Fun Fingerlings

I know that a lot of posts lately have been savory and with no sign of dessert or bread baking, but that is kind of how life is going, too. Sweetie is shedding pounds and asks that I avoid too much baking, but I think he didn't mind for today's dish.

Our generous and delightful neighbors across the road gave us a bag of mixed fingerling potatoes from their garden. They are wonderful to look at with the soil still coating them and little knobs sticking out here and there. This is actually something I made last Sunday, but life has been super busy, so baked crispy fingerlings is finally showing up here. We also were given some non-fingerlings, so I chunked them up and boiled them, too.

To make this, clean your potatoes, but don't remove the skin. Cut into chunks, about 1.5 - 2 inches wide. Cook the potato chunks in boiling water in a good sized pot until tender, then drain.Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F while the potatoes cook.

Now comes the fun part. Spread the cooked potato chunks on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper or a silicon mat. Make sure there is a little room between the chunks. Then use a large fork (I use one from our carving set that has three tines) or a potato masher to mash each chunk. You want the chunk to hold together but have some bits sticking up. Those will get crispy in the oven.

Drizzle some olive oil over the chunks and sprinkle with salt and/or pepper and any herbs you like with potatoes. Minced fresh rosemary goes well in this recipe.

Put the pan in the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Check how brown the potatoes are and turn pan around front to back and keep baking until chunks have golden to dark brown places. Since the potatoes are already cooked, how dark they are is personal preference.

Serve at once. Be sure to scoop up those delicious browned bits while serving. These make a great side dish for almost any fish, meat, our poultry entree you can think of. They're also gluten and dairy free.

For a vegetarian feast, top the potatoes with freshly made aoili and fill your plate up with steamed fresh veggies of all kinds. I like green beans, peas, broccoli, carrots, spinach or kale, parsnips, and beets, but use what ever is seasonal and fresh. Vegenaise can be used instead of aoili for a vegan version, but you might need to thin it with a bit of soy milk.