Sage-Roasted Potatoes

So, a while ago I finally got around to getting those plants I wanted and potting them--I have four tomato plants that are growing amazingly fast, three basil plants (I know it's a lot, but I really REALLY want to make my own pesto from my own basil) and a sage plant. The thing is, I only bought the sage plant because my friend and I made some delicious chicken dish from Giada that involved sage, and we didn't have sage, so she went to buy sage, and a jar of dried sage cost TEN DOLLARS. So despite the fact that that was the first time I'd ever used sage in my life, the fact that it was $1.99 for my own sage plant or $10 for a jar of dried sage...well, I had to buy one, right? But then I had to find out what to do with it.

I turned to Google. I'll admit it--I'm a google fangirl. I use Gmail, Gtalk, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google search, and googlegooglegooglegoogle.com (which doesn't seem to exist anymore, unfortunately). Oh, and Blogger. They're Google now too. I'd want one of those awesome phones that uses Google to browse the internet, but I'm super anti-internet-on-my-phone. I mean, I spend all my time in my house online--I need a break, so I won't give myself the opportunity on the phone. However, those of you who visit frequently may notice that I recently added a google search bar to my blog, so if my labels don't help, then you can search for things! Hooray! ANYWAY. The point here is that whenever I have absolutely no clue as to what to do with something, I turn to google, and it gives me something. This time I basically found "roast potatoes on top of fresh sage!" and that's it, but it was way more helpful than it sounds. So anyway, I made some delicious roasted potatoes off of a half-made-up recipe and I'm sharing it here. Hooray.

RECIPE: Sage-Roasted Potatoes

Warning: Amounts aren't really gonna work here.

Ingredients:

-A bag of small potatoes (we used purple; red and yellow would also work)

-A handful of fresh sage leaves

-Enough olive oil to pour a thick coating (about 1/8 in) on the back of a baking pan the size of a baking pan that will fit the amount of potatoes (cut in half) packed closely together

-A couple large cloves of garlic (3 or 4, more if they're smaller)

-Salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

2. Wash the potatoes and cut them in half. If you have really small ones (I had some the size of cherries) poke a bunch of fork-holes into them; they'll make good filler between the larger potatoes.

3. Pour an eighth of an inch of olive oil into a brownie pan (or whatever other pan you would like to use). Lay the sage leaves over the olive oil so they almost completely cover it. Cover with potatoes, cut side down, filling as much of the pan as you can but keeping it to one layer.

4. Cut the garlic cloves in half or thirds (or leave whole if they're smaller) and place them on top of the potatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

5. Place the potatoes in the oven (I hope you heated it already) for 40-45 minutes.

6. Remove the potatoes from the oven, let them cool a for a few minutes and serve!

Brownie pan with oil and sage.

Filled with potatoes! And garlic!

All done! WOOO!

Okay, so in that last picture, can you see how the sage leaves are darkened and stuck to the bottom of the potatoes? It's kind of hard to see because we used the purple potatoes, but it's there. The sage (well, and the cut side of the potatoes) gets SUPER crispy in the oil, and the potatoes come out perfectly creamy on the inside with nice crispy outsides. The best part? The garlic. You can barely even see it in the picture (the bottom piece of asparagus points right above one piece)--it gets dark brown on the outside, nice and crispy, and, like the potatoes, amazingly creamy inside. I mean, I could have SPREAD this garlic on the potatoes if I'd wanted to, but instead I savored each piece on its own. So delicious.

I served these with a pork chop recipe that I found on an Italian blog that I started reading in order to (hopefully) not completely forget how to speak Italian before I go to Italy. Not that I have any real plans to go to Italy; I just want to some day. They're dredged in flour, then sautéed in oil, adding a sprinkle of sage and rosemary, and drizzling some balsamic vinegar into the pan right before they're finished. They were delicious, and I was super proud of myself for cooking from a recipe in Italian! (I mean, I had to look up pretty much every word because we didn't learn about cooking in the first two semesters of Italian, but hey, I can learn from here!)

Overall, a delicious meal--and these potatoes absolutely beat oven fries. I hope my sage grows a ton and I can make this a lot! Yum!

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I'll be super busy, helping some of Mike's friends move and then celebrating Father's Day a week late (I might be able to sneak in another post, depending on how long these things take) and waking up ABSURDLY early to go out for breakfast tomorrow. (And somehow I have to make a pie or cake or something for my dad. Awesome.) Anyone else have a busy weekend coming up, or are you planning on relaxing and savoring some free time?

Ciao!

Sage Leaf

"You have a pasty at Mabel's for me, you hear?"

