One Potato Per Person

How do you figure how many potatoes to prepare? How did my grandmother always know how many to chop and cook for that massive pot of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving? And fruit salad...if I'm trying to feed 6 people, then how many bananas, cans of pineapple, apples and oranges do I gather?

This was part of the lesson on Monday night with my girls, along with chicken and glazed carrots. We really needed a good name for this particular way of preparing chicken, and several ideas were tossed around: Intoxicated Chicken, Drunken Chicken, Tipsy Chicken (are you getting the idea alcohol was involved?) We settled on Rosemary Chicken, since it also took center stage, and is quite a bit less offensive. Rosemary was also involved in the potato endeavor.

There are several favored ingredients in a lot of the things I make, and I always try to keep them around: rosemary and basil (grown in my backyard), fresh onions and garlic, olive oil, white wine, various forms of prepared tomatoes (paste, sauce, crushed, whole, diced, stewed), fresh parsley and cilantro, lemons and limes, cayenne pepper, and a really good parmiggiano reggiano, otherwise known as parmesan cheese - and not the kind in a green can!!!

Menu: Rosemary Chicken (with white wine and garlic)
Roasted Potatoes, Glazed Carrots
Simple Lemon Cake with Strawberries

To roast potatoes, chop one scrubbed but not peeled potato per person. Mix together olive oil, salt and pepper, 1 clove of crushed garlic and a sprig of fresh rosemary together in a small bowl. Pour over chopped potatoes, wrap in foil and put on hot grill for 30-45 minutes. They will be crispy and delightful and you might wish you'd chopped an extra potato!

Our dinner conversation was lively, including some embarrassing revelations and a lot of uncontrolled laughter.

(A note on determining serving sizes: one potato is considered one serving, so one potato per person if you are making roasted or mashed. Fruit salad? One apple is a serving. One banana is a serving. A can of pineapple is probably 4 servings. So if you've got 6 people to feed, then add up the servings of fruit until you get to 6.)

(Another note, on buttermilk...most of us don't keep this strange thick, yellow version of lactose in our refrigerators, so what to do in a pinch? Put one teaspoon of white or cider vinegar in a measuring cup and add one cup of regular milk to it. Let it sit for 60 seconds and voila! Buttermilk!)