Two ways to serve roasted potatoes

It is such a strange feeling, after working towards the same goal for the past 6 years, to now be moving in a new direction. By strange I also mean exciting. I have my first interview in a gajillion years tomorrow for a part-time/temporary, microbiology, college instructor position. However, I now also have a new and extremely exciting job offer that I have not told you about yet but I learned more about today. 

The position is to become a clinical research associate and I was offered an opportunity to explore my passions in this environment. I will write grants and research proposals, direct other research technicians and I will even have a chance to learn about clinical drug and vaccine trials which has always been my dream. So, as it stands, I am not sure where to go from here with the teaching position. I may be able to do both but I am not sure I want to. I will have to see what happens at the interview tomorrow.

Enough about me, more about my food. I'm a little out of practice so I could have made today's recipe a little more elegantly but it all turned out okay in the end. I bought these adorable purple potatoes at Whole Foods yesterday, they were locally grown in the Fraser Valley and they were really yummy. I roasted them with left over eggplant and squash I had in the fridge. I think a sweet potato would have been a nice addition. 

I recently used up my small bottle of basil-infused olive oil that I bought in the summer (used in many past posts). I really loved that oil and decided now to try a rosemary infused olive oil. The bottles are small and cost me $15 but it is really nice to have a high quality, flavored oil to garnish roasted veggies and salads. A regular olive oil will do fine though if you don't want to follow my lead. 

My original intention with roasting these veggies was to make a light, roasted potato salad. I was not sure what eggplant would taste like in this mix so I split my veggies in half. Half I turned into a potato salad and the other half I topped with crumbled goat cheese. Both were equally yummy. Maybe depending on what you are serving them with you can choose one option or the other.

Roasted potatoes - 2 ways

Autumn seasonal: potatoes, winter squash, carrots, eggplant, herbs

Roasted potato ingredients

1 regular potato chopped

2 purple potatoes chopped

1 1/2 cup cubed acorn squash

1 1/2 cup cubed eggplant (optional)

1/2 large carrot chopped

Fresh sage and thyme leaves finely chopped

Rosemary infused olive oil (or rosemary plus olive oil)

1 garlic clove crushed in a garlic press or finely grated
Sea salt to taste

Directions

1 - Preheat oven to 400F

2 - Cut up all of the vegetables into cubes. Everything should be roughly the same size (1/2" - 1" cubed) except the carrots should be about 1/4 of the size of the other vegetables (I prefer it this way, you may not).

3 - In a roasting pan, toss the potatoes with a generous amount of olive oil (herb-infused if you have it i.e. rosemary or sage), crushed garlic, fresh herbs and sea salt.

4 - Roast potatoes covered for about 15 - 20 minutes.

5 - Stir in the squash and eggplant with more oil and spread out all of the vegetables evenly on a baking sheet (this is so they become brown and hopefully somewhat crispy).

6 - Cook for about 10 minutes, toss/flip once and then cook another 10 minutes until golden brown and the potatoes are tender.

7 - Serve using one or both of the methods below.

Option 1: Roasted potatoes with goat cheese

Serve hot roasted veggies sprinkled with fresh thyme and crumbled soft goat cheese.

  
Option 2: Roasted potato salad

Ingredients 
Juice of 1 lemon

2 tbsp mayonnaise

2 tsp grainy dijon mustard

Sea salt, ground

Directions

1 - Whisk together lemon juice, mayonnaise and mustard with sea salt to taste.

2 - Allow roasted veggies to cool and toss with a desired amount of dressing.