Baked Chipotle Potato Chips

After celebrating a little too much last night at my office holiday party, I was excited to head home tonight, throw on my sweats and cook something to cure the nasty hangover I'd been nursing all day long.  Whenever I am feeling the effects of the previous evening, I like to calm my stomach with a hearty breakfast and I thought that this was the perfect excuse to make breakfast for dinner!  I decided to make a simple breakfast sandwich for dinner.  I had half a bag of potatoes leftover from my Hanukkah brisket and instead of making a hash, I decided to play around with my newest kitchen gadget.

Bret's parents got me a de Buyer Kobra mandoline for Hanukkah!  I haven't had a chance to use the mandoline yet so I was definitely excited to finally have an excuse!

First, I scrubbed and dried the leftover potatoes.  I actually ended up using only three potatoes as this made plenty of chips!  Bret and I both took turns playing around with the mandoline.  Bret was definitely better at it than I was!

The mandoline was really easy to use and it made perfectly thin slices!

I knew that I would toss the potato slices in olive oil, salt and pepper but I also decided to add one of my favorite pantry items - Spicy Chipotle Rub.

To balance the spiciness, I also added some cinnamon to get a sweet contrast.

I tossed the oil and the spices with the potatoes and spread it in one layer on two parchment lined baking trays. 

The potato slices were baked in the oven at 350 degrees for about twenty minutes.  When the chips were done, I placed them on a plate to cool and finish crisping up.  I also sprinkled some more crushed sea salt on the chips. 

Even with two full baking tray, there were still a lot of potato slices.  I ended up baking an additional tray and a half.  I found that these chips baked a lot faster since the trays were already hot.  I'll have to remember to heat the baking sheets in the oven while it is preheating the next time I make this to cut down on the baking time.

The chips were ridiculously good, especially with a spicy ketchup (ketchup, sriracha and tabasco sauce) dipping sauce.  The chips baked perfectly crispy and had a nice spicy kick.  I was a little shy on the cinnamon but you got a little sweetness here and there. 

While the last sheet of potato chips were baking, I threw an aluminum foil lined baking sheet with bacon in the oven and also got two bagels toasting in the toaster oven.  When the chips were done, I turned the oven up to 425 degrees and fried up two eggs on the stove.  The bagels, eggs and bacon were topped with a slice of cheese, which resulted in the perfect breakfast sandwich to cure my post-party blues!

And of course, I made myself a glass of chocolate milk.  After all, I swear that it helps you cure any hangover!

As the holiday season approaches, what is your fool-proof way to beat a hangover?

Spicy Shrimp and Chicken Sausage Stir Fry

On Tuesday night, I was happy to find myself alone in the apartment.  B was off at the Celtics game for a guy's night out and I was ecstatic to be able to get some alone time.  I had some pretty low key plans - laundry, wrapping a housewarming gift, and catching up on some DVR.  I wanted to cook myself something simple but tasty for dinner and I ultimately settled on throwing together a simple stir fry.

Since B doesn't like shellfish, I rarely cook with it when I'm cooking for the two of us.  So when he is not around, I tend to try to incorporate shellfish into my meal.  I have a bag of frozen shrimp on hand so I took out about half a dozen of them and dethawed them.

I then got to work on my other ingredients.  I chopped up half a large white onion that was leftover in the fridge.

I also chopped two cloves of garlic along with some green onion.

We also had two leftover spicy Italian chicken sausages in the fridge, which I sliced up.

I wanted to make the stir fry spicy so I picked a few ingredients from the pantry to work with:

The beauty of a stir fry is how easy it is to cook.  I started out by heating up a pan on the stove with some olive oil.  I first added the chopped onion to the pan.

After the onion had softened a bit, I added some fresh cracked pepper, coarse salt, cayenne pepper and the spicy chipotle rub to the onions. 

I then added the coarsely chopped garlic cloves and the sliced chicken sausage to the pan.

When the chicken sausage had sufficiently browned, I added a few splashes of the Pickapeppa Sauce along with the chopped green onion and the shrimp.

At this point, I lowered the heat and put a lid on the pan.  I wanted to let all of the spicy flavor blend together.  When I opened the lid, the spicy aroma was so intoxicating.  As much as I love spice, I wanted to mellow out the heat so I grated some leftover cheddar cheese on top of the stir fry when I plated it.

I absolutely loved this improptu dish.  The stir fry had a lot of heat and I loved the combination of the green onion, chicken sausage and the shrimp.  I thought that the plate was really inviting in color but I will admit that it probably lacked some crunch.  Next time I would consider adding some water chestnuts or celery to give some contrast without taking too much away from the flavor.  Regardless, this spicy shrimp and chicken sausage stir fry was the perfect dish when I was cooking for one.  I was happy that there was enough leftover for lunch the next day.  The leftover stir fry really soaked in all of the spicy flavors overnight and I think it might have been even better for lunch.

 We all like to cook for ourselves sometimes.  This leads me to ask - If you cook for someone else like a roommate, family or signficant other on a regular basis, what do you like to make when you are just cooking for yourself?