Originally published on December 11, 2014
Ah, it’s that time of year again. The time of shopping, parties, decorating, and celebrations – and we still have work and families to take care of during all of it. Sometimes it amazes me that most of us seem to make it out of these holidays still in one piece. For the first time in a loooooooong time, I’ve had to divide my days between a job outside of the home and everything else that goes with the holiday season and man, it is tough. On one particularly busy day, Paige wandered into the kitchen where I stood, aimlessly looking into our fridge wondering what on earth I was going to make for dinner.
“Can we have tacos?” she asked. Bless her heart! There was a package of ground beef on the shelf, and she just gave me the perfect quick supper to make for us.
“Sure!” I replied.
“Oh,” she said, as she turned to walk away, “And can we have something other than Spanish rice to go with them?”
With that, I gave a small sigh. Spanish rice is my go-to side dish for tacos, and now I still have to think of something?
Luckily, I found some cooked, frozen home fries in my freezer, which actually sped up the cooking time for me, and I already had a pretty good idea of how I could “Mexicanize” them – and it would only take three ingredients. If you don’t have frozen home fries, just dice up some potatoes and toss them with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Put them in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes, and then continue on with the recipe. Be sure to make extras though, so you can freeze some of them and eliminate a step for yourself the next time you go to make these. Because you’ll come back to this recipe, I promise.
Ingredients:
4 cups cooked, frozen home fries (do make sure they’re home fries – cooked, cubed potatoes – and not hash browns)
1 1/2 cups salsa
1 – 2 cups Cheddar cheese, depending on how much you like
Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and grease a square baking or casserole dish.
2.) Place home fries in a large bowl and add salsa. Mix to thoroughly combine and cover all potatoes in the salsa. Transfer potato/salsa mixture to the greased casserole dish and cover with aluminum foil.
3.) When oven is preheated, place potatoes in and cook for 15 – 20 minutes, just until the entire dish is hot throughout.
4.) Remove dish from the oven, remove the foil, and cover with the Cheddar cheese. Place back into the oven, uncovered, for another 20 minutes or so, until the cheese has melted and is bubbling.
5.) Serve and enjoy!
Dec