For those of you who aren't on Twitter, for the first time, I think I can sincerely say that you're missing out. There's a new phenomenon called "One Book One Twitter" (or #1b1t) where, during the summer, everyone on Twitter has the option to participate in a twitter-wide book club. It's not exclusive, there's a schedule but you can read at your own pace if you want to, and this year--the FIRST year--one of my all-time favorite books was selected: American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The coolest part of this is that Gaiman uses twitter himself, so occasionally he does an hour of "Ask Neil" and he'll answer anyone's questions, which is AWESOME. If you're not familiar with Gaiman's work and don't mind a little fantasy, surrealism and existentialism in your literature, check out his books--he is a master of the English language. His books pull you in and immerse you in a surreal adventure, pressing you to question the world around you and the validity of pretty much everything. At least, that's how I feel.

I just finished reading this morning, but according to the schedule, this week everyone's on chapters 9-11, in which the main character discovers a delicious meal at a local diner-type restaurant called Mabel's.

"Breakfast for me," said Shadow. "What's good?"
"Everything's good," said Mabel. "I make it But this is the farthest south and east of the yoopie you can get pasites, and they are particularly good. Warm and filling too. My specialty."
Shadow had no idea what a pasty was, but he said that would be fine, and in a few moments Mabel returned with a plate with what looked like a folded-over pie on it. The lower half was wrapped in a paper napkin. Shadow picked it up with the napkin and bit into it: it was warm and filled with meat, potatoes, carrots, onions. "First pasty I've ever had," he said. "It's real good."
-American Gods, p. 266-267 in my edition (chapter 10)

Now, in honor of One Book One Twitter, and because I've read American Gods a million times and always wanted to try these out, I of course searched for a recipe and made them and they are, just as Gaiman says, "a savory delight wrapped in a hot pastry." Ideally, for this recipe, you have minced beef. I didn't have minced beef, nor did I have the patience to mince my own beef, so I used ground beef instead--but if you can get your hands on some good minced beef, then do.

RECIPE: Pasties
Adapted from Recipezaar
Ingredients:
-1 lb minced (or ground) beef
-1 tbsp olive oil
-2 white onions
-3 cloves garlic
-1 15-oz can whole tomatoes
-1 tbsp tomato paste
-1/2 lb carrots
-1 tbsp soy sauce
-1/2 pint beef stock (from bullion cubes)
-1 lb white potato
-a splash of milk
-2 tbsp butter
-a dollop of Worcestershire sauce (I didn't really measure out my additions, so add stuff until it tastes good!)
-Herbs and seasonings (I used marjoram, tarragon, basil, oregano, a little bit of italian seasoning, cinnamon, cumin and cocoa--yeah, it's a lot, but it was tasty. Use your discretion here.)
-pie crust or puff pastry*
-1 egg

Instructions:
0: Cut everything up ('everything' being defined as potatoes, onions, and carrots).
1. Using the potatoes, milk, and butter, make some mashed potatoes. Don't whip them--leave plenty of chunks of potato. Alternatively, you could just boil the potatoes and cut them up into very small pieces--I think this would be the more authentic way to do it.
2. In a very large frying pan or wok, heat the oil and sauté the onion until it softens. Move the onion into a bowl.
3. Add the beef to the frying pan with a little more oil if necessary. Stir constantly as it browns to ensure that all the clumps are broken up (not sure if this is a problem with minced beef but ground beef, especially the leaner varieties, is very sticky).
4. Once the beef is fully cooked, add the canned tomatoes (break them up as you stir them), carrots, soy sauce, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and some herbs. (You'll be adding more herbs to taste as it cooks, so don't overdo it here.)
5. Add the beef stock and allow to simmer for a few minutes, then add the onions and potatoes. Stir thoroughly and simmer until it's not really liquid anymore (about 20 minutes?) and you'll be able to scoop it out and it will stay in a lump instead of spreading into a big mess. You want it to have the consistency of slightly watery mashed potatoes. As it's simmering, taste it occasionally and add more seasoning as desired.
6. NOW IS TIME TO PREHEAT THE OVEN! Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F, 220 C. Then prepare the pie crusts: I traced a small plate (7-8 inches) in each rolled-out crust with a knife so that I had 7-8 inch discs of crust to fill.
7. Lay a crust circle on a cookie sheet. Scoop about a cup of the beef mixture (or as much as it seems will fit into the crust when you fold it over, though I overshot a few times and had difficulty folding the crust over) onto one side of the pie crust, then fold the other side over and press all around it to seal it. Continue doing this with each crust circle. (You'll probably fit 2-3 on a cookie sheet.)
8. In a small bowl, beat the egg. Using a pastry brush, brush the beaten egg over each of the pasties. Put them in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and shiny.
9. When you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool a bit before eating them--the inside will scald your mouth if you bite into it immediately. After about 10 minutes, they'll still be nice and hot but more edible and you can enjoy your creation!

