Crispy Potato Wedges with Mustard

Just a quick post to share this tasty potato recipe with y'all. :)

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that Fridays often mean comfort food for this veggie chick. And, because I'm currently single, cooking only for one, I can eat whatever I want for dinner... and tonight, it was potato wedges!

I spied this recipe in the New York Times recently, and since *I* love potatoes, and my omni fiance does too, I clipped it to give it a try. It was quick and relatively painless to make. I was short on time (cuz I'm baking my first vegan cake tonight!), so I used the microwave option on the first part and it turned out well. I should also mention that I halved the recipe, using only two potatoes. I like that the mustard doesn't overpower the potato, but adds a great flavor. A nice variation on oven "fries." :)

Crispy Potato Wedges With Mustard

4 large Idaho potatoes

1/2 cup Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pierce potatoes with a fork and bake
them until almost cooked, about 30 to 40 minutes. (Alternatively,
microwave them on high for 6 minutes, turning them halfway through.)
Leave oven on.

2. In a large bowl, stir together mustard, olive oil, thyme, salt and
pepper. When cool enough to handle, cut potatoes lengthwise into 4
wedges each. Toss wedges in mustard mixture until thoroughly coated.

3. Raise oven temperature to 500 degrees. Lay potato wedges, with one
cut side down, on a rimmed baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes,
turning them onto other cut side after 10 minutes. Transfer to a warmed platter, and serve.

Yield: 8 servings.

Po-TAY-toes

Last night I made oven-baked potatoes for dinner. Didn't use a specific recipe per se, but one of the things about Friday nights is that I usually use that as my 'comfort food' night. It's the end of the work week... and usually I am *ready* to go home and relax and delight in the fact that I don't have to work for two days! So, I've gotten into the habit of enjoying comfort foods for Friday dinners. Friday nights are great for pizza... or sometimes I'll pick up my favorite Thai dish from the local Thai restaurant. Last night, though, I wanted to make something I could post on this blog. ;) I bought a sack of potatoes last weekend, and fearing they'd be going bad soon, I thought oven-baked fries would be easy and use up some of the potatoes... ok, one potato. I don't bake a lot of potatos for that reason... I hate buying a sack and feeling like I have to eat nothing but potatos until they're gone. As a single person, I find it difficult to get through a sack of potatos before they go bad. Yeah, I know, I could buy them one at a time at the store, but for some reason I don't... at least not very often. I had this particular sack of potatoes in the house because I've been using some of them as a base ingredient for a mixture that I stuff my dog's hollow bones/kongs with before freezing them.

Anyway, to make these oven-baked potatoes, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, sliced my potatoes, tossed them with Carapelli extra virgin olive oil and Mrs. Dash Onion and Herb blend. I arranged them on a cookie sheet and baked them for 15 minutes, turned them over and then baked for an additional 15 minutes. Not too bad. They weren't super crunchy, so they probably could've stayed in the oven a little bit longer.