Week 13: Oven Roasted Red Potatoes and Asparagus

Vegetable(s): Potatoes, Asparagus


 


Potatoes! I haven't done potatoes yet! Here's the recipe I picked:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds red potatoes, cut into chunks

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced (I completely forgot about the garlic and didn't miss it at all)

• 4 teaspoons dried rosemary

• 4 teaspoons dried thyme

• 2 teaspoons kosher salt

• 1 bunch fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces

• ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large baking dish, toss the red potatoes with 1/2 the olive oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, and 1/2 the kosher salt. Cover with aluminum foil.
3. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Mix in the asparagus, remaining olive oil, and remaining salt. Cover, and continue cooking 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Remove foil, and continue cooking 5 to 10 minutes, until potatoes are lightly browned. Season with pepper to serve.

Prepping

My favorite knife (Carnado from Hugo Pott)

Almost done!

Apart from leaving out the garlic, I followed the recipe to a letter. It turned out quite wonderful, the potatoes were brown and crisp (our daughter ate a slice that looked like a potato chip and about 1/4 inch of asparagus), the asparagus was not mushy, the spices came together very well. My original plan had been to serve the potatoes with a fried egg, but in the end, I thought just the potatoes were enough. The recipe was supposed to serve 4-6, but we polished it off a deux. (We were hungry.)


Verdict: 9/10 (for me), 8/10 (for the family) -- I rate it very high because it's inexpensive, very easy to make, there aren't too many ingredients, and it tasted quite wonderful, crunchy and soft, and the kitchen smelled of rosemary. I can see that others might consider this a side dish, but for me, it was a meal.