A Tale of Two Sides

Tonight we had my in-laws over; I decided to make baked salmon, you know, because it had been almost a whole WEEK, and I really wanted to make curried basmati rice as the side. However, as my in-laws have what I call Traditional (note the capital "T") tastes, I figured I'd better cover my bases with some roasted potatoes as well.

Zee roasted potatoes

And the curried basmati rice

I will start with the potatoes, as those need some oven time while you mess with the other.

You will need:

5 or 6 medium red-skinned  potatoes, adjust for how many people you are feeding. I used 6smallish ones for 4 adults
1/4 c olive oil, not EVOO (sorry, Rachel)
1/2 tsp coarse salt (like kosher or sea salt)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp coarsely cracked pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and line a 9 x 13 (or so) rectangular pan with parchment paper.

Scrub your potatoes really well and cut off any eyes or bad bits. Cut into one inch cubes (you know, APPROXimately, don't get out a ruler or anything. Just try to make most of them similar in size) and put in a largish bowl. Pour on the olive oil, then sprinkle with the herbs, salt and pepper.

Sprinkles!!

Give it a good stir with a sturdy heat-resistant spatula.

Spatulas warm my ARC heart

Pour into the prepared pan, scraping leftover oil on top of the potatoes.

Bake for 45 - 60 minutes, stirring with your handy-dandy heat-resistant spatula every 15 minutes. Once you see browning on more than one side, poke one with a knife.

Done!

Closer...

Lovely for brekkie too

You can change up the herbs, maybe make it more of a greek potato with some lemon and oregano, experiment! This is my go-to for breakfast potatoes as well as my guest-y potato, because I can leave the skins on without offending anyone. Because I don't ever peel potatoes. The skin is where all the good stuff is, silly!


And now for the Curried Basmati Rice:

You will need:

1 tsp butter
2 onions, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, say orange
1/2 bell pepper, different colour, like say yellow!
1 c brown basmati rice
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp curry powder (I am using a commercial blend because mine is a leetle spicy and I don't know if that's how these in-laws roll. You can use whichever you like.)

I decided not to grate the onions, so ignore that

I haven't used this recipe in a while, mostly because it calls for white rice and I don't have any. On principal. Okay, I MIGHT have some arborio hidden away, but that's for risotto and that wouldn't help anyway. I have tried just a straight-up switch, increasing the cooking time to account for the brown rice's longer cooking requirement, but nooo beuno. The rice was hard and the peppers were way overcooked.

So we are going to try this: wash the rice and put it in a pan, just barely covering with water.

Just barely.

Bring to a boil, covered, then turn it off and leave alone. Prep your veggies by chopping your onions and peppers.

So pretty

 I always do my initial bell pepper prep under running water, because it is easier to get rid of the seeds. I also made my onions quite a bit smaller than my peppers, but that's only so that my husband thinks that he can see all the healthy stuff and pick around it. Shhhhhhhh

It's like a flag!

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan and cook the onions and peppers for 3-4 minutes, until soft.

Soft is not an insult to veggies, only a description

Check your rice. All the water should be absorbed, pour off any leftover. That can be a pain, use a sieve as necessary. Add the rice to the dish, 1 1/2 c water, the salt and the curry powder. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Don't open it.

Hard rice

Stir potatoes!

After the 20 minutes, check the rice to ensure tenderness.


Serve!

Tenderoni rice! Yay!

Faaarrrrr

Near!!

It turned out they ate both! So it was all to the good.