Potatoes are one of my favorite foods. You can mash them, hash them, fry them, roast them—cook them just about any way imaginable(you can also distill them and make vodka but that’s a whole different blog post entirely). And they’re so healthy, too. It’s funny how many times I get asked if I can eat potatoes and if they’re gluten-free; they’re probably one of the foods I eat the most.
Hasselback style is just one more ingenious way to enjoy potatoes. Slicing them creates more surface area for the fat to coat the potatoes and cook in, adding tons of flavor. It also gives the potatoes a nice presentation that’s sure to brighten up a meal.
You can use any oil or solid fat in making these. Truffle oil would be a great way to add an expensive flavor. If you want to use butter or a butter substitute, melt it first before mixing it with the salt and rosemary and pouring it onto the potatoes.
Vegan Rosemary Hasselback Potatoes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Ingredients(Makes 4 servings):
- 4 medium-sized russet potatoes
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 Tablespoon dried rosemary
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Slice each potato about 1/4-inch apart most of the way through without cutting through the entire potato.
- Place the potatoes on a baking tray.
- In a small bowl, quickly whisk together the olive oil, salt, and rosemary.
- Drizzle the infused oil over each potato, letting the oil drip into the slices.
- Bake for 60-70 minutes until the potato is cooked through and the edges are crispy.
- Serve hot.
Enjoy!
A lot of my meals lately have revolved around roasted vegetables. Some of my meals have been just roasted vegetables on the days I didn’t feel like cooking anything else; that’s healthy, right?
A while ago I saw this recipe for vanilla carrots. The photos on that blog make everything look delicious. I finally got around to making them last week and they did not disappoint at all. These aren’t sweeter than regular roasted carrots, but the vanilla and rosemary add an interesting savory flavor to them.
Don’t use an oil that has a lot of flavor like coconut or peanut oil. Instead use something like vegetable oil or refined olive oil that will let the flavor of the vanilla come through.
Vanilla Rosemary Carrots
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 50-60 minutes
Ingredients(Makes about 4-6 servings):
- 1lb carrots
- 3 Tablespoons oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon dried rosemary
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
- Peel, trim, and wash the carrots.
- In a large tray, toss the carrots together with the olive oil, vanilla extract, salt and rosemary until they’re covered.
- Lay the carrots out in a single layer on a baking tray.
- Roast for 50-60 minutes until the carrots are fork-tender and serve hot.
A few weeks ago a good friend of mine asked me to teach her how to cook. I can’t think of any other time I’ve ever taught someone to cook; I don’t think I’m very good at it. When I write a blog post I just say what I did. But when I’m in the kitchen, I don’t usually follow a recipe; I just feel my way around and do what I think I should do and if it doesn’t work out—well, that’s what the garbage can is for.
The hardest part was picking what to make. We ended up settling on Mediterranean chicken, a pretty basic salad, sautéed broccoli, and this potato recipe. I’d seen vanilla used with savory roasted vegetables on blogs before and had been wanting to try it. The idea isn’t to have the potatoes become sweet like candy but rather gain a subtle flavor that’s familiar but hard to pin down.
We learned three things that night:
1. A little sugar in any recipe is a good thing. I love to add just a tablespoon of sugar to marinades or dressings, sauces and vegetables to help bring out the natural sugars.
2. I make really good chicken for a vegetarian(or so I’m told).
3. Vanilla rosemary potatoes are shockingly delicious. There were some skeptics who thought vanilla on vegetables couldn’t be good, but by the end of the night everyone was converted.
Vanilla Rosemary Potatoes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 60 minutes
Ingredients(Makes 4-6 servings):
- 5-6 medium Russet potatoes, cut and cubed
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Methods:
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
- In a large bowl, toss all of the ingredients together until the potatoes are covered in oil.
- Lay the potatoes out in a single layer on a baking tray.
- Bake for 60 minutes shaking the pan halfway through.
- Remove from the oven and serve hot.
This is definitely more of a Fall and Winter dish than it is Summery, so you might want to bookmark it and hold onto it until October. Then again, potatoes are always plentiful and cheap so what’s not to love even in the Summer time?
I don’t like to throw around the word “perfect”, but some occasions just beg for it. If you’re looking for a grilled potato recipe, look no further. This is the best there is.
