Roasted Lemon Potatoes: Side Dish Showdown

Just a simple side dish today to kick off my Side Dish Showdown monthly blogger event. This pairs potatoes with lemons. A rarity. When I think of potatoes I don’t often never think of lemons. So when I saw just this very thing in my new issue of Food Network magazine it immediately sparked my interest. Speaking of. If you’ve never picked a copy of this magazine you should. It’s full of recipes from start to finish. Recipes you will really want to make and eat. Some are very basic that you can build your own ideas on and others that are more intense. And the best part for me is the lady who shall remain nameless here – you know her for 30 minute meals – is nowhere to be found.

The potatoes are started on top of the stove in an iron-proof skillet by boiling them with lemon, olive oil, garlic and in this case Rosemary (the original used oregano). Then they get roasted in the oven, and Parmesan, my contribution, gets sprinkled over top.

I really loved these – the lemon was prominent but not tart, and they went perfectly alongside a whole roasted chicken. And this brings me to one of the reasons why I am starting this side dish event. The potatoes added something special to the meal; the lemon and rosemary are classic flavors for chicken; they were a nice compliment and really rounded out the meal to make it memorable. More so than if I had just eaten a baked potato with it, or even mashed potatoes or steamed up some rice. Not that any of those are bad; just boring; and they don’t add much to the meal; just fulfill a purpose.

I want to give more attention to sides; the underdog of the meal; the afterthought. My goal is to be a resource for finding fabulous side dishes quickly, whether it be on the spur of the moment while that chicken is roasting, to use up a certain ingredient before it goes bad, to get you out of a rut and find something new and interesting to serve. But most of all I want to put more thought into picking just the right side that is going to work with the flavors of the entire meal. When you think of that delicious chicken dish you made last week I want you to automatically think of the side too, and how much it brought to the meal, because the flavors go hand in hand. I know I’ll be doing that with my chicken and lemon potatoes. Remembering them. I ate it on Sunday and I’m still thinking about it. Both of them. Not just the succulent roasted chicken. But those potatoes too, so delicious together.

Side Dish Showdown will be a monthly blogger event that will start on the first or second of each month and run through to the last day of the month. On the 1st or 2nd I will post a round-up and announce that month’s theme. Did I mention that? We’ll have different themes every month. To kick things off this month we’ll have an Anything Goes theme.

Please Add The Side Dish Showdown Badge to Your Blog Sidebar and to your side dish posts to help spread the word about it – I would greatly appreciate it!