sweet and pea

I never loved potatoes. As a child I would refuse to eat them boiled, mashed, and roasted. The only acceptable form for a potato was a french fry. Graduating from french fry only eating, to ingesting other permutations of potato came slowly, and was a frustrating process for my parents.

I’ve started early, familiarizing my daughter with non-deep fried potatoes. As always the first introduction to a new food is play. We grabbed a big bag of new potatoes from the market and E helped me to wash and sort them by size. She helped me make this dish, and though she wasn’t ready to try eating it herself, she was very proud to serve it at dinner as her contribution to the meal.

I love roasting lemons, and it makes everything about this easier, but adding fresh lemon juice after the potatoes have finished cooking would also work. If you do decide to roast the lemons keep in mind that the juices will run out and soak into the potatoes and become caramelized. If you think the potato need more than 30 minutes in the oven, add the lemons later, otherwise the juices may start to burn.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of new potatoes

2 tablespoons canola oil

2-3 lemons

1/2 teaspoon salt

olive oil

Handful of chives

Handful of mint

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400F (use convection roast if you have it)
2. Toss potatoes with canola oil, and salt and spread over pan
3. Cut lemons in half and place cut side down on the pan between the potatoes, roast for 30 minutes or until potatoes are cooked (lemon juice will begin to burn after 30-40 minutes)
4. Remove lemons from pan and toss potatoes with chopped chives and mint and a splash of olive oil, season to taste