Quick Roasted Potatoes

40 min start to finish.

I made these to go with Julian's Chicken.  They only take 40 - 45 min to bake and have a good flavor, but do a fantastic job of absorbing the leftover sauce on your plate when you smash them.  The mustard gives them a background bite that allows them to stand up to the sherry cream sauce on Julian's Chicken.

You'll need;

• 1 - 1.5 pounds of baby dutch yellow potatoes quartered (or fingerlings cut into 1/2 in pcs)
• 1 Tbsp coarse ground mustard
• 2 Tbsp butter (softened)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• (optional) 1 Tbsp chopped chives for color

Although I usually use Baby Dutch potatoes, I went colorful.  Bad move.
Different colored potatoes cook at different rates.  (The purple ones were awesome)

Preheat your oven to 425F and grease/butter/spray a small baking dish (9x9)

Place the quartered potatoes in a bowl and dust with salt and pepper.

Add the mustard, oil, and softened butter.  Add chives if desired.

Stir until the mustard and butter has coated all the surfaces of all the potatoes.

Spread out over the base of the dish making sure that none of the potato faces have adhered to each other.

Place the dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes stirring once halfway through.  Test for doneliness with a fork or paring knife.  It should enter the potato with no resistance.  (Resistance is futile)

Baked (Roasted?) Asparagus

Pee minus 15 minutes...

Asparagus is my favorite green vegetable.  I love the fact that you can time your digestion with it.  Let's not get into a scientific discussion about why some people can smell the asparagus smell and some can't let's just eat!

You'll need;

• A bunch of green asparagus (or other green, skinny vegetable)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil (1 if you are on a diet)
• Coarse kosher salt
• Coarse ground black pepper
• 2 tsp crushed red pepper. (I hope you aren't using the pizza packets . . .)
• A cookie sheet.

Rinse your asparagus and pat dry.

Cut the "woody" dead ends off.

Lay the asparagus parallel on the cookie sheet and drizzle the oil all over.

Roll the asparagus to coat each spear in a little oil.  You can absorb away excess oil with a paper towel.

Sprinkle the salt, pepper and red pepper over the whole shebang.

Preheat to 400F (or so, this isn't rocket surgery).

Put the sheet in the oven for about 8 minutes for the normal, thick spears and more like 6 for the skinny ones.

Pull them out and get them off the cookie sheet.  They will still cook a bit due to the hot oil, but we don't want any help with that.

The asparagus should be soft but not limp.  Take note of the texture when you eat it so you can adjust the time to match your oven.

I love this method because it can be done while you are cooking various other things or during the rest period of a main dish protein.  I have also used flavored olive oils and it was interesting, but not enough to make me change the recipe.

Mashed Potatoes

Get out of the way!  Spud coming through!

What I mean by that is that I think most people make mashed potatoes like they hate potatoes and have to cover up the flavor.  I'd like to taste and feel a bit of potato, thank you.

To that end I rarely add milk to my potatoes, just salted butter, pepper and sometimes a little salt.  I also don't boil them to mush or over mash them.  I think whipped potatoes are just a starch bomb that my gut doesn't need right after a big steak. Robert Irvine agrees.

You'll need;

• 5 Russet potatoes (though Yukon Gold are good too)
• 1.5 stick of salted butter
• Pepper (white?) and salt to taste
• a big pot
• a sturdy potato masher
• a wooden spoon 

So this is 6 potatoes. I added more butter to compensate.

Peel the potatoes and dig out any of the eyes.  Don't worry, it's not Oedipal.

Slice the potatoes into quarters or eighths.  I don't like to go smaller, but Alton Brown does.

Generously salt your water and get it boiling.

Add the potatoes and boil for 20-30 minutes.  The boil should be a gentle one, we want to avoid the potatoes banging into each other and breaking up.

They are done when a paring knife goes in halfway with no effort.  Start testing before 20 minutes.

Drain the potatoes and let them drip in the colander while you put the pot back on the heat to dry it out.

When the pot is dry turn off the heat and get the potatoes back in.  Why dirty another dish when you can mash in this pot.  Plus it is hot and will dry the potatoes some more.

Mash them briefly until there are no more big chunks of potato.  This is the first mash so leave it chunky.

From this . . .

. . . to this.

Add the butter (preferably cut into pats) and mash again until the butter is incorporated.  It should still be a bit coarse for your liking.

Now add some seasoning.  Switch to a spoon and stir/fold the potatoes.  Taste and adjust.  Stay light on the salt since people will probably put butter/gravy on the taters.

I use white pepper to preserve the look of the potatoes.  Just use less.

Stir a little more but leave the potatoes a bit coarser than your grandmother did.  The coarse grain of the potatoes traps air and makes the potato flavor jump.  It also reduces the gut-bomb that I alluded to earlier.

If you need to tame the potatoes add more butter, not milk.  Adding cheese is cheating (and the courts have roundly sided with me on this).  Garnish with finely chopped chives.  No one eats parsley.

I keep them warm in a warm oven.