By Chef David “Smitty” ·
A few days ago I was using, or at least trying to use, an external hard drive to back up my computer. When I plugged the hard drive into the computer, it said it was too full already and could not copy anything else to it. I thought those external drives had a ton of room on them?
I realized I had to have done something wrong all those times in the past as, instead of just adding the new items to update the files, it copied all of the files in their entirety each time. I looked through all the backups to be sure my current file of “Stir it Up” articles wasn’t missing anything from a previous backup, and once I was sure my current list had a copy of all the old ones as well, I started deleting the previous backups to make room for one complete and current file.
It is because of losing quite a few articles when my computer was hacked into and had to be totally wiped clean, that I’m so paranoid about losing more articles now. Well, once I had spent a few hours wearing out my finger on the delete button and figured I had enough room, I went to copy my files to the backup hard drive. Somehow, and I have no idea how, while erasing one of the backup files, it switched to the computer files and now, I had no articles at all left on my computer? Talk about freaking out.
I was in total panic mode until I realized they were at least still in the trash bin. It took another couple hours of un-delete, un-delete, un-delete before I got my heart rate down to a reasonable thudding I thought I could live through. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I’m a lot better with a knife and sauté pan than I am with computers.
At any rate, after looking through all the articles half a million times, I noticed I only had three articles on potato dishes. I am pretty sure I had done more than that but thought that as good an excuse as any to give you a great recipe that can be used for either breakfast as home fries or dinner as a side dish. The real key for these potatoes is to let them brown some before stirring and then letting the other side brown some before adding the peppers and onions. In other words, don’t be over anxious and keep flipping them. Give the potatoes time to brown and get a little crispy. Enjoy.
Potatoes O’Brian
6 red potatoes, medium to large dice
½ green pepper, sliced
½ red pepper, sliced
½ onion, sliced
¼-½ stick butter
Salt and pepper
Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until just barely cooked through. Strain and let dry.
Use a heavy skillet on medium heat to sauté the potatoes in three-quarters of the butter until golden all the way around and the butter also browns. Add the peppers, onions and rest of the butter and sauté until they are soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Smitty is a personal chef specializing in dinner parties, cooking classes and special events. Trained under Master Chef Anton Flory at Top Notch Resort in Stowe, Vt., Smitty is known for his creative use of fresh ingredients. To read archived copies of Stir it Up, visit chefsmitty.com or TheTahoeWeekly.com. Contact him at smitty@chefsmitty.com or (530) 412-3598.
