Christmas Potatoes

Christmas Potatoes
Dorcas Annette Walker

Each year stores put out zillions of Christmas items to dazzle customers with new colors, garlands, lights, and tree-toppers. Store aisles are taken over with holiday decorations until it leaves a person floundering to find basic items that have been moved to make way for all the holiday merchandise. Now I enjoy decorating for Christmas and giving gifts, but unfortunately too many times the Christmas season becomes more a hassle than a celebration. Hopefully with the economic crisis folks will one again realize that it doesn't take a lot of fancy decorations and expensive presents to have a meaningful Christmas. Meanwhile my Christmas Potatoes are simple and easy to fix when you get feeling stressed out.

Our best family Christmas had nothing to do with lights or presents. It started when Dwight at eight months old got a mouth bleed that lingered despite numerous trips to the hemophilia clinic to get his factor level raised. The week before Christmas when I checked on Dwight during an afternoon nap, I found my son lying in a pool of blood struggling to breathe as we raced him to the emergency room. He was admitted, given blood, and factor, but the bleeding continued as nursing staff and doctors monitored our lifeless toddler. The head hematologist finally told us that they had contacted the drug administration to see how much factor Dwight's system could handle. He shook his head and said that there was nothing else they could do to stop the bleeding. People everywhere began praying while I sat by my tiny son watching him struggling to breathe as the hours passed. God spared our son's life and two days before Christmas we took Dwight home. Totally exhausted, I spent Christmas day in bed while my active little boy crawled all over me. My husband heated up a can of soup for dinner, but it was the best Christmas ever. I had my son.

My colorful Christmas Potatoes taste like summer with the blend of fresh herbs and seasonings. You can add vegetables, meat, or mix-match herbs to individualize this recipe for your family. These Christmas Potatoes can be prepared on a grill or cooked in a Crockpot and will fit with any holiday menu. This recipe takes ten minutes to prepare and serves six.

Christmas Potatoes

6 large red potatoes
3 tb vegetable oil
1 tb chopped dried or fresh rosemary
1 tsp dried or fresh parsley
1 tb dried or fresh minced onion
1 tb parmesan cheese
garlic & regular salt and pepper

Wash potatoes and cut into wedges. Drizzle the oil over the potatoes and then sprinkle on rosemary, parsley, onion, parmesan cheese, salts, and pepper. Cover and bake at 350º for thirty minutes then uncover and bake for another thirty minutes until the potatoes are lightly browned.

Weekly tip: When baking meats and potatoes line the baking dish first with tinfoil before baking to save on cleanup!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a publisher author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcaswalker@twlakes.net For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com