Normally, I shy away from such solicitations.

But the PR firm’s e-mail said the product it is lobbying me to promote is among the foods being featured this weekend at Vegfest, a celebration of vegetarian cooking at the Seattle Center’s Exhibition Hall.

Vegfest sounds like it might be worth checking out. Here’s a link to a Web site that tells all you need to know.

A variation of that recipe included chopped poblano and habanero peppers.

Now the habanero is one of the hottest peppers, and it can be many hundreds of times hotter than a jalapeño.

Don’t touch your eyes (or any mucus membrane) until after washing well.

Even better, wear disposable latex gloves, the kind that hospital and EMS workers wear.

When I’m on duty for South Whatcom Fire, I wear gloves whenever I’m handling food such as peppers, onions or garlic that might leave an unpleasant odor on my hands – just in case I have to drop dinner prep and run out to see a patient.

“Hot pan, cold oil, food won’t stick.”

Incidentally, I called it a Mexican sausage, but I neglected to mention its roots in Spain and Portugal, where it’s a fermented sausage that gets its color from dried smoked red peppers.

In that post, I mentioned a recipe that I’ve been playing with lately. I hope you like it; it’s been a hit around South Whatcom Fire’s Station 22. It’s from a little cookbook my wife got me for our 15th anniversary, only I can’t remember the title and author.

For the sausage, I’ve been favoring the Soy Chorizo at Trader Joe’s ($1.99), but Isernio’s and Hempler’s make good pork versions with very little fat. When you can find it, Haggen and the Community Food Co-op occasionally make their own sausage in bulk, without a casing.

Chorizo and potatoes

Ingredients
1 pound chorizo
2-3 medium potatoes (russet or Yukon Gold), diced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. oregano
salt and pepper

Directions
Warm a cast-iron skillet over medium heat, and add olive oil. Add the potaoes and fry until about half done, turning so they don’t stick.

Add oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Add chorizo and fry until potatoes are done.

Serve with salsa, guacamole (see recipe at this blog), chopped cilantro and warm flour or corn tortillas.

Variation 1
Increase olive oil to 3 Tbsp. and add 1 chopped medium onion and 2 crushed garlic cloves before adding the potatoes.

Add one chopped poblano pepper and one diced habanero pepper and fry over medium-low until onions begin to turn translucent. Then increase heat to medium, add potatoes and follow rest of recipe.

Variation 2
Once the recipe is complete, pour in 4-6 scrambled eggs. Do not stir, simply reduce heat to low, cover and let the eggs set. Spread top with grated jack cheese, if desired.

Northwest chef and food writer Greg Atkinson dishes on his love for the spud, and discusses his recipes for Psychedelic Mashed potatoes, Potato Cinnamon Rolls and Halibut Wrapped in Yukon Gold.

You can find a podcast of the show at kuow.org.

By the way, KUOW is at 90.3 locally and 94.9 if you’re closer to Seattle.

You can find out more about Atkinson and potatoes at the West Coast Cooking site.