I love a good baked potato with cheese, salt, pepper, sour cream and lots of butter. I also love scattered, smothered, covered and diced!

There’s no such thing as a favorite potato dish. They are all equally fabulous. The potato is the greatest gift the world has ever given to mankind When I was a kid I would always offer to do the dishes when we had potatoes so I could eat all the leftovers. Wait, I still do.

My VERY FAVORITE way to fix potatoes is to slice them thinly and then slice a big onion and fry them together in a mixture of olive oil and butter. Used to use bacon grease, but rarely have bacon any more. Don’t do this as much as I used to do, but still just love them.
Then, of course, there are scalloped potatoes and baked potatoes, and potato soup (which I make once a month in the winter time.
I just love potatoes.

Potatoes are my friends. Do you ever get hungry and don’t know what you want? When that feeling comes to me, I bake or microwave a potato and spoon out some of it and mix with “whatever I have handy that tempts my tastebuds”, add some salt and ground calico pepper and a big pinch of Nutritional Yeast (because I should NOT have dairy). Then I repack the potato and reheat it and get busy with a spoon and a smile!

I really enjoyed your comments on my beloved potatoes!….

I love potatoes but my favorite way to eat them Is baked. Not microwaved but baked. Yum. It makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Ah, Rebekah, so many wonderful things to create with potatoes! You hit on so many, but not one of my favorites – potato soup! Nothing is better (to me) on a cold rainy day then a big bowl of potato soup. Dress it up with shredded cheese, green onion and bacon. YUM!!

I’m a country girl from Texas and potatoes have always been a favorite part of our meals. We could eat them every meal is some form or other. I have two favorite forms, although it’s difficult to decide!! Haha!! I love crunchy hash browns fried in a cast iron skillet, crunchy on both sides and soft in the middle. Then for a very quick dinner, I enjoy a kind of potato hash, I call it. One or two large potatoes, scrubbed with the skins on, sliced thin in round pieces, cut from one end and keep slicing until finished; then one or two carrots, peeled and cut in round thin slices, one large onion, cut in thin circles. Have melted grease in medium size cast iron skillet, I use bacon grease or corn oil, two to three tablespoons. When grease is ready to sizzle, not fry hot, pour in all veggies, add salt and pepper to taste, stir a little to coat all veggies, put a cover on and steam and gently brown until tender and some pieces are crunchy. Delicious!!! For a variation, chop German sausage is small circles and add half way through cooking. Delicious!! This “one pan supper” is a hefty amount and will feed a group of people. Add s salad on the side (and ketchup for those who like it) and dinner is done in about 20 minutes.
Thank You for giving us the chance to share our favorite potatoes!! I also love them in every other possible way!! Lol!!
Ohhhhhh, I DO love your writings in Mary Janes Farm Magazine!! I never miss them!! ♥️

My husband discovered Jacket Potatoes on a business trip to England and I love them. Basically a stuffed baked potato with butter, baked beans and shredded cheese. I was very skeptical about the beans but I love them.

So glad the comment thing is fixed. Thought maybe you didn’t want any on your post LOL. Anyway, I love baked potatoes loaded with real butter, sour cream, green onions/chives, shredded cheese and then sometimes cheese sauce all by itself. Fattening for sure, but oh, so comforting. The potato is ‘the comfort food’ for when you need to be comforted. I love to make potato salad in the summer for our cookouts. I also love to eat the potato wedges my sister-in-law, Laura makes. Oh so yummy. French Fries and Hamburgers another favorite. Mashed potatoes once in a while, roast potatoes with pork, carrots, onions, and celery is a favorite crock pot meal. So many things you can do with potatoes, I make home made hash browns, fried potatoes and onions, potato soup with bacon is a favorite winter meal. And when I get a bag of potatoes and don’t use them before the eyes appear and the sprouts start, I will use them to plant in the ground by cutting pieces with eyes and plopping them down in the hole I make in a mound of soil. So versatile is the potato and easy to grow, and home grown potatoes really do taste best. Small ones are great for dicing and frying without removing the skin. Well, here’s to the Potato. Thanks for posting this one, so entertaining.

