Basic Potatoes

Potatoes are a tasteless starch for many people. Or they are an excuse for a vegetable as french fries next to a burger. Well. I make potatoes and green beans, and maybe a touch of salad, and call it dinner. The parts of this recipe which you'll have to adjust are cooking time and size of potato chunk. Every oven is different, and weird things can happen. Just go for it, and check in to see how your potatoes are going. The best part about this recipe is that if you over-do it, you'll just have deliciously browned - or blackened - potatoes.

Serves 2 (for two meals, great as leftovers)

Ingredients:

6 potatoes
olive oil
salt
pepper

optional: rosemary


How to? Pre-heat the oven to about 400F (200C).

Slice potatoes length-wise in half, and then slice into wedges. The size or shape isn't so important, as long as they are all about the same. You want them to cook at the same rate, so don't make some slices tiny and others bulbous. Roughly the same size and shape is all that matters, even if you make cubes, like home fries.

Take a cooking pan - this can be a cookie sheet with a lip, a glass casserole dish, a metal dish, whatever as long as it has a raised edge - and put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom. Add about a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of pepper. If you've got it, add two or three teaspoons of rosemary. Stir it up with a wooden spoon, perhaps, but I recommend adding your potatoes and getting your hands in there. Try to make sure each piece of potato is oiled, and then the potatoes should be roughly evenly spread in the pan.

No worries, though, because halfway through you're going to stir the whole lot.

Put your potatoes in the oven. Leave them for 20 minutes. Take them out (carefully) and mix with a wooden spoon (or whatever you've got). Put them back for another 20 minutes. Don't be afraid to peek at them every 10-15 minutes while they're in the oven. They shouldn't take more than 40 minutes to cook, but if they're not starting to brown, take one out, let it cool a minute and test it. It is really hard to over cook these babies, so your main concern is not cooking them enough. Eventually, you'll learn what it feels like to stick a fork in a done potato, and you can skip the tasting step. If you want to.