Easy Roasted Potatoes

Do potatoes fit into a healthy Thanksgiving? It all depends on the preparation. Potatoes themselves are quite healthy. It’s what you put on them that renders them unhealthy. Sour cream, butter, cheese, gravy and, of course, the whole milk or cream used in mashed potatoes.

For our Healthy Thanksgiving, I was in search of a roasted potato recipe. I envisioned a little oil, a little salt, a little pepper, pop them in the oven and presto! Healthy potatoes. Reality rarely lives up to my imagination.

It seems that you can either fry them in oil or roast them in butter. I did find one recipe on BHG.com that roasted potatoes in olive oil, but used onion powder instead of “real” onions. I wasn’t happy about it, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I was intrigued by the use of baby potatoes. The ones I bought weren’t all that tiny. At least not tiny enough so that halved I was confident that they would cook all the way through. Potatoes, like carrots, are very dense and require a long to cook. There’s nothing worse than uncooked potatoes or carrots in a dish. Just to be safe, I cut up some of the larger potatoes into quarters instead of halves.

My biggest problem turned out to be logistics. I solved the one-oven problem by cooking the stuffing on top of the stove instead of baking it in the oven. But there was no getting around the fact that roasted potatoes, like roasted turkey, need to be in the oven. And potatoes need a long time to cook. In this case, 60 minutes. Turkey needs 30 minutes to "rest" after cooking, so I was left with a 30 minute overlap in the oven.

I finally solved the problem when I realized that a small turkey uses a small pan, so I could turn it sideways and slide the potatoes and their pan in right next to it. Phew! That was close.

In the end, I was correct about the size of the potatoes, as well as the onion powder. The potatoes didn’t cook all the way through and I didn’t care for the chemical taste of the onion powder. Real onions would have been preferable. The garlic was also an unwelcome guest to our feast. I think a little bit of poultry seasoning would have been more appropriate.

Verdict: What were they thinking???





Easy Roasted Potatoes(source: BHG.com) 

3 medium round red or white potatoes (1 pound), cut into eighths, or 10 to 12 tiny new potatoes (1 pound) halved
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
⅛ teaspoon paprika
1 clove garlic, minced


Place potatoes in a greased 9x9x2-inch baking pan. In a small bowl combine oil, onion powder, salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic. Drizzle oil mixture over potatoes, tossing to coat. Roast, uncovered, in a 325°F oven for 45 minutes. Stir potatoes; bake for 10 to 20 minutes more or until potatoes are tender and brown on the edges.

Makes 4 servings.

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Compost: garlic skins

Roasted New Potatoes

While researching recipes for our Harmonious Pairings dinner, A came across a blog, Simply Recipes with fantastic food photos. She sent the link to me because food photography is not one of my fortes.

While I was admiring the photography, I also checked out the recipes. This one caught my eye. Potatoes roasted with a little olive oil and some herbs sounded better and healthier than French fries. And because it can be made with either red or yellow potatoes, it was perfect for our Valentine’s Day dinner.

I used red potatoes, of course, and substituted dried rosemary for the fresh which is quite pricey. I haven’t succeeded in keeping a rosemary plant alive year round yet.

This recipe was simple to make and tasted delicious. And it was perfect for our dinner because rosemary and potatoes are a harmonious pairing.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!


Roasted New Potatoes(source: Simply Recipes)

1 ½ lb of new potatoes (red or yellow skinned), cleaned, cut in half or quarters
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 teaspoons fresh rosemary
¼ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450°F. Place potatoes in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle on salt and pepper. Add olive oil, rosemary, and garlic. Toss until potatoes are well coated.

Spread potatoes out on a single layer of a baking pan. Roast for 40 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked through and browned. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6

Recycle: olive oil bottle

Compost: garlic skins

Valentine’s Day at The Wooden Spoon

Carrot with Ginger Soup

Lemon-Ginger Chicken

Roasted New Potatoes with Rosemary

Peas and Pearl Onions

Beet Bread

Orange-scented Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

We thought that our Honey themed Valentine’s dinner was going to be a hard act to follow but thanks to a colleague of A, BioBabe, who suggested a theme of “Harmonious Pairings” honoring traditional Valentine’s Day couples, we had a wide range of recipes to choose from. For each dish, we looked for a recipe with a “pair” of ingredients. We also made sure to have some holiday red with red potatoes, red pearl onions, beet bread an, thanks to A’s ingenious use of purple carrots, even the soup was a dark pink.