I love potatoes and enjoyed years of fresh ones when we lived in southern Idaho. We could follow the machine diggers and fill lots of bags of them. Some were so big, one would make mashed potatoes for the 7 of us. I love them baked with all the fixings, potato soup, hash browns, and cut in chunks with olive oil drizzled on top and sprinkled with garlic salt, onion powder and dried herbs and baked in the oven. And of course, mashed with sour cream, cream, and lots of butter. Potatoes are food from the Gods!

Potatoes au gratin

5 lb. bag of potatoes pealed and sliced thinly. Diced onion. Sauce mix starting with a rue, adding milk, three cheeses (yellow american, cheddar, and velvetta). Simmer constantly stirring for what seems like an eternity until sauce almost bubbles over. Layer potatoes, onion and cheese sauce several times. Bake @ 375 until tender.

DELICIOUS!

I love potatoes loaded or not. A little truffle oil and salt and pepper is great too but my all time favorite is Colcannon basically mashed potatoes with LOTS of butter and cream and greens mixed in. It is Irish and amazing. I love kale and some green onions mixed in but you can use cabbage. Bacon can be added too. It is a warm comfort food and I like to think the kale makes it healthy…mmmm.

I’ve already commented on facebook but now that this is working I need to add one thing…I love all the beautiful pictures!

Hi Rebekah! Nothing but white snow and layers of ice in my neck of the world. I would love to see the brown dirt, green grass would be wonderful and yearn for little purple flowers. Thank you for sharing yours! Hummmm, I kinda do think we are placed here to live a particular life:(Psalm 139:16 All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.) But since I am not a very good listener and jump before I think or pray first, I’d say I probably have shuffled down the wrong path a few times. But that is what Grace if for. Hope you don’t mind my thoughts on that one question you pondered. P.S. I still don’t like snakes, I always hope something will eat them.

I loved your blog post
I hope you feel the positive vibes from all ya girl folk. I’m learning to embrace change, the planned and unplanned and push myself to do the hard stuff, try and live out love and become stronger as a person and more sure of myself. It’s pushing me out of my comfort zone, but I’m finding as I age that comfort zones can be much like self created prisons. I don’t want this for my life anymore and I don’t want to be held back from all the things I want to do by my fears. So this year I’ve started indoor rock climbing with my son and signing up to do an Oxfam 100 km trail walk race. Life is good when we let go of our own expectations and self implemented limits and fears and embrace everything life gives both the nice and the hard. It’s empoweringim every way. Love how your changing your life to choose to let go of those who detract from your life and embrace the love others have fir you and allow it to feed you into all you’ve wanted to do avd enjoy the joy doing all the things you love.

Rebecca, everything you said IS true.,,thank you for such insight, it speaks right into my life…I will embrace this worthy endeavor with an expectancy of freedom. (I like your choice of plate, just my style)

Simply, right up my alley! I am embracing the mediocre in my life. The ordinary, the middle of the road, the adequate. Most everything in my house and wardrobe are second hand, thrift store or rummage sale finds. Not only is it cheaper but reusing and recycling are good for the environment. I love the hunt and then I love imagining the people that previously used and loved the items. Things with a history are so much more interesting and are usually higher quality than the mass produced jumble found in stores. If I ever do buy new, it’s usually something handmade.
Your post reminds me of a favorite passage from “The Velveteen Rabbit”.

” You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. “

Love it!!! Hit the spot perfectly on how I feel about my house and entertaining in it!!!

Love this, it’s perfect. And before I git to the point where you picked your favorite plate I had already picked that exact one. The one next to it with the floral edge was a pattern my daughter’s great grandmother had. We did a similar thing for my daughters bridal shower. Mixed and matched tea cups and luncheon plates on top of unmatched vintage linens and napkins, was lovely. We are getting snow and are in the artic vortex right now. No school for grands and a snow/cold day off from work for me. You would love it, well maybe not the 30+ below zero wind chill… looking forward to spring.

