Last week I introduced you to one of the best and brightest in the realm of cookin’ good vittles, our newest writer, Tater Peelin’ Mama.
I’m back, babies!
When I first met with TPM, I expressed grouchymuffin’s need for a resident-lifestyle guru. As fortune always favors the bold, she quickly rose to the occasion.
After an unprecidented amount of new fans and reads, I’m proud to announce, Tater Peelin’ Mama has agreed to grace our flop-house of a website, with a weekly post, we’re calling:”Tater Peelin’ Tuesdays!”
Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages: I’m proud to present the first installment in a long-running series. Enjoy!
HOW TO GET A 6 YR OLD TO STOP SPARKLING AND EAT HIS VEGGIES IN A FEW EASY STEPS
My beloved and I have a son. We will call him “Brother Bear”. I can’t tell you why in the world we call him this, as bears tend to eat their weight in food… no joke, they are known for being swarthy. Our son, on the other hand, interprets the Food Pyramid as follows:
Milk
Cupcakes
Spaghettios
In that order, with emphasis on Spaghettios. As you can imagine, with any 6-year-old, getting the little ankle biters to eat vegetables is just about as frustrating as trying to eek your older, rounder, and certainly more impressive rear end into that last pair of pantyhose still hanging out in the back of your dresser. Don’t be bashful, the Tater knows what yer hidin’ in there!
Now, back to business. In an effort to bring some nutritional variation, and by extension color back to Brother Bear (he was seriously starting to look like that pale sparkly young man from that movie about the vampires…… creepy little bugger), I devised this little jewel. It’s has 1 fruit, 3 veggies, 1 dairy, and 1 meat product. Score one of the Tater Peelin’ Mama!
They Call Me Tater Salad
Italian Tater Salad
2.5 lbs skin on red Taters (cut into bite sized pieces)
5 Spinach & Asiago italian sausage links or your favorite Italian sausage links ( I get the sausage from the food snob section of your local surplus club store… you know, them ones that help you prepare for disasters like the upcoming worldwide bacon shortage by allowing you to buy several metric tons of any product at any given moment ? )
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 medium yellow onion chopped
2 tsp rosemary (dried, because we’re in a recession dadgummit, and not everyone can afford fresh rosemary)
2 tsp garlic powder
7 (or so) halves of sun-dried tomatoes chopped
salt to taste
2 Tbsp Olive Oil (olive Erl if you are from around these parts)
Parmesan to sprinkle before serving ( I would love to say only Parmesan Reggiano will do, but i find that Sister Sparkles, Brother Bear, and Daddy Long Legs actually prefer the good old , el cheap-o grated Parmesan in the green plastic shaker. i swear… you can take the bumpkins outta the country……)
Instructions:
Place taters in boiling salted water for 4 min.
Drain and set aside.
Cut up sausage into slices about 1″ thick , saute with chopped onion and bell pepper until veggies are tender and sausage is cooked through. DO resist the urge to stick your whole face in the frying pan as it will smell something like heaven mixed with the county fair midway food trucks, minus the B.O. of course.
Join the glorious drained taters with sautéed onion, pepper, sausage mixture in casserole dish (preferably non stick but if you don’t have a non-stick roasting pan or casserole dish, just spray what you have with non-stick spray), add sun-dried tomatoes, and salt to taste.
Bake at 425 for 15 min.
Drizzle with about 2 tbsp of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and Parmesan cheese to taste.
Verdict: Brother Bear ate it like he was storing up for hibernation. Sister Sparkles kept dropping it on her tutu, and I seriously thought she was going to rip the tutu with her fork trying to get it back into her pie hole. Daddy Long Legs had the following to say: “aaarrgh wwahahaa smmaaah gulp,” which of course is man speak for “Thank you darling, that was wonderful, may I have another helping?”
-Tater Peelin’ Mama
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