Jeff is a fan of the Food Network and I usually am not, however I now get into the cooking competitions.  So many of the words I don’t know and it is such an ego driven line of work to be a top chef, although the same could be said of any profession.

Usually I watch them make something complicated and wonder why on earth is anyone going to all this effort? I will eat it just as quickly whether it took you 5 minutes to prepare or 5 hours.

I like the shows that are easy, with simple recipes. Michael Smith is like that, so I like his shows.  And now I like Jamie Oliver (never watched him before).  In December we watched a couple of Jamie Oliver’s Christmas specials. He uses measurements like “2 good lugs of olive oil”.  I like it.  I was most intrigued by his roast potatoes.  I didn’t get a chance to make them when we had guests, but today Jeff put a crock pot full of chicken thighs on to cook during football and I seized the chance.

I made this recipe: Perfect roast potatoes and used some tips from this recipe Roast potatoes, parsnips & carrots to add carrots to the potatoes.

The chicken was cooking in spaghetti sauce, and Jeff took out a bunch of liquid, fat, and sauce earlier in the afternoon. I used that liquid chicken fat and butter for the potatoes and carrots, and added lots of garlic and rosemary we had dried from our garden. And I seasoned it with ground black pepper and sea salt.

It was amazing.  AMAZING. The crispy potatoes were so worth the effort (probably a couple of hours).  I loved the sea salt that was roasted into the crispness.  And I’ve never tasted such flavour in a carrot.  Boiling carrots is just simply not the way to do carrots.  This recipe somehow made the carrots oranger and incredibly delicious.