Crispy Golden Potato Wedges with MTD Sauce (Or – Quick! My potatoes are about to sprout!)

– What is the Long and Short of It? –

Crispy, golden potatoes with a dipping sauce so good you will finish any leftovers with a spoon…This is dedicated to all those people out there who think they can’t cook. You can cook this. Trust me.

– For the Wedges –

 

Potatoes, cut into wedges
Oil
Salt
Spices ( I like tumeric, cumin, caramon and paprika)

– For the MTD Sauce –

For every two people you will need

1 Brown onion, diced
1 Large Clove of Garlic, finely minced
400 gm Greek yoghurt (or any unsweet unflavored yoghurt)
Salt
Small Handful of Parsley
1 tblsp of Oil
Pinch of Sugar

Preheat the oven to 200.

Cut as many potatoes as you think your guests will eat (this depends largely on if it will be the main course or a side dish) and space evenly on a baking tray (or two)

Drizzle well with olive oil. You want enough to evenly coat. Give it a good salting and wack in your spices. Even just tumeric is lovely, if you dont have all the spices.

Get in there with your hands and massage the oil and and spices and salt all over your lucky wedges.

Bung tray in the oven and leave for about 20 minutes until crispy and the kitchen smells wonderful.

Meanwhile.

Fry onion in about oil until golden and caramelized over a medium to high heat. Add a little salt and a pinch or two of sugar and cook a mo, You want some serious goldenness going on here. Stir through 1 tbls of water. Turn off.

Mix finely chopped garlic into and parsely into onion. Cool 5 minutes. Stir through yoghurt and season to taste.

Serve with a generous portion of MTD sauce and devour!

– The Long of It –

I have been making wedges for as long as I can remember. They are one of the first things I learnt how to cook and their variations are countless.

My mum makes amazing ones with good quality mayonnaise, fresh chopped rosemary and grain mustard and they are soft and luscious.

It still amazes me the incredibly vast guises the humble potato can take. From mash to duaphinoise to chips to curry to pringles, to jacket, to soup to vodka…

Can you imagine the first people to discover potatoes? To take this wierdly lumpy thing from the ground and then think that it was edible. How wildly delicous it would be… How it would cause a famine in Ireland…

Did you know that potatoes were the first food to be grown in space? Hot damn! That is awesome! They are eco friendly. They are healthy. They are the 4th most consumed food on the planet… Marie Antoinette never actually said ‘Let them eat Cake!’  But she did wear potato blossoms as accesories….

But this all pales in comparison to the fact that pototoes are just damn delicious. Plunk one in the coals of a dying fire. Roast. Salt and drench with butter and tell me otherwise…

 

A note on the title: I haven’t made wedges in a while. Last night me and my lovely host were deciding what to cook and we were like, how about potatoes?
But lo and behold the potatoes were getting little sprouty bits and we were like, quick, quick, what shall we do?
And it came to me like a bolt from the blue and we made wedges. From all of the potatoes. And it was glorious.

Warm Lentil Salad With Red Wine and Cherry Tomatoes

What is the long and short of it?

– The Short of It –

1 kg of dry puy lentils
2 small brown onions, roughly diced
6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
5 tbls of olive oil
few good lugs of red wine (the rest for drinking)
1 large bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley
water, as you go
500gm of cherry tomatoes
salt
Some nice white cheese, fetta, cherve or mozzarella, as you like
2 eggplant, diced

Put the diced eggplants in a bowl and toss with 1 tbls of salt. Put to the side.
Fry onion and garlic in a large pan with a wide base till fragrant in olive oil for 5 minutes on a low heat, stirring with a trusty wooden spoon.

Pour in lentils and stir, thoroughly coating in onioney oil. Fry 2 minutes, stirring as you go.
Pour in red wine (about 200ml). It will sizzle and absorb. Add 500ml of cold water. Add some salt (1tsp). Turn down heat to very low and let it simmer away for 20 minutes.
While its doing its thing, sit with a friend or some good music or both and pick the leaves leisurely from your parsley. Keep the stalks for something else. You want the whole bunch picked in a little bowl ready to go.

Rinse and strain your diced eggplant. Pat dry on a clean tea towel. Fry in a little olive oil over a medium heat till lightly golden and soft. About 4 minutes.
Put aside.
Stir your lentils. Add a little more water if it has all absorbed.
Cook lentils until they are soft. It may take 40 minutes all up. But they take care of themselves really. When they are ready and soft turn off heat, check the seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Heat a frypan to hot and sear the cherry tomatoes in a little olive oil till the skins split and they are piping hot.

Stir tomatoes, eggplant and picked parsley through and sprinkle with your white cheese of choice.
Serve in summer as a lunch or in colder weather as a lovely side dish. Or for a wonderful appetiser with some crusty bread.
Enjoy and remember the joy of simple flavors.

Serves 10 as an appetiser or 6-8 as a light meal on its own..

– The Long of It –

Lentils, lentils, lentils. There are so many kinds and so many ways to cook them. And yet, for some unfathomable reason, they seem to be view as a bland health food that you would only really eat because its good for you. Not because they are fantastic little pearls of wonder. Which they are. Just give them a little love. Sure, if you cook a lentil wrong it won’t be great, but the same with anything really.

Take the humble potato. Boil it. Boil it some more till its overcooked and filled with water. And then eat it. Without salt or butter or cheese or anything and you just couldnt imagine, in your wildest dreams, the amazing things you could do with this lumpy ground vegetable.

It is the same with so many ingredients, actually. All they need is a little love an understanding (do you see how food mirrors life) and your humble spinach or eggplant or broccoli becomes your best friend. So give lentils a go. Your eyes will be opened.

And for all you voracious lentil fans out there. .. This recipe can be added to the long list of reasons why you alread love lentils. Rich, flavorsome and fresh with herbs and oozing tomato goodness, you may wonder why you have never eaten them this way before.

Perhaps you have. What the hell do I know?

May you be haunted by the irresistable smell of frying onion and garlic… Miss Nom