Roasted Red Flannel Hash

I had a bit of a scare this week. While trying to update some software on my computer I somehow inadvertently lost the ability of view any of my photos. At first it was a minor issue, a mere annoyance that I had written this blog post and now I wouldn't be able to post it because I couldn't attach the photos I had taken.

But then reality set in. I realized that every photo I had taken in the last five years was on my computer and I had quite possibly lost them all. There were very few that I had actually made into prints. That means practically every photo and video I have taken since my child was born was gone.

I very rapidly went from annoyed to absolutely panicked. It took all of my willpower not to rush to the college, pull my husband out of class to come home immediately and fix what I had done. By the time he got home that evening I was a wreck. He assured me that it was a fixable problem and I had not flushed every photo of our child down the drain.

A week later with some help from my new best friend Joseph, the university's tech guru, and the foresight of my brilliant husband to back everything up on an external hard drive, we are back in business.

As the photos were downloading back onto the computer from the hard drive last night we sat there and watched as the last five years of our lives flew by. There's our wedding, me pregnant, Louisa's birth, when we moved, that vacation we took, her first steps, Christmas, at the beach, with Grandma, all happening in warp speed. Literally our life flashing before our eyes.

Photos capture details about your life that memories tend to leave out.  They let you relive the past, peek into lives lived a week ago or ten years ago, remember who you were and how far you've come. To loose all that is something I never imagined would happen, until for a week, it did.

Roasted Red Flannel Hash
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Adapted from CHOW.com

Makes 6 servings

8 ounces bacon, diced
6 medium red potatoes, about 2 pounds, large diced
5 large beets, about 2 1/2 pounds, peeled and large diced
1 onion, diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
6 large eggs

1. Heat oven to 450°F and arrange rack in the middle. Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat and add bacon. Cook until browned and crisp, about 10-15 minutes.

2. Combine potatoes, beets, onion, and garlic in a large bowl and season generously with salt and pepper. Add browned bacon and any bacon grease to vegetables and toss to combine. Transfer to a large roasting pan and roast in oven until vegetables are tender and browned, about 50 minutes, stirring halfway through.

3. Remove from oven and make 6 indentations in the vegetable mixture. Crack an egg into each indentation, season eggs with salt and pepper and return pan to oven. Cook eggs to desired doneness (the ones in the photo above took about 5 minutes) and serve.