Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

If you are a dedicated reader of my blog (all 3 of you) you will remember that I hate potatoes (here too). That's not exactly true. I like potatoes somewhat, I just don't consider them healthy nor do I think of them as a vegetable. As a vegetarian, most of my main dishes either contain a grain- such as pasta, or are served over grains- such as couscous or rice. I don't, therefore, have any room on my plate for potatoes. That being said, if someone is going to serve me fries or mashed potatoes I'm not going to turn them down. I just wouldn't ever choose to make them. I do really like potato salad and I make it every so often but then I eat the whole thing and don't feel very good about myself. So far this summer we have gotten two bags of potatoes from the CSA. At this point they are pretty much still a novelty. If I am accurately remembering the amount of potatoes we got last year, they are soon to become loathsome.

The first batch of potatoes were made into "Burg's Potato Salad" from Orangette's book. I can't remember what was different about it from my own recipe but that's probably because Ron ate most of it before I could my hands on it. I do remember thinking it was a little labor intensive compared to my own which I love and can't stop eating, which is why I never make it (cook the shit out of the potatoes, mix it with mayo and hard-boiled eggs, mash it all up until it's the consistency of mashed potatoes and add lots of salt and fresh dill-- eat it while it's WARM!).

The second batch of potatoes got roasted with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. It's not difficult but it takes an hour to cook and that seems like a silly amount of time to wait for breakfast. The key to roasted potatoes (or any roasted vegetable in my opinion) is to mix the vegetable with olive oil and seasonings in a big bowl BEFORE you put it in your roasting pan. If you do it straight on the roasting sheet you are missing out on really coating the potatoes well. You might have one less dish to clean but you'll miss out completely on flavor and crunchiness. I used my convection oven for this one, setting it to 400 (so it cooked at 375) and cooking them undisturbed for 20 minutes. Then I tossed them every 10 minutes for another 30 minutes (so, 50 minutes all together). Amazingly enough, EVERYONE in my family enjoyed them and begged for more. I don't think there is another food we have ever all eaten at the same time except pizza, which I don't love anyway. Even better, I sat on the back deck with the kids looking at books while we ate the potatoes and it seemed almost relaxing. Imagine that!