Ranch Roasted Potatoes

I know that lots of you have probably had roasted potatoes. But since we eat lots of steak and potatoes around here, I’m always looking for new ways to spice them up. And since I’m 65 miles from the nearest WalMarts well, I have to sometimes be creative- if I’m out of the things I typically use.

I’m going to show you the basis of the dish, and then you can take it and run with it.  I do things differently when I have different ingredients on hand, but the idea of the dish is the same.

Here’s what we’ll need to get started:

About 5 medium sized, Red potatoes (note, I had red and gold, as that is what my future sister-in-law shared out of her garden, but I believe red potatoes to be better for roasting. It’s the texture folks.)

5 TBS Olive Oil

Fresh Ground Salt

Fresh Ground Pepper

Onions (minced or fresh)- yellow onions are really the right thing to do. I promise.

Garlic (minced or fresh)

Hidden Valley Ranch Seasoning

Bacon (optional)

Trust me,though,  you’ll want to add bacon. Bacon makes all things taste yummier. (Please note- I was out of both bacon and fresh onion for purposes of this lesson. I apologize. I need to get to the store!)

Begin by taking that tasty, freshly washed potato and cutting in half, length-wise.

And then cut into half again.

Now place all those sliced potatoes into a bowl and add your olive oil, along with about 4 tablespoons of Ranch Dressing Mix.

Give it a good stir and make sure to coat the potatoes with the olive oil seasoning mixture really well.

Then, since we don’t have any fresh onion, we’ll substitute in some dried minced onion.

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Sprinkle in about 4-6 tablespoons. Don’t be shy. Do it! If we’d used real onion, I’d have had you put in about 2/3 of a cup.   But we’re improvising today!

Look how lovely it is:

Now throw in some garlic powder or minced garlic, or fresh. Whatever you have on hand. Fresh is best. But I don’t have any so I used some minced garlic that came out of the icebox. Two teaspoons should do it.  Add your freshly ground salt- more than you think you’ll need and some fresh ground pepper. If we had bacon, this would be the time we’d add 3 diced slices, of the salty goodness and then you could sprinkle in less salt.

Let’s put the mixture in a 9×13 casserole dish. You’re gonna wanna roast this goodness for about 25 minutes in a 425 degree oven.

About half-way through the roasting you’re gonna wanna stir this around.

When it’s done, it should look something like this:

Can you say yum? We like to serve it with fresh grated cheddar or Monterrey Jack cheese, sour cream, and chives on top. But you could serve it however you wanted. And there’s nothing wrong with serving it just like that. Because it’s all kinds of good on its own.  So next time you’re bored with plain old potatoes, try roasting some. I promise you’ll be glad you did!

Have fun in the kitchen-