Fingerling Potatoes are Here

A couple weeks ago as I was strolling through the produce area at my local Costco looking for blueberries I saw out of the corner of my eye, bags of fingerling potatoes. I just found my blueberries and left. However after thinking about what my eye had seen, I went back and picked up a bag of MountainKing fingerling potatoes and what a find. The price was $4.99 for a 5 pound bag. So far we have roasted the cute guys using 2 of the recipes on the Mountain King web site. But don't necessarily follow the recipes as shown there. We made Rosemary Fingerling Potatoes and Honey-Dijon Roasted Fingerlings. Below is our modified Honey-Dijon Fingerling Potatoes recipe. The main difference is to salt and pepper to taste and double the mustard amount. The original recipe called for way too much salt. The potatoes are very tasty and have creamy nutty texture and very different from using russet potatoes.

Honey-Dijon Roasted Fingerlings (serves 2)
Ingredients:

• 1 pound MountainKing Assorted Fingerling Potatoes



• 2 TBS Olive oil



• 2 TBS Dijon mustard



• 1 TBS honey



• 1 TBS chives, fresh, chopped



• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425ºF. Wash fingerling potatoes in cool water, pat dry, and set aside.



• In a large mixing bowl toss together olive oil, salt, pepper, mustard, and honey. Add fingerlings to mixture and coat each potato well. Transfer fingerlings to a 13 x 9 baking dish.



• Place in center of oven and bake fingerling potatoes uncovered 25 to 30 minutes or until easily pierced with a fork.



• Garnish with chopped chives and serve immediately.

Check out the other recipes we welcome comments.

Ordered Your TV Converter Box Coupons Yet?

We received our 2 coupons last week. For those people that still get their TV signal from an antenna (Over the Air) and still have the old style analog TVs such as us, will need a converter box to convert the digital signal to an analog one after Feb. 17, 2009. The federal government has a web site where you can order 2 coupons that are worth $40 each to offset the cost of the converter that you will need to purchase. We ordered ours on January 2, 2008 and received them on March 14th. I went and purchased the Zenith DTT900, the price was $59.95 and so with the coupon the real cost was only $19.95. I hooked up the box to the TV was quite impressed with performance. Some of our TV channels display multipath interference, but with the converter all that distortion is gone. Also there is no 60 cycle interference from power lines. That interference shows up as 2 bars with white spots across the screen. Another advantage of watching digital TV is that more channels are available. With the old analog television, each station had one channel to broadcast on and that was it. But now with digital television, there is the capability to broadcast more channels in the same frequency space. Some PBS stations broadcast up to 5 channels. Commercial stations seem to have a channel just for weather reports besides the normal channel material. I'm sure the stations are doing experimenting just to figure out how to use this new capability. But remember, if you get your TV from cable or satellite or already have a digital TV you don't need to do anything. If you have any questions, just leave a comment.

Michael Clayton

We just finished watching the movie Michael Clayton on DVD. Oh what a thriller it is. Michael Clayton is an attorney working for a law firm, but he hasn't really moved up ladder very much. He is not a trial attorney, but his specialty is cleaning up for clients after they get in trouble. He call himself a janitor. I don't want to say any more, but this a real thriller and never a dull moment. This is the best movie we have seen so far this year. One of the nice features of watching a movie on a DVD is the Extra Features that come with disk. So be sure to click on the Extra Features and turn on the Commentary to hear the director discuss how the movie was made and hear about what the director was thinking for putting the various scenes together. George Clooney plays Michael Clayton and supporting actress Tilda Swinton won an Oscar for her performance. The movie was written and directed by Tony Gilroy.

Blueberry Rhubarb Crisp

Spring is almost here and fresh rhubarb has been available for the last few weeks and with blueberries from Chile, this is the perfect time to combine the 2. Yesterday we put together a recipe for Blueberry Rhubarb Crisp. It is sooo good and better than any strawberry rhubarb combination.
1. Combine the filling in a large bowl.
3 cups chopped (3/8 -1/2in. long) rhubarb
1 1/2 cups washed fresh blueberries
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp mace
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
Mix well and set aside.

2. Combine the topping in a large bowl.
1 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
dash of salt
Mix well and set aside.

3. Pour the filling into a 8x8x2 inch dish. Now add the topping and make sure that all the filling is covered by the topping.

4. Place the dish in a pre-heated 350ºF oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. You should see the fruit bubbling.

Good eating.

The Wire...Season 4

Now we have to wait a year or more in order to get our own The Wire fix again. We just finished watching the last episode of Season 4 of The Wire. Season 4 has the secondary thread of the education system. Dukie, Randy, Namond, and Michael are 8th grade middle school kids and are followed from the waining days of summer vacation to the Christmas season over 13 episode. There is also a mayor's election thrown in too. The street drug scene is still the main thread. It was both a joy and also sad to watch the 4 kids grow but also fall too. Can't wait to see Season 5. If you are new to The Wire, be sure to start at Season 1 and check out the Extra Features on the DVD. Here you get to hear what the writers, directors, and actors were thinking when they work on The Wire. Terry Gross interviewed David Simon, the creator of The Wire on Thursday March 6, 2008. David talks about how and why The Wire came together. As usual Terry asks the questions we would ask. Click here to listen.