You are absolutely right!! We are all chipped, cracked, and broken…until someone shows their love to us and us to them! I did a Celebration of Life for my “Great” Nephew when he went into remission of T-cell Lymphoma. He was diagnosed at 18 months old. We did mismatch for everything, and made it a farm-style celebration (all while living in a “cookie cutter” house)! Everyone was so excited, looking at the plates, sitting on hay bales, playing limbo, and racing each other in burlap sacs. My nephew (his Dad) stated this was the best party ever!!! The children slept really well that night! 🙂 I gave my china away years before, and have about every color in my plates. Children even notice the plates, and when one accidentally drops a plate and breaks it, I tell them not to worry, just to make sure that they are alright! Parents breathe a sigh of relief! My house is mismatched in everything, and it is always interesting how others respond! I tell them it’s more important that they are here visiting! I have a hanging over the door, “You are my favorite hello, and my hardest goodbye!”

Oh, Rebekah, This post just touched my heart. I loved every bit of it. My house is small. We have raised five children here and now there are 13 grandchildren and four great-grands. I tell everyone not to worry when they come with little ones because if it is not broken, cracked or chipped it is because it can’t be. On holidays they all want to come “home’ even though we hardly move. Now some of my cousins want to join us because it is so much fun. “As-is” is definitely the way to be. There is no alcohol, drugs nor tobacco just a lot of well worn furniture, good food and lots of fun and laughter. Thank you so much for sharing. I totally agree.

I can tell you my grandparents and great grandparents didn’t give two hoots if anything matched! Our most memorable moments were spent in their homes too!

you brought a smile to my face reading this! oh and yes, I have a close relative that nothing I do or even say is right, so I can totally understand what you were talking about. thankfully that relative now lives over 2000 miles away. 🙂 but I have a lot of mismatched things in my house and I love them because I know they were once loved by someone else and now they are loved by ME!

Your post spoke to my heart. My headspace and heart have been lately all about embracing the imperfect. Perfection is an illusion and unattainable. Being my best self with a heart a full of love and spreading that love both within my home and out of it is my focus. We haven’t had our friends round our place ever, we rent, and have all the mismatched decor. But after reading your post I’m thinking it’s time to just invite our friends and enjoy their company, freeing myself from the pressure of appearances and embracing life as it is, as I am, chipped avd broken and scarred.
I drive our old rusty beaten up Ute and I love it, why, because it’s just like me – perfectly imperfect. I’m also reading now a book on embracing me as I am now, with no expectations of trying to turn back the clock, but accepting my body changes, mental and life’s seasons I’m in Now.
Thank you and I picked out the same plate as you – great minds think alike . Here’s to happier days embracing our wonderful lives as is.

I love the pewter plate along with historical ladder back chairs must be in wood and stained or with milk paint. I love primitive/antique furniture and accessories in our home. l am bless to have old quilts/paintings, etc. I also have reproductive furniture pieces. I always say the home reflects the owners as they decorate. I grew up with these items and have a great love for them still. I really enjoyed your column today. thank you for reaching out to all of us with many fond memories of our lives. Sincerely, Winnie Jackson

I love this! I put the pressure for everything to be “perfect” on myself. I have been trying to let that go the last few years, and be OK with that. It’s a process…

Beautiful. 🙂

Hickory nuts ARE good to eat! My MIL used to make a ‘hickory nut pie’, just like pecan. But we always had to be careful, because she couldn’t see really well and we’d get the shell pieces in our pie! Great memories.

My favorites are cashews. I keep some in a jar ready to pop a few in my mouth when I’m hungry for a snack so I don’t reach for the cookies instead (well, most of the time). P.S. As a cat lover, all cats are beautiful to me!

I have a question, you mentioned that you buy nuts in shell from produce department and you roast those. Can you tell me about that? Thank you!

My favorite….Walnuts, Brazil nuts, then almonds… 🙂 I think the long skinny pecans, I say Pa Cons too, are considered Native Pecans…I think…thanks for sharing the recipes…I’m gonna try some. Be Blessed. Neta

Pecans are my favorite, since forever. I’ve never had hickory nuts. Everything else can line up in whatever order, just behind the pecans. I love nuts. ALL of them, even walnuts, which it turns out I’m allergic to. So I can’t eat those anymore or I’ll get blisters all over my mouth and throat. Is that an allergy or a “reaction?” Dunno, but the result is the same – I can’t eat ’em.

