Rosemary Garlic Roasted Potatoes

We got two new items in our CSA basket recently: fresh rosemary, and a variety of small potatoes. Now I know potatoes do not sound new and exciting, but they gave us an assortment of white, red, and purple potatoes - I have never seen purple potatoes before so this was a fun little treat. I have made this recipe before, but was not wowed by it - but now that I had fresh rosemary I figured I would try it again.

This time I was wowed. Fresh rosemary makes all the difference. The first time I made it I used dried rosemary - the dried leaves are so firm that you feel like you are biting into little twigs. The flavor is also different when it is dried. I loved these potatoes, and would definitely make them again. This was also really easy - you cut up potatoes and garlic, chop up the rosemary, drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper, and roast them! This is my new favorite way to make potatoes.

Roasted Asparagus

Roasted asparagus doesn't really go with arroz caldo, but I bought some asparagus on a whim this week and what better day to eat it than yesterday? I followed a recipe in the Joy of Cooking. Roasting the asparagus on high heat gives it a delicate flavor. My hubby said that the heads tasted like pumpkin seeds (which was a good thing). I'll make this my go-to asparagus recipe. Here it is, paraphrased:

1 pound of asparagus
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Trim the ends of the asparagus. Place in a shallow baking pan in one layer. Drizzle olive oil onto the spears. Roast for 8-10 minutes, until they are getting tender but still a little firm. Transfer to serving dish and season with salt and pepper. Top with a little Parmesan cheese.

Rosemary Garlic Roasted Potatoes and Broiled Zucchini with Parmesan Crust

I have decided that I don't like "themed" potlucks. They are way too stressful. We went to an Italian-themed potluck yesterday and I spent so much time online trying to find a good recipe that I didn't have to buy too many ingredients for. I figured everyone would be bringing some sort of pasta dish so I wanted to bring something different. We had a bunch of potatoes so I made this potato dish. It was pretty good - nothing fancy, but hey, they're potatoes.



I also had some zucchini in the fridge so I made this broiled zucchini dish. I thought it was good, but my husband wasn't crazy about it, probably because it was lukewarm when he ate it. Lukewarm zucchini is just not that great. I kind of burned them under the broiler, and I had only had them under there for about 2 1/2 minutes (the recipe says broil it for four minutes). I scraped some of the burnt part off because I didn't want to bring a burnt dish to a potluck! That is too embarrassing. I used bottled grated Parmesan which I wouldn't recommend. Oh well. Live and learn.