I think it’s safe to say that this year’s dinner easily surpasses our first menu. Thanks BioBabe!

Herbed Mashed Potatoes

A and I agreed, theme or no theme, it’s just not Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes. I could have made the Perfect Mashed Potatoes that I made for our last Thanksgiving but there’s no fun in that. Trying new recipes is what our holiday meals and this blog is all about.

I began a hunt for a recipe for herbed mashed potatoes. There are quite a few of them. Using quite a selection of herbs. My objection to almost all of them is that the herbs are mixed into the potatoes. I didn’t want mashed potatoes with little green bits in them any more than I wanted mashed potatoes with nuts in them. Martha came to my rescue. She offers a recipe where the herbs are infused into the cream (or milk).

There were only two of us dining so I bought 5 medium potatoes rather than the 6 large ones called for. I could always cut down slightly on the butter and cream. Yes, I use cream. It’s Thanksgiving. It only happens once a year. A little cream is not going to kill us. Once I had the potatoes peeled, chunked and merrily boiling away, I chopped the sage, rosemary and thyme and added them to the cream to quietly meld their flavors on a back burner while the more demanding recipes occupied my attention on the front burners.

The next step, of course, is to drain and mash the potatoes with the butter and cream. That meant that I was going to have the dreaded green bits in my potatoes. The solution was simply to strain out the herbs and just add the cream infusion to the potatoes so that you have the flavor without the greenery. A word to the wise: if you lack a strainer as I do, a flour sifter comes in handy.

At this point, with the soup refusing to thicken and the turkey “resting” and taking up valuable counter space, I decided to attempt gravy for the first time in my life under the tutelage of A who made a wonderful gravy at our last Thanksgiving dinner and made it look so easy. Fat was skimmed, pans were re-arranged on the stove, flour was whisked and I completely forgot to add salt, pepper and parsley to the mashed potatoes.

So they were a little bland. But I still found myself humming my way to Scarborough Fair with “…parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…”.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!





Herbed Mashed Potatoes(source: Marth Stewart Living, September/October 1991) 

6 large white potatoes, peeled and cut into medium chunks
Pinch of salt
1 cup heavy cream or milk
1 tablespoon each of chopped fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme
4 tablespoon (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Put potato chunks in a large saucepan over high heat and cover with cold water. Add salt and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine cream and all the herbs except parsley and bring to a simmer. Turn off heat and cover, allowing herbs to infuse for 15 minutes.

Drain potatoes well and pass through a food mill (or use a masher). Add butter and gradually stir in cream until potatoes have the desired consistency (you may not use all the cream).

Stir in parsley, season with additional salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

Compost: Potato skins, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme stems

The Wooden Spoon Cooks Go Nuts!

Pureed Butternut Squash Soup

Cranberry-Orange Relish with Walnuts

Baked Acorn Squash

Nut Bread

Herbed Mashed Potatoes

Chestnut Stuffing

Dry-Brined Turkey

Pecan Pie

A and I had so much fun doing a themed Valentine’s Day Dinner that we decided to cook a themed Thanksgiving Dinner. A suggested “nuts” which is appropriate for the season as well as our state of mind. We dove into cookbooks and surfed the net looking for dishes with nuts as ingredients and/or “nuts” in their title. Stay tuned for the recipes and our reviews.

We hope that you enjoy our Nutty Thanks giving as much as we did.

Perfect Mashed Potatoes

I was raised on mashed potatoes. Except for those rare occasions when we had pasta in the form of spaghetti or macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes were on our dinner plates every day. It was one of the very few dishes that my mother made well. I grew up watching her make them. She made it seem so easy. Boil the potatoes, then mash them up with butter and milk.

When I moved out on my own, I almost never ate mashed potatoes because I just couldn’t make them. They always came out either soupy or lumpy. There was no happy medium. I gave up and started making baked potatoes instead. Except for the time that I left a couple in the oven too long and they exploded, I never had a problem.