Step 4.5: after the beef stock is added, before the potatoes and onions.

Once everything was added and simmered down completely. (Actually, this is what we had leftover after filling the crusts--I'd forgotten to photograph it first! But the picture is still accurate.)

Right out of the oven--they looked so pretty! I was quite happy with myself, despite the holes.

Despite the fact that Shadow eats his with his hands, I thought a fork would be more appropriate--I was worried about them falling apart and making a huge mess if I picked them up. Plus, this way I could blow on each forkful to cool it a little more.

Yet again, Mike made a "special" one for himself. He covered it in cinnamon sugar before I put them in the oven. It stuck to the pan more than the others (probably because of the burnt sugar) and therefore fell apart more, but he said it was delicious nonetheless. (Then again, Mike does weird things with food. He just ate a bowl of cereal with coffee grounds on top. So I don't necessarily trust his judgement.)

I doubled this recipe so I'd have plenty to freeze (and because my brother was home and his friends might be around) and ended up with 10 pasties and some leftover filling (also in the freezer, so I can whip up some pie crust and make more). The amount you end up with will depend on the size of your pies and how full you want them.

I expected these to be super filling and heavy--one of those "okay maybe I shouldn't have eaten that whole thing" foods. Surprisingly, they were the perfect amount of food: we were all full, but not completely stuffed. And, if you think about it, each one only has a little bit of meat, a tiny bit of mashed potato, some carrots, etc--it's a pretty well-rounded food! I can't wait to play with this concept a bit more and always have some delicious meal-in-a-pie-crust frozen for emergencies (or nights that I just don't feel like cooking).


*I used my normal pie crust recipe and it came out wonderfully, but it is a post in and of itself--I'll have my pie crust up here soon, keep an eye out for it! **EDIT: Pie crust recipe is up and linked to!**

Mashing Purple

So, I made a new discovery in the grocery store this week. I didn't actually make it, in fact I'd known it was there the whole time, but my boyfriend (I guess he deserves a name, doesn't he?) Mike found, for the first time, purple potatoes. Now I'd had purple potato chips, so while I'd seen them before I'd never really thought twice about it, especially because I had no idea what I'd do with a purple potato once I acquired it.

We bought them, and decided to make mashed potatoes. It was way more exciting than I expected. I later learned that the purple variety of potato has more nutrients in it than the regular kind, so maybe this is just how I'll do it from now on!

They were so small! This was by far the tiniest (and therefore most adorable). I quartered the rest of the before boiling them, but this one I just put a bunch of fork-holes in so it'd cook properly. When they were cut, the color was beautiful:

And they were all speckled inside! This was where it started getting really exciting. The potatoes were really purple, and I was really cooking them. They, however, lost a lot of their color in the boiling process:

Still definitely purple, but a much more subdued tone. It all got very pretty again when they were mashed, though.

They're kind of lavender now. I suppose I should be calling them "smashed potatoes" as we kept the skins on. Now, I usually cheat at this step and pull out my KitchenAid and its whisk attachment and make whipped potatoes, but Mike insists on mashing them the old fashioned way and allowing a few chunks to stick around. (Tangent: I really hate the word "chunk." It just sounds so awful, and I especially don't want it describing my food. I rarely buy cans of tuna because of this, despite the fact that tuna salad is the only non-sushi seafood I can abide. However, it makes more sense here to say 'chunks' than 'unmashed bits of solid potato' so I will have to deal.)

Mike's method turned out great; the potatoes were just as smooth as I'm used to. They also looked delicious with the rest of the food. The picture came out blurry, unfortunately, because the flash was making them look almost white and I don't have a tripod for my camera. And the point was the purpleness, so I wasn't going to allow them to look white in the pictures. Mike said he could taste the purple--that is, that they TASTED purple, which I understand because I believe very strongly that beets taste red (he thinks blood oranges taste red)--but I thought they tasted like pretty normal mashed potatoes, perhaps just a little richer. (Served with green beans pan-fried with freshly minced garlic, lots of olive oil, and balsamic vinaigrette; cajun marinaded steak. The flavors worked much better together than I expected them to.)

RECIPE: Purple Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

-2 lbs purple potatoes

-Whatever else you usually put in mashed potatoes (I used some dried parsley, garlic powder, butter and cream.)

Instructions:

1. Make mashed potatoes exactly the way you usually do, except with purple potatoes.

2. See the looks of awe on everyone's faces as you present them with purple mashed potatoes. Ask them if they can taste the purple. Regardless, they'll think it's cool.

Now I really want to make purple gnocchi.