That’s okay though, because pecans are the perfect substitute! BTW, I say pa-cans, too. And while they are my favorite, there is no doubt that I eat more peanuts (as in peanut butter) than any other nut or legume. I buy the bulk nuts at Whole Foods and grind them in the store. No salt, sugar, or extra oil that way, which is essential for a husband with kidney disease. Not that I need any of that stuff either.

I’m so glad it’s autumn! Time for pa-can pie!

I’m a nut for nuts! My all time favorite are cashews, salted of course. We have a local peanut shop downtown. And they sell broken cashews at a discounted price. If we’re buying for ourselves we go for the broken ones. They all taste the same,right? And your new kitty is beautiful! We have a black cat that looks just like yours whose name is Binx.

I love love nuts especially cashews, peanuts – honey roasted with salt ..mmm, walnuts. Almonds don’t sit so well with me unfortunately tho they are very good fir you, as are Brazil nuts tho I always go fur my favourite nuts over them each time.
I find it difficult to find the bags of nuts at the store over here these days, but do buy them and love them when I do find them. Your receipes Sound awesome and I’m going to make them with store bought raw nuts, I’ll let you know how they turn out.
Black cats and Halloween … purrfect timing .

Any nut sitting in front of me ready to eat.

I’m not a big nut fan overall but I love making things with nuts. If I’m eating them plain cashews are the way to go. I love candied pecans.

Oh, now you know the charm of Ireland! Both my husband’s and mine were from Ireland where we were privileged to go in 1991. Your pictures brought back so many wonderful memories. We stayed at Bed and Breakfast places mostly in the middle of Ireland. The brogue comes to naturally to my tongue that I had to watch myself not to answer in that way. We didn’t visit large cities just small ones like Galway and Wicklow. People were so natural and friendly and real. No pretense there! We watched them cut peat, visited the Cliffs of Mohr, and sat in a farm house with a family who just invited us in for a visit. As you found in Northern Ireland so we found in that small village farm house there are still feelings of bitterness against the British and how they handled the Great Famine. But what a lovely. lovely people and country. SO glad you got to go and experience first hand the Emerald Isle!

Oh Rebekah … I love your post. My paternal grandfather came from Ireland in 1906. I talk with my cousins over there to this day and they want me to visit. I’m scared to death to fly. Your post makes me want to experience all that you have experienced. I hope I get the nerve! Thanks for all the great pictures! Carol

I’m so happy you were able to go to Ireland it is on my bucket list of places to go. Thanks for sharing

Rebekah, Thank you for this post. I feel like I was there with you. I have many ancestors from Ireland. It is such a beautiful country.
Marilyn

Thank you for sharing your journey. It looks lovely and I learned so much, like a history lesson. So happy that you were able to go there and see so many wonderful sights. Amazing photos. Thanks again.

Oh how I LOVE Ireland, my ancestors are from Ireland and we were blessed to go there years ago..I LOVED every bit of it..I love their sayings, we were fortunate and got to visit the Waterford Factory, The Belleek Factory, and Cliffs of Moher, Ring of Kerry, and so many more places…just Beautiful…and I too was afraid of flying but my husband made it easy, he told me these wise words….”either you will get to Ireland like you have always wanted, or if the plane blows up you will get to see Jesus face to face…” made it so much easier,,,you see we went 3 weeks after 911…

Absolutely lovely! The feeling of peace permeates in each photo. Thank you for the visit.

I live out in the country, too, and I love the quiet even though it’s a different kind of quiet. With the frogs in the pond, making their own kind of music, the horses munching in the pasture, the coyotes yelping in the forest. The train’s whistle from 8 miles away. Love your posts!

Rebekah, Your writing is so descriptive I can see, feel and smell your 3:48 am jaunt. I have taken my dog out in the middle of the night and have been in just as much awe as you are. Sometimes I just sit on my porch and stare at the moon. There is something so peaceful and haunting in the dark night. Thank you for sharing your sleep deprived night with us.

