So, I took Mary’s suggestion and turned my rosemary red potatoesinto a savory HASH. A Red Potato Skillet Hash to be exact. Turns out, hashes are solid and we all should be making them a lot more!

On a completely separate side note (that’s maybe inappropriate to bring up in the midst of discussing food??): we have a mouse that lives in our kitchen.

On the quite first day that we got the keys to our new house and moved in, I did the thing that I assume every new home owner does: FULLY inspect the kitchen. I had every intention of unpacking the kitchen first and so I wanted to make sure it was clean before doing so. One of the things I noticed was that the old owners left mouse traps under the cabinets. “great! there’s mice”. I threw the old traps away and didn’t think much of it.

My first real run in with the phantom mouse (mice??) was when I left spaghetti squash seeds in a small bowl on the counter over night. I wanted to let them dry out and see if they’re as good baked as pumpkin seeds are. As it turns out, Mr. Mouse didn’t want to wait for me to bake them and instead ate 2/3 of the bowl leaving a trail of squash seeds across the counter. Mouse-1, the cook-0.

After that incident (plus all of the lovely mouse droppings on the counter every few mornings), I decided to get some traps. We put peanut butter on them and left them over night. The next morning Mr. Mouse had eaten ALL of the peanut butter while managing to escape unscathed from the traps. Mouse-2, the cook-0.

I have a vivid image in my mind of what this pesky mouse looks like and I imagine it’s a little something like this:

Via

Is it weird that Ive kind of grown a fondness for Mr. Mouse? He’s not hurting anything, genuinely. I wish he’d be more respectful of the countertops that I so desperately try and keep clean. Besides that, he mostly only eats crumbs left on the countertops by Stephen two busying, working adults.

I’m trying to leverage the mouses existence as an excuse to get a kitten. So far, Stephen would rather keep the mouse than get the kitten. I’m working on it.

AND back to the hash.

I did lots of research on hash before testing out this dish. As it turns out, hash it typically a product of leftovers. It’s also most typically made with cured meat; I used a simple country sausage. I ALSO learned that maximum flavor is produced if you cook the meat first and then use the juices from that to cook everything else in.

And instead of baking the potatoes, I fried them this time (so that they could soak up all the good liquid leftover from the sausage).

The potatoes are diced up into small pieces this time (although slightly large chunks would also work okay) and drizzled with a bit of olive oil, sea salt, and (of course) rosemary.

The smaller pieces cook much faster which is why I spent the little bit of extra time dicing them this way.

Once the meat and potatoes are both cooked and set aside, the veggies are added into the same skillet and allowed to saute for a few minutes.

Once the veggies are simply tender, the sausage and potatoes are mixed back in and eggs are cracked on top. I’ve seen hashes where people cleared out room for the eggs but I simply cracked mine right on top of everything. It takes them a few minutes longer to cook but it also give the veggies and potatoes a bit of time to get crispy which is what we want from a hash (at least I do!).

I topped it all with some fresh parsley and a couple chunks of avocado (duh). This ended up being the dependable amount for 4 hungry breakfasters!

Have a lovely week, friends!!!