Rustic potato rösti for breakfast - yay weekends!

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This is my weekend morning potato specialty. It's a rustic rösti adapted from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie, the best recipe I've found for this Swiss specialty. It takes a bit of time, but so do most good things in life, so I don't mind.

Rösti is of Swiss origin where the farmers of yesteryear used to eat it for breakfast, according to Wikipedia. Thankfully it has since been adopted worldwide by potato lovers like my friend the Film Cricket, who first introduced me to rösti at Toronto's Marché Movenpick (now Richtree), where they serve it with sour cream and chives. So yummy. Now when I make it for breakfast, we eat with eggs, bacon and toast. Equally scrumptious.

Potato rösti
serves two

one russet potato
one clove garlic
one sprig rosemary (whole)
olive oil
butter

Preheat the oven to 400. Wash and peel the potato. Top and tail it, and cut it in half. Cut each half into thin matchsticks. Rinse the rosemary sprig. Peel the garlic clove (I smash it with the flat of my chef's knife so that it cracks a bit but is still essentially whole).

Heat up a non-stick, ovenproof frying pan. Add a splash of olive oil and heat. Melt a tablespoon of butter into the olive oil. Add the potatoes, the garlic clove and the rosemary sprig. Stir in the pan for 10 minutes until softened and starting to colour.

Put in the oven for 25 minutes until crispy and golden. I check it after this, and sometimes cook it maybe 10 minutes more.

Herbed goat cheese balls with crostini

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Squeaky and Calimocho had a big party last night, the kind where you end up drinking in the hallway with strangers and bond over games of "Who's your gross-celebrity crush?" (Rules: They can't have ever been a heartthrob material and you have to imagine yourself kissing them.) I pondered this with a wonderful mixture of curlers, writers, engineers and advertisers. S and I brought this tasty appetizer, which is a recipe from Giada de Laurentiis's Everyday Italian cooking show. I bought her Extra Easy Italian DVD set over Christmas and have been enjoying watching her again. Since we discontinued cable I've been missing her shows, so I hope they keep releasing more.
 
Ingredients
one baguette
one large log of snow white goat cheese, soft or semi-firm
zest of one lemon
a handful each of fresh herbs (your choice, but I used rosemary, curly parsley, oregano and thyme)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Crostini 
Slice a baguette on the diagonal, then place slices on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10 minutes.  

Cheese balls
Finely chop all of the herbs and place in a bowl. Add a sprinkling of salt and some coarsely ground pepper, and the zest of one lemon. Stir well. Form little pinches of the goats cheese into balls with your hands and roll each ball in the herb mixture to coat. Once all the cheese balls are rolled, arrange them in a little pyramid in the centre of a serving platter, and place the crostini on the outside. Drizzle the cheese balls with olive oil and serve.