In The Kitchen: SMASHED POTATOES

I'm a "sides" kind of girl. 

Secretly I prefer the "side" items to the actual "star" of a meal. 

Sometimes I'll even order like 4 different sides and eat it as an entree. HAHA. weird right?

This side dish is amazing paired w/ ANYTHING!  BBQ Chicken, Rib-eye, Salmon - you name it!

 The Hubs really dislikes potatoes.  I mean VERY STRONGLY dislikes potatoes. He'll usually take like 2 bites and then stop eating any type of potato dish that's put in front of him.

In fact that only time I've EVER seen him finish his potatoes was during our dining experience at Joel Robuchon (which BTW's is a 3 Michelin star restaurant.  And Robuchon's potatoes are so infamous that Anthony Bourdain once questioned Robuchon about just how much butter is actually in his potatoes.

The secret?  Supposedly it's a 2:1 ratio.. 1 pound of butter for 2 pounds of potatoes ie it's RICH.)

This recipe however is (a little) healthier I would like to think and the Hubs gobbles them up - he ate 3, yes THREE in one sitting!!

And it's sooo simple.  

Ingredients:

1 to 2 potatoes (per person depending on the size you use.)
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1/4 cup Parmesan

Wash your potatoes and then put them in a pot and boil them until they become tender.

Pour half of your olive oil into your pan and spread the olive oil so it coats the bottom of your pan. 

(I always lined mine with aluminum saves on clean up time)

Pre-Heat oven to 400 Degrees F.

Take your tender potatoes and place them on top of your pre-oiled pan.

Use a potato masher (or a cup whatever you have on hand) and press down.

And continue until you've "smashed" all of the potatoes.  However don't press down too hard because if you do the potato will fall apart.  You want the potato to still be relatively in one piece.

Use the remaining olive oil and drizzle over the top of the potatoes.

Sprinkle liberally with salt. 

Sprinkle liberally with ground pepper.

Sprinkle your Parmesan on top of each potato.

Into the oven for 30 min on the top rack so that the potato & Parmesan will brown nicely.

(I also had a rack of BBQ ribs going on in the oven at the same time. lol)

And that's it!

Pair with whatever "main" you feel like!! :)

Tonight we felt like baby back ribs lol!

Btw's this exact recipe is AMAZING on any vegetable.

Just take out the "smashed" part but the boil, olive oil, season, Parmesan & bake translates well to any vegetable you can think of.. Broccoli, Zucchini, Carrots - Go wild hehehe!

Enjoy!

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