Sausage and Pepper Hash

I love the weekends. It means I have time to sleep in [Ha! Who am I kidding? Roma doesn’t let me sleep!]. I can tackle more things on my to-do list. It means I can take the time to make a hearty breakfast. If I didn’t mind getting up extra early [I get six hours of sleep or less most nights], I’d totally make rad breakfasts like this on the regular. I love breakfast. I usually have to eat something to keep my stomach from getting grumpy. A lot of the time, my weekend breakfast’s are of the brunch variety. It’s for good measure considering I easily get my breakfast/lunch calories in one go.

Hashes, while awesome, are totally deceiving. I don’t know if it’s just me [it probably is], but I always underestimate the time it takes to “whip” one together. I started this around 8:45am, and we didn’t sit down to eat until after 10am. I knew it’d be a little bit to roast the potatoes, but I was thisclose to eating my arm. We ate during halftime of the Inter Milan vs. Catania game. It was good. I’d definitely make it again, but make sure I start roasting the potatoes immediately. I love that you can pretty much throw in anything to a hash and it’s going to be awesome. Vegetables and meats all sit well with a bunch of potatoes and fried/poached eggs. That’s for sure.

It was a nice, healthy-ish balance to the rest of the weekend’s food: Jack in the Box [two tacos and a breakfast jack], a barbacoa burrito from the taco cart down the street, a slice of bbq chicken pizza, and Thai noodles with ground chicken.

Inspiration: Joy the Baker

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds of potatoes, small chunks
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 tablespoons dried garlic flakes [or fresh garlic if you have it!]
• 2 sausage links, sliced into rounds [I used Zenner’s Louisiana Hot!]
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
• salt
• pepper
• 2-4 handfuls of spinach [I had about two]
• 2-4 eggs [I fried three of them–two for Andrew, one for me]

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400º.
2. Toss the potato chunks in two tablespoons of olive oil, salt, and pepper.
3. Spread on a cookie sheet lined with a silpat or parchment.
4. Bake until soft, 30 to 40 minutes. Mine took way, way too long.
5. Halfway through the cooking time, start sauteing the pepper, onion, and garlic with the remaining two tablespoons of oil.
6. Keep the temp on medium low so you can cook them until they’re nice and golden brown and soft. This might distract you from the slow roasting potatoes. The smell is pretty heavenly.
7. Once they’re completely cooked, dump them into a bowl and set aside.
8. When the potatoes are done, pull out the pan to cool for a minute. Try to do a better job of dodging the 400º pan than I did. I have a sweet burn on the inside of my left bicep. Don’t ask.
9. Add the potatoes and sausage to the now empty pan.
10. Get the potatoes good and coated. You want them to start charring a little bit.
11. Now add back the onions and peppers. Allow them to be friends and mingle.
12. Once everything smells awesome, remove from heat source and add the spinach.
13. Mix it in so it starts to wilt.
14. Prepare your eggs how you so desire.
15. Top the hash with the eggs.
16. This serves 2-4. This served 2 1/8 for us. 1/8 went to Roma.