Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients

• 3-4 medium potatoes
• 1 small onion, or less
• 2-4 cloves of garlic
• 2-4 T. butter
• 2-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• salt & pepper, optional
• Old Bay seasoning, optional

Directions

Melt butter in a medium bowl. Chop the onion and garlic very finely and add to butter. Remove rosemary leaves from stem and chop finely as well. Add rosemary to butter and stir everything. Use whatever type of potato (or a mix) and cut into bite size chunks. Sprinkle desired amount of salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning on potato pieces then add to bowl. Mix potato chunks in rosemary-garlic butter until well coated and spread in a single layer on baking sheet or roasting pan. Now comes the key to this recipe, which I developed from thekitchn.com: ROAST THEM FOR AT LEAST 45 MINUTES! You can use a spatula to flip or mix them halfway through, but don't stop short. They will look nearly burnt-crisp on the outside, and the middle will cook to a perfect fluffy mashed potato type of consistency. Imagine eating fried potato wedges and mashed potatoes combined in one bite. Pretty fuckin A, man. 

Cookout with Av and Mick

word to your mother

Avniel decided to drive out to Pittsburgh for a visit this weekend and we ended up assembling an epic cookout feast Saturday night. We got fresh sausage -- 1 pound each of hot Italian and spicy Sicilian -- sweet red peppers, and old style whole grain dijon mustard from Donatelli's in Bloomfield. At the grocery store we picked up all natural chicken thighs, yellow squash, green peppers, and a sweet red onion. I had asparagus, zucchini, and potatoes from the Bloomfield farmer's market, and we used cilantro, oregano, and mint (for mojitos) from the garden.

I skewered and brushed the potatoes with olive oil and Old Bay seasoning: 

Av chopped the onion, green peppers, and squash into large kabob chunks and tossed them with olive oil, coarse sea salt, fresh ground rainbow peppercorn medley, and fresh herbs from the garden. I used my Amazing Sauce on the chicken. 

I sliced the zucchini lengthwise and just brushed it with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

I grilled the asparagus in foil with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and just cooked the sweet red pepper plain and whole on the top rack of the grill. The chicken of course I cooked slowly, turning and re-applying sauce half a dozen times.

I made more mojitos with the mint from the garden.

Crock Pot Roast

ingredients ready for the crock pot

I'm getting ready to load up the crock pot before heading out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day Pittsburgh Style. Well, hopefully I personally won't be celebrating in the full Pittsburgh vomit-inducing, public-urination style tradition. I've actually only been "out" for St. Patrick's Day once in Pittsburgh. It was moderately fun. 

But anyway the point is to load up the crock pot with a nice hearty meal for when we come back. We have some nice pieces of steak that I browned. I cut up a few potatoes and carrots and a couple stalks of celery. I made a low sodium chicken based broth and spiced the steaks very simply with onion salt and gourmet white pepper.

All loaded up!

It's all ready for assembly as desired, and then we'll have a delicious meal waiting when we get back later today!!  

Oh, FYI, it's a rather cool, gloomy morning, so I've been listening to James Taylor while prepping this meal, drinking coffee, and Pomeranian snugglin'.

Almost ready!

So, we ended up staying in all day since it was so gloomy out. We both felt like lounging rather than partying. We finally got the crock pot loaded up around 1. Of course we forgot to turn it on until about 2, but that's ok.

After it finished cooking in the crock pot, we strained out the veggies and made amazing gravy with the liquid. It was all delicious!

Yum!