Potatoes: Two Ways

It's been a while since I've cooked anything, and even longer since I've posted any recipes. We've been trying to use up canned and frozen vegetables lately, so I haven't bought a lot of fresh produce, hence a lack of cooking and experimentation. The last thing I did involved red potatoes, and didn't turn out particularly excellent. The key is in boiling the potatoes first, I think.

Garlic Sautéed Potatoes (Stovetop):

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Ingredients:

8 small red potatoes

salt and pepper

cooking spray

thyme

1 tsp garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

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Directions:

1. Scrub the potatoes and place in a saucepan. Cover with water and add salt.

2. Bring to a boil and simmer 20 minutes, or until tender.

3. Drain, when cool enough to handle cut into pieces.

4. Place the potatoes in sprayed, heated pan with salt and pepper.

5. Shake the pan a bit to keep the potato chunks separated. Add thyme, and continue to flip potatoes occasionally.

6. When crusty and brown, add the garlic. Add the parsley and serve immediately.

The potatoes on the stovetop taste really great when boiled first, but only okay when not. I made them based on this recipe. They'd also taste really great with rosemary, or any seasonings you like. Last week I tried them with chopped green onion, which was pretty good.

As for the oven version, in theory they should have turned out fine, but they came up a little short -- they took way too long to cook through, so maybe boiling first would help here too. Either way, they were somewhat less than satisfactory, so I'll just post what I did for reference.

Oven-roasted Balsamic Potatoes:

Ingredients:
6 small red potatoes
1/2 large onion
2 tsp roasted garlic (pre-minced, refrigerated stuff)
2 tbsp rosemary
salt and pepper
balsamic vinegar
olive oil spray

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray Pyrex baking dish with olive oil cooking spray.
2. Chop potatoes and onion; put in baking dish.
3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic, and balsamic vinegar (generously, if you like balsamic vinegar).
4. Bake until potatoes are cooked through -- this ended up taking about an hour for me, which made the balsamic vinegar get a little gummy.

If I try this recipe again and have more success, I'll post what I did differently.