Tortilla de Patatas

To go with the delicious tri-tip that my husband grilled up, we wanted some potatoes. Having just come back from Argentina and having eaten some great Spanish Potato Tortillas there, I wanted to try making it at home.

This is a great alternative to boring old mashed, baked or fried potatoes. It looks so fancy but is really not difficult to make at all. Well, actually, I don't know that for a fact because I didn't make it. The hubz made it while I watched. But he didn't seem to have any trouble with it, so I'm going to say that it's not that difficult to make, though he might have a different opinion :)

The hubz probably did a better job of making this dish than I could have. It turned out crispy, flavorful and delicious, not to mention pretty! If it were up to me, I'm sure I would've broken it or dropped it during the flipping process and it would've come out a dreadful mess. Thanks goodness for my hubby!
Look how perfect that is!

Ingredients:
- Potatoes
- Onions (optional)
- Eggs
- Oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Slice the potatoes as thin as possible. A mandoline or the slicer blade on your food processor would work nicely. My husband decided to do it by hand and it turned out fine.
- To speed up the whole thing, a nice little shortcut is to pop the sliced potatoes in the microwave until they are slightly soft, but not so soft that they fall apart. You can also fry the potatoes in oil to be more traditional and less healthy :)
- Dice the onions and saute them in a bit of oil until softened. If you want to skip the onions altogether, that's totally fine.
- Beat some eggs in a bowl, mixing in the onions, salt and pepper.
- Carefully stir the potatoes into the egg mixture, being careful not to break too many of the potatoes.
- Heat a heavy bottomed skillet and coat the bottom with oil.
- Pour the egg, potato, onion mixture into the pan and let it cook on medium until the sides have solidified and you can easily slide the tortilla around without it falling apart. The edges and bottom should also be a nice crispy brown.
- Using a large plate, flip the tortilla upside down onto the plate.
- Carefully slide the tortilla back into the pan (adding oil if necessary) to finish cooking and crisping up the other side.
- When the other side is brown and crispy and the tortilla is cooked all the way through, remove it from the pan and slice into wedges to serve.

Ole!

i'm really enjoying our new kitchen and all the fun toys we received from the wedding and love making all these "fancy" dishes that i used to always reserve for special occasions...like paella!

though i gotta say, part of the problem is that some of these dishes loose their "specialness" and paella is one of them. don't get me wrong, it's still yummy, but definitely doesn't feel "fancy" anymore. oh well, at least i get to eat it more often now!

Ingredients:
- Saffron threads or turmeric
- 1 cup of rice
- 1 diced onion
- 2-3 minced cloves of garlic
- 1 cup of white wine
- 1 cup of chicken stock
- chorizo sausage
- 1 grilled chicken breast
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- diced bell peppers (1 red and 1 green)
- various seafoods (shrimp, squid, mussels, clams, etc)
- peas
- *any other veggies/meats you feel like tossing in

Directions:
* Boil saffron threads (optional, you can use turmeric instead if you want. honestly, the saffron didnt have much fragrance or flavor, so turmeric will work just fine for color purposes) and shrimp peels in chicken stock (for extra flavor).
* Saute onions in oil until soft, then add garlic, then bell peppers
* Saute chorizo sausage to release the oils and get a bit of char and squid if desired
* Saute rice until coated with oil
* Add in cubed grilled chicken
* Add wine and chicken stock and tomato puree (optional)
* Salt and pepper as needed
* Boil until most just slightly more watery than you like it (and bottom is starting to crisp)
* Sprinkle shrimp, mussels and other more delicate seafood/toppings and peas
* Cover and steam the toppings
* Open and enjoy!