Apple Chicken Potato Hash

The unique mix of flavors in this dish is suprisingly delicious.  It's a great breakfast or dinner idea.

One of my favorite things about my job is the people that I work with.  Everyone gets along great, and we don't have any of the "office drama" you hear about from so many people.  We enjoy each other's company and that really makes going to work not-so-bad.

Every Wednesday a group of my co-workers goes out to lunch.  The number of people who go varies, anywhere from just 3 of us, to 7 or 8 people!  We never plan where we're going ahead of time either.  That conversation usually happens around noon.  It goes something like this:

Where do you want to go today?

I don't care, where you want to go?

I don't want to decide!  Who wants to decide?

Then someone will jump in with a couple suggestions or we'll fall back on our "would you rather" game (would you rather have salad or pasta?) until we decide where to go.  It's fun to get out of the office and relax in a non-work environment!

I discovered one of my new favorite restaurants by way of these lunch gatherings.  There's a small strip mall, in the middle of no-where, by my work.  It houses a few convenience stores, an art gallery, a coffee shop, and a couple of restaurants.  One restaurant is called The Biscuit and it seems to be one of the most popular place around.  Except I'd never heard of it until a few months ago!  It is only open through lunch, so perhaps that's why I've never gone (Mike and I typically go out for dinner, not breakfast or lunch.)

Anyway, I've gone twice now with my co-workers and both times I've absolutely loved the dish I've ordered.  They don't have your typical menu items, all their recipes are made with a twist, ingredients I wouldn't think to put together, but it really works.  In fact, I am planning to try to re-create a pancake recipe I recently had there too.

This Apple Chicken Potato Hash was the first item I ordered off their menu.  The combination of ingredients intrigued me and so I thought I'd give it a chance.  I'm so happy I did, because I absolutely loved it.  I was very tempted to order it the next time I went, but went with the aforementioned pancakes instead.

I thought this would be a fun recipe to make at home.  It took a little bit of prep-work to dice up all the potatoes, but Mike helped me out, so the job went quickly.  When I made this meal it had been a long time since I put a lot of effort into cooking, but it was so worthwhile!  Mike and I both enjoyed this meal and the leftovers tasted great too.

Apple Chicken Potato Hash

Serves 6

Ingredients:
2 chicken breasts
1 pound thick cut bacon (mine had black pepper on it)
2 large potatoes
2 large sweet potatoes
2 apples, peeled and cored
Gouda cheese

1.  Dice chicken into bite size pieces.  Cook over medium heat in a large skillet until the outsides are golden brown.  The chicken doesn't have to be fully cooked yet.  Remove chicken from skillet and set aside.

2.  Dice bacon into bite size pieces.  Cook over medium heat in the same skillet as the chicken until the bacon is crisp.  Remove the cooked bacon, but leave enough grease to cover the bottom of the skillet.

3.  Cut the potatoes and apples into bite sized cubes.  I recommend doing this while the chicken and bacon are cooking.  Using a chopper like the Vidalia Chop Wizard makes dicing easier!

4.  Add the diced potatoes to the skillet and cook over medium heat.  Stir occasionally and cook until the potatoes soften and turn brown.

5.  Add the apples, chicken, and bacon to the skillet.  Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the apples are soft and the chicken is fully cooked.

6.  Grate Gouda over the hash before serving.

I served the hash with some eggs, and a biscuit with Blackberry Jam!