Beer Braised Potatoes

Recently a neighbor gave us some of their extra food: a whole lot of canned veggies, and 10lbs of potatoes. That seemed like a lot of potatoes for the two of us. So I figured we'd better get started going through them. I started flipping through the potato section of Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything". Most of the yummy soups were dairy based and I wasn't in the mood to experiment with a substitute. I think we were all out of soy-milk anyway. In fact, we were out of most things. The only other veggie sitting around was a lone yellow onion.

The recipe for 'Braised Potatoes' seemed simple enough though, and only called for things I had in the kitchen. I didn't know what braised meant before I read the recipe. But, assuming I did it right, this 'braising' thing was pretty delicious. It came out like a kind of thick potato stew.

This is how I did it:

Ingredients: Olive Oil, Potatoes, Onion, Veggie Broth, Beer, Salt, Pepper.

• Scrub and peel your potatoes (I used 6 small-medium all purpose potatoes), and chop them into small-medium chunks. Dice your onion (I used 1 medium onion)
• Heat 3 Tablespoons olive oil over medium heat.Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook until golden, stirring regularly. (This took a lot longer than I expected, around 10 minutes)
• Add the onion, stir and cook til soft (I think this took me 2 minutes?)
• Add 1 can of veggie broth, and then add beer until the potatoes are covered in liquid. (I ended up using half a bottle of Rogue Dead Guy, Ben drank the other half)
•  Simmer for 20-25 minuted uncovered (I let it go for 30 minutes, it didn't look quite right until then)

We served it hot, garnished it with Bacon Bits (they're vegan, surprise!), and ate it while watching Murder on the Orient Express.