These smashed skillet potatoes were inspired by a weekend get-away to the backwoods of Mendocino County, California. Let me emphasize that when I say backwoods, I’m not kidding. Imagine – a few miles off the nearest paved road where a high-clearance 4×4 is a necessity. Past numerous cleverly-rigged hydroponic hippie buses (this is clearly where old buses go to die). Beyond a pack of car-chasing, fang-toothed guard dogs, and eventually down into the riverside sanctuary that is my friend Lori Narlock’s cabin.
Before I get into the details of our weekend, I’ll just say (feeling more than a bit guilty), I hardly lifted a finger all weekend – Lori cooked for our cabin of six females, meal after delicious meal. Today I’m going to feature her smashed skillet potato recipe. First, because they were delicious. Second, to demonstrate how equal part thoughtfulness, experience, and prep work can culminate in delicious meals, even under rustic conditions.
How rustic you might ask? As I was packing this was exactly the question I kept asking myself as well. I had a few clues based on the flurry of pre-trip emails – including snippets of information like this:
“The cabin is very rustic. There are two bedrooms with one bed each and then two-single beds in the living room….There is no real electricity. We mostly read, play scrabble, drink copious amounts of beer and wine and gab by day and lantern.”
And then:
“Please bring clogs or other slip on shoes for using at night if you need to
get up and use the loo–there have been a few creepy crawlers show up every now and then.”
I later found out that creepy crawlers=scorpions. Lori’s sister Lisa also chimed in with the following:
“Let me please add that this is not a “Tahoe” cabin, and any slippers or such that you wear around the cabin may very well get filthy – so I would leave your favorite white slippers at home.”
So, if your imagination is prone to run amuck like mine does – I was preparing for a weekend in the rain, in a shack (moon through the slats in the roof, spiders through the gaps in the floorboard), huddled by a stove in a Kaczynski-style shelter. Something along the lines of an overgrown outhouse. I was completely up for it. I mean, there was no tent involved, so this was going to be an upgrade for me any way you look at it. You can imagine my surprise (and delight!) when I walked into this….
The cabin sits on a huge plot of land owned for generations now by the Narlock family. The cabin was built by hand, and an amazing amount of love has gone into it. Pictures of the family line the walls, as well as artifacts various family members have contributed. It’s the kind of place you’re immediately comfortable – complete with wood-burning fireplace, the sound of the river in the backdrop – and the stove! Can you believe the beautiful stove?
Lori put this family treasure to good use over the course of the weekend, but before I get into that, let me back up a bit and say – it’s great to have a host who also happens to be a food writer. I’m sure many of you are familiar with Lori’s work on books like The Food Lover’s Companion to the Napa Valley, The Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country, Smoothies, The Niman Ranch Cookbook , and Cocktail Food. She’s fantastic and talented on every front. Watching the way she pulled together meals for us in the cabin (no electricity, water that takes an hour to boil) was fascinating – and it gave me all sorts of cooking/prep ideas for future “rustic/camping outings”….in part because she was so smart about how and what she prepped before she even got to the cabin.
The Smashed Skillet Potatoes
Lori’s meals were coming together with barely a bead of sweat from her brow (or at least she made it look that way). So I started asking her about some of her tricks for cooking at the cabin. The skillet smashed potatoes were a great example. She pre-boiled the potatoes and brought them that way – In the morning, just before breakfast she smashed them into a big skillet with some olive oil and salt – in a few minutes they were crispy and brown on the outside, hot on the inside, and the perfect complement to the frittata she threw together.
I also have to mention the pasta she made for dinner later that night – outrageous amounts of garlic (in a good way), tons of shredded zucchini, and grated cheese. She’d boiled off the noodles the night before we got the cabin. Do you know how many times I’ve struggled boiling noodles over a camp stove? SO many. Her pasta was delicious – the noodles weren’t mushy or sticky at all. Lori had all sorts of great shortcuts like this that never compromised the end dish.
So, here’s how she made her smashed skillet potatoes. Imagine all the things you could drizzle or sprinkle on them. Thanks for the recipe and the great weekend Lori! I’ll sleep with the scorpions any time…
