Over the years, I’ve learned to enjoy cooking. I  found the keys to being a good cook are:

1. access to fresh, quality ingredients
2. good tools such as knives, mixer, cookware
3. easy but tasty recipes

Last Christmas my husband gave me Jaime Oliver’s Cook with Jamie cookbook. No need to get your panties in a wad, I made a request for it.  I’ve made several recipes and here’s one that gets raves every time I make it. Potatoes are starting to come into season here in the West so keep your eyes peeled at the local farmers market (eyes. peeled. potatoes. get it?). Find a Farmer’s Market near you here.

Jamie Oliver’s Rosemary Roasted Cubed Potatoes. Serves 4 -5

Ingredients:

• 1lb 6oz potatoes (I’ve found the small red ones taste best – ’specially if they’re organic) scrubbed and cubed into 1″ pieces
• Sea Salt and freshly ground pepper
• Sprig of fresh rosemary – leaves picked (hell, I just strip them in one fell swoop)
• Olive Oil (the higher quality, the better. I recommend Lodestar Farms here in Butte County)
• 5 cloves of garlic

So, I’ve tweaked this just a bit to make it my own but it’s essentially the same recipe as in the cookbook.

Preheat oven to 425° F.

Put the cubed taters in a pot of cold and salted water (this is key! Be sure to salt the water to get tasty taters at the end. I put three healthy pinches of coarse sea salt in the pot).

Bring to a boil – then immediately turn off and pour into a colander. Don’t rinse. Just let them steam for a few minutes.

On the stove, take a baking pan and warm up a generous drizzle of olive oil.  Take the rosemary and garlic and smash together using a mortar and pestle. If I’ve had a tense day, I find this part particularly enjoyable.  I then add a bit of olive oil to the mortar and use a spatula to get every little aromatic bit out. Mix in the baking pan and continue to warm. Once you have a warm and delightfully aromatic smelling baking dish, carefully pile in the potatoes and mix to coat.

I add a dash of salt and freshly ground pepper on top and then pop, uncovered, into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Once done, remove and devour. Your guests (and their taste buds) will love you forever. I’m not kidding.

Tags: green cooking, jamie oliver, organic ingredients, rosemary potatoes

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.