A must have been raised on mashed potatoes too because when I gave her the choice of either baked or mashed for our Wooden Spoon Thanksgiving, she chose mashed. My heart sank. Then I hit the internet. Surely I could find instructions on making mashed potatoes. I happened upon a recipe by Martha Stewart that contained detailed instructions. Another plus was the fact that the recipe called for either milk or cream. Most recipes use milk. I don’t drink milk. But I do use Half ‘n’ Half in my coffee which I felt would be an acceptable substitute for cream.

I’m going to admit right up front that I did everything wrong in making this recipe. I used a potato masher instead of an electric mixer or ricer. I used salted butter instead of unsalted. I didn’t warm the milk. I added the butter and the milk together instead of separately. I mashed the potatoes and the butter and the milk all at once instead of in three steps. I used canned pepper and nutmeg instead of freshly grated. And yet, despite all of those “mistakes”, these were the best mashed potatoes I’ve had since I lived at home.

I was hesitant to add the nutmeg. I wanted my potatoes to taste like potatoes, not nutmeg. But in this case, the nutmeg enhances the flavor rather than overpowers it. Best of all, I can finally have mashed potatoes with my dinners again.

Verdict: Yum! This one’s a keeper!

Perfect Mashed Potatoes
(source:Yahoo! Food)

2 pounds russet, Yukon gold, or long white potatoes
1 tablespoon salt, plus more to taste
1 cup milk, or cream
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg


Peel and cut potatoes into 1 1/2 –inch-thick slices. Place in a medium saucepan. Cover with cold water; add 1 tablespoon salt, bring to a simmer. If using a potato ricer, fill another saucepan with water; place over low heat. Keep potatoes at a low simmer until a knife slips in and out easily. Drain potatoes in a colander. Place mild in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.

If using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, proceed to last paragraph. If using a potato ricer, place a heat-proof bowl or top of a double boiler over a pan of simmering water. Press hot, drained potatoes through ricer into bowl.

Stir potatoes with a wooden spoon until smooth, about 1 minute. Using a whisk, incorporate butter. Drizzle in hot milk, whisking continuously. Add pepper, nutmeg, and salt to taste; whisk to combine. Serve immediately.

For the electric-mixer method, transfer hot, drained potatoes to bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed, until most lumps have disappeared, about 1 minute. Add butter; mix until blended. On low speed, add hot milk in a slow stream, then add pepper, nutmeg, and salt to taste. Mix to combine.

Compost: potato peels

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte

I recently harvested my first squash of the season, so made this recipe again. I found it on Epicurious.com a few years ago when I was trying to figure out what to do with my squash. I like it because it's easy: no precooking required, just peel, assemble, and bake.

As originally written, the torte was made in two 8" cake pans. I make it in my 2 quart (or is it 3 quart?) round casserole dish, using the same amounts of the ingredients. This time, I used 3 or 4 (sorry, I wasn't counting) medium-sized potatoes and one pattypan squash about 4-5" in diameter. The recipe calls for yellow crookneck squash, but probably any kind of summer squash would work - maybe even zucchini? The squash doesn't need to be peeled if it's still young and tender. If it does need to be peeled, it's probably too tough to eat anyway.

Much of the flavor comes from the Parmesan cheese, so it would best to get some that's fairly good. The numerous Italians around here would probably insist on authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated, but I don't go quite that far. I do buy the kind that comes pregrated in plastic tubs in the deli department.

The pepper is also a major flavor component, and you might want to cut back from what's stated in the recipe, as that amount gives a pretty peppery result.

Verdict: Yum! This one's a keeper!

Herbed Summer Squash and Potato Torte with Parmesan
(Source: www.epicurious.com)

1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/8-in-thick rounds
12 ounces squash, cut into 1/8-in-thick slices
3 teaspoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a casserole dish. Toss green onions, cheese, flour, thyme, salt, and pepper in medium bowl to blend.

Layer 1/3 of the potato slices in the bottom of the dish. Layer 1/2 of the squash over the potatoes. Drizzle with 1 tsp oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese mixture. Repeat with 1/3 of the potatoes and 1/2 of the squash and 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese mixture. Top with the rest of the potatoes. Drizzle with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese mixture and press gently to flatten.

Cover pan with foil. Bake until potatoes are almost tender, about 40 minutes. Remove foil; bake uncovered until cheese begins to brown and potatoes are tender, about 25-35 minutes longer. Cut into wedges and serve.

Recycle: oil bottle

Compost: potato peelings, onion stalks, thyme stalks