These potatoes are soft and starchy on the inside with a crunchy, crispy, slightly smoky crust. The hint of rosemary along with the salt and pepper brings out a softer flavor in the potato. The result isn’t too oily or too dry, too herby or too charred—it’s just perfect.
The one piece of equipment you need to make these is a mesh wire vegetable grilling rack. It’s a great addition for any griller that quickly pays off. You can grill any vegetables from potatoes to peppers to asparagus with it and it keeps them all contained so you’re not reaching around the whole surface or losing any through the grills while you’re cooking them.
Russet, red, or sweet potatoes will best stand up to the heat of grilling. Something fluffier like golden or yellow potatoes would not, so make sure you’re starting out with the right kind of potato.
Perfect Grilled Potatoes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
Ingredients(Makes 4 servings):
- 4 russet potatoes, washed
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon white vinegar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 sprigs of rosemary
Method:
- Heat your grill up to around 350 to 400 degrees.
- Cut the potatoes into quarters or eighths depending on how thick you want them to be.
- In a large bowl, toss the potatoes with the olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and rosemary.
- Dump the potatoes into a vegetable rack and place them on the grill.
- Toss the rack to turn the vegetables around every 10 minutes. Cook for 40-50 minutes until the potatoes are soft and the outside is crispy.
- Plate and serve hot.
See? Perfect.
Everybody loves cheesy bread. That’s just a fact. Whether you can’t eat wheat bread or avoid dairy, this recipe still has something for you, too. The bread itself gets nice and crusty on the egg but soft and doughy in the middle. Everybody has a preference and I love the center. Be warned that if you eat too much you’ll have onion breath for a week, and you will eat too much because it’s too good to show restraint around.
Cheesy Rosemary Flatbread
Ingredients:
-
1 ball of prepared pizza dough*
-
1 yellow onion, julienned
-
1/4 cup of olive oil
-
1/4 cup parmesan, loosely packed**
-
2 tablespoons rosemary
*Make this recipe gluten-free by using a gluten-free dough such as Bob’s Red Mill.
**For a non-dairy alternative, use the same amount nutritional yeast with an added 1/2 teaspoon salt.
I started by making my pizza dough. I always add Italian herb seasoning even when the dough is a mix; it just adds such great flavor.
Preheat an oven to 425 degrees. To prepare the onions, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over low heat on a burner. Add in the julienned onions and cook for about 10 minutes until they’ve softened and soaked up the oil. Add in the other 2 tablespoons and continue cooking until they’re soft and translucent.
Roll out the dough on a pizza pan(a baking pan will work in a pinch). Flatten it out to about 1/4-inch thickness and poke holes in the top to let the air out when cooking. Add on the onions and any extra oil in the pan. Then sprinkle on the parmesan and rosemary and bake for 25-28 minutes until the edges crisp up.
Like I said, I love the center part that’s nice and doughy, onion breath be damned. I’ve made this for guests and they had no clue it was vegan and gluten-free; it’s just a plain good recipe with tons of flavor. I’m ready to slip into my food coma.
You could call this a light bulb moment recipe.
I really love starchy vegetables almost as much as I love chocolate, and that says a lot. They’re warm and comforting and everything you could want on a plate.
The squash has been excellent at the farmers’ market this Fall; I’ve been roasting it so much, I’ve been thinking of any which way to eat it otherwise.
And that’s when it hit me: Butternut squash home fries.
I started by roasting the squash to get it tender, and finishing it off in some fat and seasoning over a low burner. It was perfectly tender with a bit of a crust. The secret to any good home fries is time, so I left plenty for the pan-frying.
Butternut Squash Home Fries
Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 1 butternut squash, peeled and diced
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1/4 cup butter, separated
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 sprig of rosemary
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and roast the butternut squash for 45 minutes or until tender before starting. Warm a pan over medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter and the diced onion. Once the pan has come to temperature, add in the squash. Toss every couple of minutes for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, add the salt, pepper, rosemary, and remaining butter and continue to toss for 10 more minutes or until the moisture is gone and the home fries have begun to char.
Usually you want to treat food delicately and keep it tender and fresh—not so with home fries. The best home fries I’ve had at restaurants look like they’ve been battered and beat and have often been cooking for near an hour. That’s how they develop such rich flavors that intermingle.
Going back to “just” roasted squash is going to be hard.
