That said, potatoes are on sale here: .99 for a 10 pound bag!  Haven’t seen them that low in …. maybe ever?    And I just made the most awesome roast potatoes, along with carrots, parsnips and butternut squash. I tried a new technique, essentially par boiling the veggies (other than the squash) for a bit before roasting. They came out fantastic!  Youngest took some for lunch along with some leftover roast chicken and said she wants that again tomorrow for lunch. You can just do potatoes, pictured here. Or combine them with other vegetables, like butternut squash, parsnips and carrots.

• potatoes, peeled and cut in 2-3″ chunks, or just in half
• carrots, scrubbed and ends trimmed off
• parsnips, peeled and cut into wedges at least 1″ thick
• butternut squash, halved, seeded, and cut in wedges

Roasting Vegetables

Bring a pot of water to boil while you preheat the oven to 400 F.  Simmer the potatoes and carrots for 5 minutes, then add the parsnips and cook another 4-5 minutes.

The squash doesn’t need to be parboiled.

Drain in a colander and let sit for a few minutes. Take everything but the potatoes out of the colander then shake the colander around a bit to shake up the potatoes.

Put the vegetables in a shallow pan, along with a few cloves of garlic and some sprigs of fresh parsley if you have some. (Grow some! )  Drizzle some olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle some paprika on the squash if you’d like.

Roast at 400 for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the vegetables.

This packs well for a school lunch the next day. My daughter took some vegetables, leftover roast chicken, some ketchup in a small container, and some sliced apples and pears and declared it one of the best lunches ever.

For all of the potatoes, I peeled them first. I don’t always but did tonight for some reason. I cut them into 1/3″ slices or so, not quite thin fries but not thick either. Then I tossed with some olive oil until lightly coated. I put them in two different small bowls so i could season them differently.

For the sweet potatoes, I sprinkled with salt, cinnamon and paprika, as inspired by Sarah’s Cucina Bella blog.

For the Russet potatoes, I also sprinkled with salt and then some Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle.

I baked them on a jelly roll pan at 425 for about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so and watching at the end to see when they hit my desired crunchiness. Your mileage will vary of course depending on how small you cut the potatoes and how hot your oven really is. I pulled some of mine out early as they were thinner than the others and were done sooner.

Both kinds of fries were excellent and the perfect accompaniment to a barbecued hot dog, along with some sliced tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden.

Served them tonight with hot dogs cooked on the George Forman Grill Very nice!