recipe review: baked potatoes with sausage & arugula sauce

so i was talking to k last night about the surplus of potatoes currently in the kitchen, and i might have joked about finding something to do with them that didn't involve turning all of them into mashed potatoes. not that i'm against mashed potatoes, mind you. i love mashed potatoes. mashed potatoes are proof that god loves me & wants me to be happy and fat.

but i digress just a bit. i decided to check my recipe folder on my computer for recipes that involved potatoes. don't ask me how many results came up, though. it's almost embarrassing.

this recipe, though, seemed like a winner. my usual rule of thumb is that if i like all of the ingredients in a recipe, then i will probably like the finished product. i was right with this one.

here are my changes/substitutions: i used mild italian sausage - pork, not turkey, b/c that's what was available at the meat counter when i went to the store. i used a bag of a spinach and arugula blend instead of all arugula or all spinach. regular readers know that i rarely measure garlic, and this was no exception since i was working with pre-minced garlic. let's say i used, oh, i don't know, a tablespoon or so? something like that? yeah. oh, and i bought shredded parmesan cheese instead of grated b/c i only wrote "parmesan cheese" on my shopping list and didn't realize my error until i was about to start cooking. oh, and i skipped the parsley. tomato-basil sauce and not marinara. the end.

i am SO making this again. i would put this sauce on top of some garlic bread and be a happy girl. 

i should note, though, that the 5 y.o. was not a fan of this, primarily b/c they're not a spinach fan. more for the rest of us.

also, y'know how sometimes a recipe says it serves 4 and you call bullshit afterward b/c it serves way more or way less than that in real life? this one actually yields 4 servings. period. no leftovers. still nom, though.

b/c i think we could all use a little levity right about now

and yes, this is another one of my "o hai here's a video b/c i can't manage to produce actual content right now" posts. i will hopefully catch up on writing within the next week or so, assuming that the world stops being fucking insane. until then, though, i give you crazy uncle joe earning my undying love and affection all over again, with the proverbial tip of the hat to sjb for the link:

yet another update on frank and ethel

yes, frank and ethel, the couple i talked about in my most recent post. i saw ethel at work today and that was pretty much the highlight of my day. i had to laugh b/c not even 30 minutes before ethel came in, i was talking to my co-worker about how i still hadn't seen frank & ethel recently. my guess was that they skipped their usual friday visit b/c we opened late due to a staff development meeting.

this afternoon, i'd gone in the back to work on something and as i was coming back to the desk, i saw ethel in line. my co-worker was about to call her over until she realized i was back and thankfully decided to let me catch up with ethel. both frank and ethel are fine. ethel was taking advantage of the relatively nice weather today and said that she'd be back on friday and was hoping she wouldn't see me b/c i need to play hooky and not be there every week (seriously, from her lips to god's ears). i said that i'd been hoping that we could close the library early today so everyone could take their books and go outside and read, but until then, i was stuck at work.

so, yeah. i got to spend a few minutes chatting with one of my favorite patrons and therefore today did not suck. and in case you missed it, i'm back in chicago as of yesterday, so really, this weekend was pretty spectacular. here's hoping the week maintains this current level of "yay."