Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Potatoes

In an effort to save money, we have been eating rather a lot of pasta, potatoes and chicken this last week. With bags of new potatoes in the supermarket costing a mere 49 cents, how could I resist. D is super happy as he really loves a dinner consisting of meat, potatoes and veg, and I’m also happy as it gives me just that little bit more money to play around with cake recipes. It is simply amazing how much money I spend on butter each week. But it’s totally worth it!

Because I’m feeling, well lets face it, lazy this week, roasted chicken and potatoes are a great and easy way of going about dinner. With plenty of leftovers, these dinners will do for the next night too and with the left over shreds of chicken and the bones, chicken sandwiches and home-made stock get rustled up too.

This is a really simple dish, but adding fresh rosemary and garlic to the pan, make it feel and taste anything but simple.

ROSEMARY AND GARLIC ROASTED POTATOES

• 1 bag (1KG) baby potatoes
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 head of garlic, about 6-8 cloves
• 2-3 stalks of rosemary
• salt flakes and freshly ground pepper

THE HOW

Heat the oven to 200 C /180 C fan oven. In a big roasting pan, pour in the olive oil and add the potatoes, if the potatoes aren’t all the same size, give the bigger ones a cut in half to cook evenly. Roll them around in the oil to give them a nice coating.

Break up the head of garlic into the individual cloves. Leave the skins on them as a protective coating, but snip the end root piece off. This allows you to slip them out of their skins easily once cooked and plated up.

Add a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper and throw the rosemary on top.

Pop into the oven and cook for 1 hour. Giving the pan a shake after 30 minutes to turn the potatoes.

The rosemary leaves will have fallen off the stalks and the garlic will be nicely caramelized inside their skins. Put them into a serving dish and pop onto the dinner table for everyone to help themselves.