Diane's Produce & Roast Potatoes

If you are local to Vancouver, WA, you really should check out Diane's Produce Market.  It is owned by Diane, go figure, who is in the store every time I'm there.  This is the type of business I want to shop at.  She is making a go of small business ownership, like me.  She is local.  She remembers me when I go there.  Okay, it isn't like going to the produce section at Freddy's or Safeway, but I'm starting to really not care.

You can find Diane's at 7702 NE 94th Avenue.  On the corner of 76th Street and 94th Avenue, just South of Padden Parkway, East of 205.

 
Here's what I bought there yesterday.

Elephant Garlic.  I haven't used it much, but I've got some that needs to get planted right now.  This one had just a little oniony smell which is very nice.  I'm looking forward to my early summer crop, assuming I get mine planted.

Red potatoes. A 15 lb sack.  It says number 2 on the sack, but they are nice and round and firm and clean.  The sack says they were distributed by a company in Sherwood, OR.

Willamette Egg Farm Eggs.  I'm becoming convinced that this is my egg source for now.  It is clear that I'm not going to do the backyard chicken thing.  The neighborhood association would flip.  But also, I have about as much responsibility as I can handle right now.  If one of them died, I'd feel horrible.

Grape Seed Oil.  I have bought olive oil from her, but she didn't have any.  I've had this stuff before.  It is not as distinct a taste as olive oil, but it is nice.


And I bought some apples which I'm going to use to make my mom's recipe for Raw Apple Cake, a fall thing for me.  I live in, well near, apple country.  Eating apples in the fall is natural.  Buying apples which were grown in Australia isn't.  I'm really getting so off of the Granny Smith thing.

Roast Potatoes are a nice change, tasty and special.  It starts with scrubbing the potatoes within an inch of their lives.  If you don't have a vegetable brush, I recommend one.  If you find a spot that you don't want to eat, now is the time to remove it with a small paring knife.

And some of that good garlic, finely chopped.

The potatoes get cut up and put on a large flat pan lined with two layers of foil.  I recommend cutting the potatoes fairly small.  You want a lot of potato surface to season and to get browned.

Add good lot of the oil, then a little more.  If you use good quality oil, don't think of it as a bad thing.  And salt and pepper.  Go ahead and season it well, unless you need to cut back on those types of things.  It's good.  Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.  Or fresh Rosemary finely chopped, if you have it.

Into a 450 oven.  Yes, this is hot, but it gets you the texture of roast potatoes.  Crispy some places, soft to the bite.  And here is the important part.  Take it out every 10 minutes or so and turn the potato pieces as much as you can.  Flip them over, move them around, then back in the oven.  You are looking at about an hour depending upon how many potatoes you have and what size you cut them.

You want the crispy browned edges.  That's what this is all about.

This together with a big chuck roast from our frozen stash of local beef made a feast and a good reward for my hard working man.

Remember to look your food in the eyes.

This post was linked to Hearth and Soul Blog Hop.  Check it out.

http://amoderatelife.com/2010/10/hearth-and-soul-hop-volume-18/

Roast Garlic Mashed Potatoes

I've been working on a recipe for Roast Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  This is not my mother's mashed potatoes, which in Paula Deen style, were so very rich with butter and cream.  They aren't perfectly creaming and smooth, either, in Martha Stewart style.  I have no problems with a few lumps in mashed potatoes.  Actually prefer it.


This started yesterday.  I roasted the garlic.  It's worth it because of the extra flavor and doesn't take that much time, but I do all my cooking after dark, so planning is necessary.  The total truth is that I don't like raw garlic in some things and sauted garlic is easy to burn. 


http://dinnerattheosbornes.blogspot.com/2010/09/roast-garlic-in-preparation-for-roast.html

Somewhere around 2 to 2 1/4 pound of yukon gold potatoes.  I'm going to say this many.

