Patates Riganates or Greek roast potatoes

On the day I made this meal, I was in online meetings for 6 hours (cue mute mike rage) - partly dumb luck, as lots of them were scheduled before the lockdown, others due to my own haphazard scheduling. As a lovely end to the day, I'd also agreed to help Child 2 participate in a class 'Bake Off' (if you remember my baking skills, insert your own hollow laugh here). Add the old and new political challenges and I was, to put it mildly, a bit frazzled.

I had intended to make quiche, in a (misguided as it turns out) attempt to make my children eat eggs, so managed to sell this to Child 2 as a quirky alternative to the cakes that everyone else would be making. I had a sneaking suspicion that the levels of cheese involved might put off Child 1, so chose a side dish that no-one could possibly object to - Greek roast potatoes.

The quiche was delicious (pastry, bacon, eggs, milk and a tad more cheese than strictly necessary) but the potatoes were the star. Taken from a Greek recipe book bought following a particularly greedy holiday, it has 5 ingredients and goes like this.

Bake Off contender. Don't tell them it's shop-bought pastry. Pastry might have sent me over the edge.






Peel and chop 3lb of large potatoes into largish chunks (recipe said 1.5 inches, mine were more freestyle). Douse them in quite a lot of olive oil, add 4-5 crushed cloves of garlic, salt and pepper and a lot of dried oregano. Roast in a hot oven (220) for 15 minutes. Take them out and add 120ml of beef or chicken stock, stir them round and put back in for another 10 minutes. Next add a good squeeze of lemon juice (around 100ml), mix again and put bsck in the oven for 10-15 minutes. If you have it, scatter with fresh oregano before serving.

These were a revelation - an amazing mix between roast potatoes and chips and gravy. Child 2 had thirds. The quiche was good, but the potatoes were amazing and went a long way towards soothing my soul.

I have come to realise that this post basically boils down to potatoes as an antidote to online meetings. I'm fine with that.