Potatoes Two Ways

My mission: To cook 5 recipes from Cooking Light Magazine each month. Clean out the dish washer, grab a knife and put on some music because we're making potatoes!

Cooking Light Magazine is a great resource for anyone who wants to cook healthy and delicious food. I strongly recommend you bookmark their page (and this one!) and start cooking! If I can make edible food then everyone can.

Recipe 3 out of 5 for this month is: New Potatoes with Parsley and Saffron
I was excited to finally use some saffron threads I brought home from Egypt for this recipe. I honestly had no idea what I was supposed to do with them until now.  This recipe is super easy. All you do is dump all the ingredients together in a pot and cook for 20 minutes. Pretty simple, right? Well I managed to fuck it up somehow. Either that of this is a terrible recipe.

Look how pretty that saffron is! I only used a pinch of these. Oh, I was supposed to use a dash apparently. What does that even mean? I will never know if I used too much or too little because I have no idea of what a dash of saffron is as opposed to a pinch. This is why I am not a chef. That and the fact that making the same dish over and over and over exactly the same way sounds so very difficult.

In the ingredients go! When they come out, nobody knows! Actually in twenty minutes.

Finished Product:

Remember how beautiful these potatoes looked in the pot? So full of life! So red! The parsley looked crisp and beautiful! Well that shit is over! We are here now! My potatoes are mushy and flavorless. Off the top of my head I can think of 7 better ways to make potatoes than this recipe.

Verdict: Bland, boring and borderline offensive. I will not be making this again and I wish I didn't waste beautiful potatoes on this recipe.

Recipe 4 out of 5 for this month is: Truffled Roasted Potatoes!

Another easy recipe! Pretty much just throw everything into a pan and throw it into an insanely hot 450 degree oven until browned! So easy! And this time? I didn't mess it up! I actually used a lot more garlic in this dish that was called for in the recipe. I love garlic and I wasn't going to be making out with anyone that night so it worked out. I put several cloves of garlic in the pan in addition to minced garlic. I love roasted garlic and I'm happy I did this because the minced garlic got kinda burnt in the 450 degree oven.

Note: The recipe calls for Truffle Oil. There are some things you should know about me. One of them is that I do not own truffle oil. Things I do own: Magic Bullet blender, stupidly big television and several Mets jerseys. Truffle oil is just not on my radar. I will substitute truffle oil with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Before:

After: 

 

Note: The potatoes lost their red coloring but unlike the potato dish above it didn't matter because these potatoes are crispy and delicious.

Final Verdict: Outstanding! I will be making this dish many more times and maybe I'll pony up and get some Truffle Oil as well!