Peel them.  I use a paring knife and cut against my thumb.  What most people call a potato peeler, I use to peel carrots.  One of these days, I'll get around to another blog post about peeling.  I did lots of it at an early age.  My mother and grandmother picked and canned or froze produce all summer long.  I spent many a summer afternoon belly-up to the sink, peeling and slicing things, so let's just say I have a couple opinions about that. 

Cut each peeled potato in half, unless they are big.  Then, cut them in quarters.  Put them in a large sauce pan or small stew pot and cover with water.  I add about a good teaspoon of salt and start heating them.  At a slow steady boil, cook them until they stick easily with a fork.  

Place a big colander into the sink.  Turn on the cold water.  Carefully pour the pot, water and potatoes, into the colander.  I'm not sure why I do the cold water thing.  I'm not usually prone to old wife's tales, but it makes good sense to me that it is not good for the plumbing to pour boiling water into it.  On the other hand, maybe it's just fine.  That's just how I do it. 

Return the cooked potatoes to the same pot.  Add 1 T. butter, 2 T. olive oil and 1/2 cup  Tillamook Sour Cream.  You can substitute other good commercial sour cream if you don't live in the Pacific Northwest.  1/2 t. of salt or more if you like it.  Actually, I like a little more.   1/4 t. freshly ground black pepper. 

Mash with a potato masher.  The one on the right is just like the one my Mom had, I think.  I bought it at a garage sale.  But the one on the left is my favorite to actually use. 

Another option includes a food mill, which actually works pretty well for this type of thing.  They are functional, cheap, easy to find.  They go easily in the dishwasher.  I believe I bought this thing at the Goodwill on 78th just east of 99 highway. 

I like my masher, but I've also used my nice little Black & Decker hand mixer to mash potatoes many times.  So there is another option. 

  

Put the roasted garlic from the night before on the cutting board and give it a good chop. 

http://dinnerattheosbornes.blogspot.com/2010/09/roast-garlic-in-preparation-for-roast.html

Add it to the potatoes and mix with a big spoon.   

Actually, I've been thinking that this would be good with more garlic.  Next time, I may roast more, so don't be scared of this amount of garlic.  It is a really happy thing. 

Remember to trust me.

Roast Garlic in Preparation for Roast Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Roast Garlic.

This is half a bunch of garlic, several cloves.  Leave the outside husky paper on to protect it.  1 1/2 T of olive oil poured over.  Toss with fingers or a fork.  Into a 375 oven for 10 minutes.

It's done when the tines of a fork make a mash. 

The dry outside husk is easy to remove once it is cool enough to handle.

  Before I go to bed, I'll clean up this and refrigerate the roast garlic mash for tomorrow. 

Here is what the outside husk looks like once pealed off.

And here is the good stuff.  Fragrant like cooked garlic and smooth like soft butter.

Remember that everything will be okay.

Garlic

I love garlic. I don't mean that powdered stuff you buy in the spice aisle, I don't even mean the stuff in the jar that comes pre-minced. Garlic grows in the ground. In my climate, it is planted about now. It sends up a weak little shoot something like the green part of a green onion and only starts to develop when it's warm in the spring. If dug early, there is not much below ground but the original seed clove. It and the stock has a mild onion flavor and can certainly be used as such. They only plump out into something that looks like garlic in the first warm days of early summer. In my climate, they are dug in late June, but I'm sure that is different in other areas.

If you've never dug garlic, potatoes, onions etc., it is quite exciting to stick the shovel in alongside the plant and lift it out. The dirt falls away as you see the treasure for the first time. Garlic is very wet when first dug. It will rot quickly if not dried thoroughly. I suppose there are various ways to do this, but I've had good luck tying a string around bunches of it and hanging the string from my fence. You need air to be able to circulate around it. The warm days of summer turn the leaves around the cloves dry and hardens it a bit. I clip of a bit of it as needed and leave it there the whole summer. At the end of the summer, I cut it down and store it in my garage frig until I need it. This photo is a a part of this year's crop.

I haven't got any planted this year. We'll see, but if I don't get it done, there will be plenty in farmer's market come next summer