recipe: fingerling potatoes

The past three weeks have been spent lazing around my (later) childhood home and with my family at the beach. It's been wonderful and now I'm getting ready to spend a week traveling the East Coast (upstate New York, The City, DC and then Richmond) before leaving for the west coast. Two days ago, Partner-in-Crime found us a place so now only the actual moving my things across the country by large truck is left. I'm not sure that I'll have time for writing much over the next few weeks but there are few posts schedule and the Tumblr will be tumbling for quite a while. So my online existance will go on while I barrel down I-80W.

In order to add value to this post and avoid two imageless posts in a week, I give you an entirely simple recipe for roasted fingerling potatoes. I love all potatoes but I am partial to fingerlings. Not just because tomorrow at 7am, technically today, I leave for the Finger Lakes and old Cornell.

[Sliced fingerlings]

[Roasted fingerlings]

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Slice potatoes lengthwise, typically into thirds. Roughly 6 potatoes per person.
Toss with olive oil and rosemary.
Roast at 450 for 20 minutes or until the edges are crisp and the centers puffy.

quick pic: skip the eggs

but I want these.

[Heavy on the bacon and potatoes, please]

Originally found on Kitchen Travels.

get your vitamins

My local grocery store doesn't always have the best vegetables so when I went in Sunday to find easy parking (rare) and great looking broccoli rabe (say what?!) I was so excited to get it. I knew I wanted it sauteed with red pepper flakes. I'd never cooked broccoli rabe before so I did a quick google search and found exactly what I was looking for!


I didn't want the broccoli rabe cut so short, so I just trimmed the edges and left it. It turned out just as I hoped. The rabe was still crisp and fresh tasting while still coated in delicious delicious oil.

I paired it with roasted potatoes (red and yellow potatoes cubed, tossed with olive oil and salt and roasted for 40 minutes in a 400 degree oven) and a nice red. Perfect easy meal for a day when winter is becoming spring.

snowed in recipes

My roommate and I did not really prepare for the past weekend's snowstorm that kept me home all weekend. Wednesday we had a conversation that went like this:

Roomie: What else should I get at the store?
Me: Um... wine. potatoes? more pasta. milk.

Thursday I picked up a few more things but the local Krogers was going crazy so I grabbed random things, couldn't find most of what I wanted and bolted. Friday night roommate was out and I was trying to decide what to make. I had a craving for scalloped potato despite Krogers was out of rosemary. I also really wanted to use my mandoline. Finally! So I used this recipe that was in my Epicurious recipe box with some adaptions. Namely, I added bacon. Potatoes and bacon are two of my favorite things, after all. I estimated reductions to make a single serving, having no idea how to take a recipe in pounds of potatoes and translate that into one potato.

Ingredients
1 medium russet potato
2 garlic cloves, peeled, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
sea salt & pepper
2 slices bacon, chopped
grated Parmesan cheese
butter (about 1 tablespoon)

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Place garlic cloves and cilantro in bottom of prepared baking dish. Combine cream, coarse salt, and white pepper in large bowl.

Using V-slicer or mandoline, thinly slice potato into rounds. Immediately add potatoes to bowl with cream mixture, turning to coat potatoes. Arrange potato slices evenly over in baking dish, reserving cream mixture in bowl. Repeat layering with remaining fennel slices, then remaining potato slices. Pour cream mixture in bowl over potatoes in baking dish. Toss any remaining garlic and cilantro on top. Dot with butter cubes.*

Bake scalloped potatoes until almost tender when pierced with knife, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Top with bacon and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Increase oven temperature to 425°F.Bake until potatoes are tender and top is deep golden brown, about 20 minutes longer. Remove from oven and let rest 15 minutes.

*I did not dot mine with butter, but doesn't that sound delicious.

It didn't come out just like scalloped potatoes but was crunchy on top and deliciously creamy on the bottom. A solid experiment and one that I'll replicate in the future! Enjoy!

apologies for the lack of posting

I blame it (again) on my camera. I documented several things without my memory card in and now cannot transfer those images onto my computer to share. So here are a few updates with borrowed photographs/ no photographs.

So last weekend (same day as Ben's Chili Bowl, in fact- I should have worried more about nutrition) I decided to make a snack/dinner that is rather wintery- Panfriend Smashed Potatoes from Gourmet via Epicurious. I had made these once before. I loved them, though my boyfriend got creeped out watching the amount of oil you use to cook them. An important thing here is patience. You really need to let the potatoes fry up nicely or they will be greasy. I was a little impatient this time and they were not as tasty as the first time I made them.

Tonight I made a healthier dinner. I was in charge of cooking for the house and after finding a good deal on basil at the grocery decided to make pesto. I more or less made up the recipe as I went, blending the pesto in a blender instead of a food processor due to our limited kitchen appliances. A key to that was going slowly and starting off with a much higher proportion of olive oil and then slowly adding the greens. All in all I used about 7 cups of basil, 4 cups of spinach, 1.5 cups of toasted pine nuts, 2 bulbs of garlic, salt and pepper to taste and olive oil to get the right consistency. Everyone loved it, though it was very garlic-y. I pour this over 3 boxes of pasta. Because we have a few vegans in the house, I just put Parmesan on the side but it would have been nice to blend it in. I'm very excited to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!