I don’t want to brag and I don’t like throwing the word “perfect” around too much, especially when I’m talking about my own work, so let’s just call these Sarah’s “really, really good” roasted potatoes.
But you know what I’m thinking.
(They’re the best! Perfect! Spectacular! To-die-for! Amazing! Life-changing!)
This is my favorite way to roast potatoes and if it isn’t yours already, it might be very soon.
I’m the type of person who is, sometimes really annoyingly, resistant to change. Even if it’s the kind of change that might enhance my everyday living, like trading in my old flip phone or upgrading my decade-old, leaky, stained $10 coffeemaker, I’ll insist that my old way is just fine. So naturally, I never had much interest in trying Jim Lahey’s famous no-knead pizza dough recipe that has been sweeping the rest of the nation for the last couple of years. What good was that for someone like me? I like spending time in the kitchen, I like getting my hands dirty, and I like kneading my dough.
An unfortunate side effect of being resistant to change is the tendency to hoard. My old magazines had finally stacked up to the point of bothering me, so I recently started weeding through old issues of Bon Appétit and came across the no-knead pizza dough recipe again. Fine! I gave in and decided to give this crust a shot.
Thank goodness I did–it’s amazing! It’s like the pizza crust I seek out in restaurants, made at home, in my ordinary oven. The center is thin and crisp, the edges chewy and bubbly. Plus, if you make the full recipe, you can keep balls of dough in the freezer and have pizza whenever the mood strikes. So daily.
It’s no secret I love olives. The evidence of my addiction is scattered all over this blog; you’ve seen recipes for salmon tartare with olives and avocado, olive and endive tiella, pork shoulder braised with olives and blood oranges, among others.
What you haven’t seen are the countless deli containers of olives I’ve munched from while standing in the kitchen, waiting for a risotto to come together or a chicken to roast. Out of control. And you haven’t seen the batches of tapenade I’ve made and smeared on sandwiches and pizza, stirred into pasta, and dolloped onto pots of steamed mussels.
Today’s the day though. Olives will take center-stage and we’ll put together a batch of tapenade. Soon you, too, will be garnishing your life with black olives and loving every moment of it.
Do you ever teach yourself how to make something new and as soon as you finish, slap yourself on the forehead and wonder why you haven’t been making it for years?
I do quite often.
This time around it was homemade lemon curd. I’d never given lemon curd much thought, but I had an itch to make some sort of lemony shortbread dessert so I figured out how to make it. It was so easy and the results were so much better than I imagined that I’m now having a hard time thinking about a refrigerator void of a bowl of lemon curd.
My favorite restaurant meals involve taking something home. And I don’t mean a doggy bag of left-overs.
I’m talking inspiration or an idea you can bring into your own kitchen. Something that surprised you, something that delighted you, and something you can sneak into your repertoire at home. Sometimes it is just a piece of a dish or a specific flavor combination. Other times, you kind of lift the whole idea.
This time around, it’s a lifted anise-scented focaccia. I happen to be a huge fan of anise and have added it to plenty of baked goods at home. And I’m no stranger to homemade focaccia, but the 2 of them together? Whoa! Now that’s a great idea.