashing. The potatoes will fluff up and absorb the moisture so just add more stock as you mash until you reach the desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste.

Fine Dining for the Real World

Welcome to Simply Sunday. I am excited to lend some expertise, advice and wisdom. Please feel free to ask questions about your culinary conundrums, seek handy tips, comment or share your experience in the comment section. This first edition is at keldwud’s request, but this weekly spot will also feature my own recipes as well as hints for the begginer and so on. A bit of background: I started cooking for my family when I was 7. I learned quickly how to stretch a little food to feed a lot of people. After getting married, I quickly found a real and pure joy in preparing delicious meals for my husband. Soon word got out that I was a pretty decent cook; soon I found myself being asked to prepare things for church events, family events and so on. I am thrilled to be catering my first wedding in March! I watch a lot of Food Network, and have yet to back down from a challenge. I love food, in all its forms, from all over the world, and I’m so excited to be doing this. Enough about me, though. On to the food! ~Danielle

Corned Beef Hash

While this dish is most popular around St. Patrick’s Day, the truth is, it’s good any time of year! To be honest, corned beef is not something an Irishman during St. Paddy’s actual day would ever have heard of. Be creative. Try corned beef on sandwiches, chopped into a quesadilla, served finely sliced on an antipasti platter. But try this first. You will need:

• 1 corned beef roast from the market (2-4 pounds depending on how much you plan to eat before hashing it!)
• 1 small head of cabbage, cut into large chunks
• 1 onion, sliced
• Butter, a soft stick
• 1/3 c. water
• 2-3 cups hashbrowns OR
• 2-3 cups diced potatoes (see below)
• Eggs, two per person
• Salt and black pepper
• Cinnamon
• Slowcooker
• Large skillet
• Small skillet
• Food processor

This is a two step process, which is fine, because you’ll end up eating well twice! I may do another spot later on corning your beef from scratch, but for now we’ll just use a store-prepped hunk o’meat. Take the packet of spices that comes with the roast, and… toss it. Seriously. You don’t need ‘em. Rub your roast generously with black pepper and sprinkle with a hint of cinnamon. Coat the bottom of your slowcooker with butter. Add in a layer of onion, a layer of cabbage, repeat once more. Put your roast on top. Slowly pour water over all, cover, and DO NOT TOUCH for the next 6 hours. (Cook it on low). Remove your meat and let it sit there for 10-15 minutes. Don’t be swayed to slice it any sooner!! If you want yours with carrots and potatoes, that is fine, but be prepared to pick them out later. I would cook my potatoes separately, in slices, either boiled and then fried or just nuke them in the micro.

When you are done with this fine meal, put the leftovers in a container with NO juices included. Take out any carrots/taters you may have cooked it with and place in a different container. Put these in the fridge ’til you’re ready to make your hash!!

To make your hash, put your meat/cabbage/onion mixture in a food processor or a REALLY good blender. Pulverize until it’s almost but not quite the consistancy of ground meat. Take out your skillet and butter it well. Over medium heat, brown either what’s left of last night’s potatoes (diced) or hashbrowns (this will be enough for 2-3 people!). After your first side of potatoes have browned, dump your beef mix on top and then carefully flip it if you know how, or use a wide flat spatula to turn it. In the meantime, in a separate small skillet, fry your eggs, 2 per person. If you don’t know how to do this, don’t worry, there will be an article about eggs in the near future! After about 5 minutes on the second side, use your spatula or a big spoon to mix everything up. Put a serving on a plate, add the eggs on top, salt and pepper your eggs, and add Tabasco if you feel so inclined (which I do). Eat up!

P.S. YOU be the judge. If you have a lot more meat than potato, don’t use all the meat. Or use more potato. ~Danielle

First I started preheating the oven while I wrapped a couple potatoes in some aluminum foil. Then I liberally salted and peppered the meat. I want the meat to sit in its own juices for a moment. A couple cap-fulls of vermouth and a splash of worcestershire probably won’t hurt the flavor.

After throwing the tubers into the oven, I tabbed about two almost three tablespoons of butter into my frying pan. I do not fear fats and oils. You should not either. The idea was to sear the steak and bring the internal temperature up to par as quickly as possible. From prior experiences we had learned that the quality of this steak was quite atrocious. I was hoping that cooking it in this manner would help to avoid the nasty chewy low quality beef flavor that we experienced from previous adventures with this meat.

I left the steak on each side long enough to create a deep brown color. Because the smoking point of the butter wasn’t as high as I needed, I didn’t quite get the color I was looking for. The ideal color would have been the brown you get just before it starts to caramelize on the outside.

After getting some color on both sides I started preparation of the onion. I only had half of a red onion left. About medium sized. This was all I really needed so that worked out fine.

The plan now was to allow that internal temperature to stabilize so I needed a few more minutes with the stove but I didn’t want all the heat going directly into the outside layer of meat. I dumped the onions into the pan and I love the sound that a pan makes when you throw in something fresh. It is one of my most favorite things to hear.

I love the bitter taste of onions so I did not want them cooking too long. Just long enough to soften them a little. So while those were cooking I spread, liberally, some stone ground mustard onto each side of the steaks and cooked both sides for another minute give or take. The smells coming out of my kitchen at this point were making me salivate.

This is where I turned off both the oven and the stove so as to allow the potatoes to cool off and let the frying pan cool a bit before taking the food out. I have this thing with leaving empty hot dishes on my stove. They need to cool off before I make them empty.

The potatoes received just a little bit of salt, butter, pepper, and a topping of ranch chip dip. I don’t know if it is really ranch or not, it is pink, but it came from my fridge and the container says ranch so I assume it is. It almost tastes southwest.

Anyway, I pigged out and ate a steak and a potato and then another half of the steak before I was engorged. Now I am sitting here staring at and smelling my food wishing that I could eat the rest. I really need to learn how to cook single servings.