One of the perks of working where I work is a constant inflow of free books. Publishers send them to buyers, editors, merchandisers, and (it seems) anyone they have a name and shipping address for - to try to build excitement and interest for their titles, and to enable us to write reviews of them prior to their release. After their work is done with them, assuming it's not a book they want to keep themselves, the lucky recipients will drop the books off on one of a many free shelves - all of which happen to be on my floor.
This abundance of free books can be a blessing and a curse. Searching through and picking up books can become a bit of an addiction. I've seen people horde hundreds and hundreds of books around their desks - often in boxes where they sit unseen, unread, and unloved for months or years. One former coworker admitted recently that he's actually storing the dozens of boxes of books he picked up during his many years at the company in someone else's garage. Others seem to take more than their share, in my opinion, taking advantage of a perk at the expense of others. It's also rumored that people have been caught trying to resell books, which is a big no-no.
I try to be moderate about my book selections, and have scored some amazing books I would've bought anyway, found some titles that truly blew me away that I might've not ever heard of, and (most topical here) I've been able to build my cookbook collection much faster.
One recent acquisition is Super Natural Cooking, by Heidi Swanson. Before bringing it home, I flipped through the pages and a picture of potatoes caught my eye. 'Hedgehog potatoes' she calls them, and they looked tasty.
To accompany some pork chops, I decided to try to make hedgehog potatoes - with one little catch: I hadn't brought the book home and only skimmed the recipe. I knew that you sliced about 80% of the way throught the potato, and slipped in slivers of garlic, but I wasn't sure how long to cook them and at what temperature. So I guessed. In the end, I had to throw them in the microwave to keep dinner on track, but wanted to share the actual recipe.
Baked Purple Hedgehog Potatoes
8 smallish purple potatoes
6 large cloves of garlic, sliced into razor thin rounds
2 Tbspn extra virgin olive oil
1 tspn harissa
Fine grain sea salt
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Wash & dry potatoes. Act as if you were going to cut each potato into very thin crosswise slices, but only cut 80 percent of the way through; the potatoes need to stay intact. Toss the garlic slices, harissa, olive oil, and a few pinches of salt in a small bowl. Tuck the garlic slices deep into the potato crevices and rub the outside of the potatoes with any leftover harissa spiked olive oil. Sprinkle the potatoes with salt and place them on a baking sheet or tuck them into a baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 20 minutes, or until fork-tender. Serves 4-6.
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