I found being outside in the middle of the night very calming, quiet and peaceful. I live in the country. I just loved the quiet. Looking up at the sky. Seeing the beautiful stars.
When I looked up I spoke to both of my passing family members. Saying hello and a quick prayer as I talked to them. I think everyone should experience this time of night. One experience that you won’t forget. Just a delight to do. Why not with kids as well. If someone goes camping they could do this experiment with the folks you are with. Perhaps not quite as quiet if there are party people around. You want a place that is less traveled.
Try this you will not be sorry. Winnie Jackson

Just thank you.

4:15am.
Magical and welcoming. No traffic. Just the lonesome sound of a locomotive making it’s way up the Cajon Pass. Myself and the dogs were the only ones awake, still to early for birdsong. Loved it!

I love purple lilacs, too! They were my mother’s favorite. We had two bushes growing in our backyard in Queens (we actually had a yard which I understand was eventually paved over for more parking a few years ago, alas). Here in upstate New York they burst out in multitudes after the seemingly never-ending winter finally did end and spring exploded into summer-like weather. There is nothing I like more than to be outside at night with the moon and listen to the night creatures going about their business.

Love, love this post. I could feel myself visibly relaxing as I pictured your night time adventure. What a blessing it is to live in a quiet place and feel the peace that nature can bring in this hurry-up, noisy world. I have been a country girl all my life and I am so thankful for that gift. Keep on writing from your heart!

Thank you for sharing your super talent! I am sure I was right there beside you. It so reminded me of ‘the farm life’ I once lived. My how you have grown. God bless.

Rebekah, this post reminds me of my younger days when I also lived on a farm (sort of). I love fireflies aka lightning bugs here of which they are few and far between and stars, so many stars in the night sky it is awesome but not so much if there are lights all around. I love the night sounds, and at my friend’s house we sit on the porch at night and hear the frogs, pond and tree, and the full moon peeking through dark drifting clouds and it is so lovely I stare at it for so long my friend asks me how I can do that. I say, “because I love it” and I sigh because I would love to live where I had a porch and frogs, and lightning bugs, at least more than the few I see now, and as for being awake at 3:48 in the morning, well, it happens often at my age, and I take the time to say a few prayers, because I think God is listening more at that time of the morning. But the peace that floods your soul if you have the luxury of a porch, a pond and trees with frogs and a breeze that whispers through the leaves, there is just nothing to compare it to. And I miss one more thing of the night and that is the sound of the whippoorwill I used to hear when I lived on the farm in New York State. Thanks so much for this post and keep on posting as so many of us love to read them.

Beautiful post. I am contemplating buying a little piece of land in the country. I am not going to lie, I am scare of all of the things you mentioned.

I am working on finding my courage.

Thank you for your post.

This is a very nice journal entry. Thank you so much for sharing. Life is so wonderful! Everyone should slow down and contemplate and be thankful. Thank you so much. I hope you were able to take a nap the next afternoon.

I love going out at night. It’s a different world, peaceful and alive at the same time. There are hundreds of lightning bugs in the back yard. Some nights they alight on my very large tulip tree and it looks like they decorated it for early Christmas. Its one of the many things I love about summer. Sometimes there is an owl out there letting me know he or she is there hunting.

Far out song. I’m in for the May YOU challenge. Thanks for the invite. Drinking lemon juice and tea as we speak with lemon from our own indoor tree. Learning to draw and speak Spanish just because I want to.

Those strawberries look delicious. The weather here in new York has been hot 90 degrees.
Marilyn

Well im still waiting for sunshine..just when you think your going to get it..it rains. Just get over snow and we have to deal with the winds…and rain…im tired of weather fluctuations and dreary sky’s . Can someone please send me some sunshine?

Far out song. I’m in for the May YOU challenge. Thanks for the invite. Drinking lemon juice and tea as we speak with lemon from our own indoor tree. Learning to draw and speak Spanish just because I want to.

Those strawberries look delicious. The weather here in new York has been hot 90 degrees.
Marilyn

Well im still waiting for sunshine..just when you think your going to get it..it rains. Just get over snow and we have to deal with the winds…and rain…im tired of weather fluctuations and dreary sky’s . Can someone please send me some sunshine?