Pickles and Roasted Potatoes

Barbecue Fare

A few nights ago Roland and I said goodbye (more like see you later) to our dear friends Yani and Paul who have left Peterborough for Vancouver (their rightful home). As a send off, we hosted a barbecue. Actually, Paul, Yani, Roland and I hosted a barbecue. Paul and Yani had some ground meat to use up (freezer clean out) and we had a barbecue and a house that wasn't in moving-mode turmoil.

The burgers Yani and Paul made were moist and super delicious, simply made with local ground beef and pork. On the side Roland and I served a roasted potato salad and pickled beets (along with Tabbouleh and a green salad). I mention the potatoes and pickles because they were a real hit, and something I think you might like to try.

Roasted Potato Salad - who knew?

Roasted potatoes are plain old delicious. My favourite way to roast potatoes is to chop them up, throw them in some boiling water to blanch (cooking only until they are fork tender) and then draining them before giving them a good bash around. The bashing bit creates lovely pockets and ridges for a crispy crust to develop once they are tossed in a hot oven (at least 400) to roast. While olive oil, salt and pepper make for perfect potatoes, there's nothing wrong with tossing in some smashed garlic, rosemary, thyme or (drum roll) duck fat! Being well aware that roasted potatoes are right-on-tasty, I figured a roasted potato would make a real good potato salad.

After roasting the little guys, I dressed them with some freshly squeezed lemon juice and seasoned them with salt and pepper. I threw in some sliced green onions and poured in my prepared dressing (equal parts mayonnaise & sour cream thinned out with a bit of milk and flavoured with fresh dill). The warm potatoes drank up the dressing and roasting them made for a delightful chewy-yet-crisp texture and a lightly smoky flavour.

Quick Pickles

With the dream of a big kitchen garden still dancing in my mind (it's not too late yet, is it?), I've been thinking a lot about preserving food. I'm planning on becoming very familiar with canning this fall, and hope to make lots of jams, jellies and pickles!

Something Roland does fairly regularly is a quick pickle. Mostly used for beets (because they are so delicious), this time round we also threw in a few of those sharp radishes I mentioned in a previous post. We boiled the beets and radishes until tender and tossed them into a mason jar with white and cider vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves, all spice, brown sugar and salt. An hour in the fridge and the veggies were beautifully pickled.

We don't have an exact recipe - we're pretty lackadaisical about it - but it works every time. Because we pickle only what we're interested in eating that week, we don't worry about sanitizing or boiling the jar. They are perfect served with a meal, in a salad or with a cheese board.