Machacha

Muchacha is a butterfly in South Africa; an Asian fruit shaped like a football and orange in color; or, shredded Mexican beef (check out the justapinch.com recipe - it sounds good)...if you can believe the definitions resulting from a Google search. My experience has been with the latter. Rather, a dish inspired by the latter and found on the Ihop breakfast menu.

Until last November, I'd never eaten at an Ihop and the only thing I knew about Ihop was that it was Sam's favorite restaurant and he loved their French pancakes, which were not available at Bob's Big Boy. That's Sam from the movie "I Am Sam." If you haven't watched it, do so. It's a great story. Anyway, over the Thanksgiving holiday last year we drove to Portland, picked up my sister, Jane, at the airport and the next day drove to Clarkston, Washington to celebrate our older sister's super 70th birthday. The second day of our stay, Judy wanted to have breakfast at her favorite restaurant, Ihop. Janie had eaten an an Ihop and told me to try the Machacha as it's the only thing on the menu worth eating. I did and was pleasantly surprised...I liked it!

Since then, we've eaten at Ihop twice in Sacramento and I've created my own version of the Machacha, which I think far surpasses the Ihop version. The base of it is leftover hash...something Verne has been making for the past 30+ years. When in doubt as to what to eat and we're short on time and inspiration, hash is one of our fallback meals. A pound of ground beef, one onion, and two or three large potatoes makes more than the two of us can eat, so there's always leftovers for the next day. Now those leftovers are transformed into a delicious frittata-like breakfast. I quickly fry the hash to reheat it, top it with two or three eggs (whisked), a generous amount of minced green onions and jalapeno peppers (the pickled kind); once the eggs are cooked I finish it with grated cheese and a few more green onions and serve with salsa. This is so good it's worth making hash just to have available for breakfast the next day!