Going crazy for potatoes - sweet and otherwise

I am tired of boring side dishes. So this week I went in search of recipes for side dishes that would be better than my typical sautéed vegetables, pasta or fries.

First, some wine. My husband brought home some wine "made from organic grapes" from Alfalfa's, the new organic/natural foods store in Boulder. It was lovely. It was a mild Malbec, and we will definitely purchase it again. It was called Pircas Negras (on the left).

Now back to potatoes:



I ran across two recipes that looked good, both from Eating Well. They were: Parsley Smashed New Potatoes and Black Bean-Smothered Sweet Potatoes. Click the links to see the recipes.

Both get an A+ in my novice cookbook.

The Parsley Smashed New Potatoes recipe was attractive because I could make it with the red potatoes I already had at my house. The sweet potato recipe was attractive because I love sweet potatoes, and finding ways to cook them outside of sweet potato fries is something I've been trying to do. Lots of good nutrients in those sweet potatoes ...

The Parsley Smashed New Potatoes ended up tasting kind of like warm potato salad, but I loved it. They are made with fresh  parsley, scallions (I used green onion), low-fat plain yogurt instead of sour cream (giving it a tangy taste), butter, salt and pepper. My husband also liked them. I served that with BBQ chicken legs and thighs. This is the simple recipe I used for the BBQ. It was the first time I made legs and thighs, and I have to say they turned out well. Again, a thumbs-up from my BBQ-loving husband.

A fun BBQ meal. Messy to eat though!

The sweet potato recipe also gets a thumbs-up, both from me and my husband. In fact, I believe this was his favorite of the three. What's more, it's can easily be made into a meal in and of itself. It was baked sweet potatoes topped with a hearty mixture of black beans, tomato, olive oil and spices – which included cumin and coriander. Yum!

The mixture for the top of the sweet potatoes. The cumin and coriander flavors were perfect.

The sweet potato with topping. I was generous with my portions,
but overall this is a low-fat dish; above I used nonfat sour cream as a topper.

And then on Friday, I bought some fingerling potatoes because they looked interesting and were the only potatoes available in the organic section of my local grocery store. (The organic section isn't big in my neighborhood Longmont King Soopers, and I like to buy organic produce. It just tastes better.)

I kept things simple the following day with the fingerling potatoes, finding this recipe from Rachael Ray that called for salt, pepper, crushed garlic (I used powder as I had no garlic cloves) and olive oil. I also added thyme, which was recommended in other recipes as being a good complement to the sweeter taste of these potatoes. We had Laura's Lean Beef strip steaks with the potatoes, and some exciting frozen broccoli for good measure. Hey, you can't have everything fresh, and you have to have a vegetable! Or at least that is what I learned growing up … but I added butter, salt and garlic powder to the broccoli and it ended up tasting great. I had issues with timing again in terms of when I roasted the potatoes, and when I started the steak. But I'm getting better.

I seasoned the steak correctly this time, going heavy on the
salt, pepper, garlic powder and Tony Chachere's seasoning.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the recipes I tried this week. It's fun to try new recipes, and I am definitely inspired to continue trying new things for sides.