Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Country Ham and Chilis

I know I have said this before, but I'm not typically a big potato-eater.  I love McDonald's french fries as much as the next person (although I love sweet potato fries more), but mashed potatoes and baked potatoes don't really do it for me.  I will eat them from time-to-time if they are part of a dish I order at a restaurant, but that really only happens once a blue moon.  Every once in awhile I like to humor Alex (who really is a potato lover) and roast some fingerling potatoes at home.  This tends to happen in the fall and early winter when the farmers' markets first start displaying pretty little fingerling potatoes.  This year we discovered roast sunchokes and I think they are better than roast potatoes.  So these fingerlings might very well be the first potatoes we have made all year...  

This recipe was intended to be made with new potatoes, but I decided that I wanted to use fingerlings instead because I think they crisp up better.  When I think of new potatoes I tend to think of boiled or steamed new potatoes, rather than roasted new potatoes.  And if I am going to do potatoes (roasted or fried), I want them to be crispy.  These potatoes weren't as crispy as I would have liked but I thought they had good flavor.  Even though the addition of the balsamic vinegar decreased the crispy texture it added a nice mildly sweet flavor.  And I loved the salty porky flavor of the country ham.  In the future I would add another poblano pepper for additional mild pepper flavor.  I might also add some onion for additional sweetness and flavor.  Alex thought the potatoes would be improved by the addition of some heat (nothing new there) as a counterbalance to the sweetness of the balsamic, but I'm not sure if I would add red pepper flakes or just serve the potatoes with some hot sauce.  These potatoes would make an interesting alternative to home fries for brunch.  The cookbook recommends serving any leftover potatoes with poached or fried eggs for breakfast.  We tried the potatoes with fried eggs and I think they would work nicely either way. 

Recipe after the jump!

Buttercup Squash Soup with Rosemary

Ever since I stumbled across the Lee Bros. new cookbook at Barnes & Noble I have been dying to try this recipe (among others).  But when it's bitter cold outside, nothing appeals to me quite as much as a nice piping hot bowl of soup.  So when I received The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor as a Christmas present last year, I knew I had to try their Butternut Squash Soup with Rosemary.  Butternut squash soup is one of my absolute favorites and I have been dying for a new recipe to try.  But then the winter got away from me.  And soup is not exactly good summer-fare.  So I waited until it finally got cold again before I made it.  Since today was in the mid-60's and rainy it was perfect soup weather. 

I'm not going to say that the soup was disappointing.  But it wasn't the best squash soup we have ever made.  I had a butternut squash from the grocery and a buttercup squash from the CSA.  I have never cooked (or to my knowledge, eaten) a buttercup squash before.  And in this soup I'm not certain that I could say how a buttercup squash tastes compared to a butternut squash.  I know that the soup wasn't as sweet as I had expected it to be.  And I know that I prefer a squash soup with a bit of heat or curry, to this version with country ham, buttermilk and rosemary.  Part of the problem with this soup is that I felt like the flavors never really melded together.  It wasn't sweet from the squash or tangy from the buttermilk.  And the country ham didn't give it that deep, salty flavor I expected.  Instead it just tasted a little muddled.  It had potential, but it didn't quite make it.

Recipe after the jump!