Favorite Kitchen Tools, Part IV....and Roasted Sliced Potatoes

It's been awhile since I've blogged about a favorite kitchen tool!

You may remember the basil keeper, mini tart-shaper, and the citrus press and julienne peeler.

Today's favorite gadget is my mandoline slicer.  It slices, juliennes or waffle-cuts huge amounts of vegetables in the blink of an eye.

I used it twice last week.  First, to julienne vegetables.

Four carrots,

two zucchini and a yellow squash, sliced in no time.

I needed to julienne the vegetables to make a special dinner that I was craving.

 Sauteed chicken topped with the julienned vegetables and shrimp, drizzled with a yummy cheese & wine sauce.

This used to be my favorite menu item (actually, the real recipe uses lobster instead of shrimp, but I didn't have any lobster on hand) at my favorite restaurant.  Until the restaurant closed, that is.  Now if I want to eat    

"Chicken Genevieve" (which is what the restaurant called it), I have to attempt to make it myself.

I will not give you the recipe because it's kinda labor-intense and I don't want you to hate me when you have to clean up all the pots and pans that you use to prepare the chicken, veggies, shrimp and sauce.  Not to mention all the juggling while you're trying to stir all those pots at the same time.

But when I was julienning (sheesh, is that even a word?) the veggies I was thinking that it's about time I blogged about another favorite kitchen tool!  So here's a potato recipe that uses the mandoline slicer, and it's easy-peasy to make.

Today's Playlist

• "Breakeven"........The Script
• "Jerk It Out"......Caesars
• "Rhythm Of Love"........Plain White T's
• "Everybody Talks"..........Neon Trees
• "Dirty Little Secret".......All-American Rejects
• "Ruby Soho"........Rancid
• "Someday"......The Strokes
• "Rag And Bone"......The White Stripes

Roasted Sliced Potatoes

• 2 pounds russet potatoes, washed and scrubbed
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for greasing the pan
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 slices cooked bacon
• salt and pepper

Gather your ingredients.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Place your butter in a small bowl and microwave on HIGH for about 30 seconds, until melted.

Add the olive oil to the melted butter.

Crush in the two cloves of garlic.

Add some salt and freshly ground pepper.  I added about 1/4 teaspoon of each.  Stir it up and set aside.

Slice your potatoes.  You want them to be about 1/8" thick.

I had six small/medium-sized potatoes and it took me about a minute to slice them using the mandoline.  You just put them in the little round part and hold the pronged piece over them and just glide them back and forth and they are sliced in no time at all.

As people like to say here in Boston, the blade is "wicked shaaahhhp."  It's so sharp that when I put the pieces into my dishwasher I asked my kids not to empty the dishwasher when it was done washing the dishes because I had some really sharp blades in there.

They were like, "Uh, yeah, Mom.........if you insist.  We promise not to empty the dishwasher."  And they were trying to keep a straight face and not laugh at my request.  Telling them not to help out? That's a new one.

As usual, I digress.  Now, back to our recipe.

Drizzle a bit of oil into your pan (I used a 10-inch cast-iron skillet, but any round oven-safe pan will do) and brush it around to cover the bottom and sides of the pan.

Brush a little bit (about a tablespoon) of your butter/olive oil/garlic mixture over the potato slices, just to coat them slightly before you put them in the pan.

Arrange the slices in a circle in the pan.  To do this, just stack a handful of them and put them against the side of the pan and repeat with a couple more handful/stacks and when they are all lined up like dominoes around the pan you just knock them down into a circle.

Then drizzle the remaining butter/olive oil/garlic mixture over the potatoes and use a pastry brush to cover them thoroughly with the oil.

Then roughly chop up your cooked bacon slices.

 Sprinkle the chopped bacon onto the potatoes.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and slightly browned.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!