While my family loves pasta I am a potato girl. I love potatoes almost any way you fix them whether they are oven fried, mashed, boiled or roasted. Nothing against pasta and rice but I think potatoes are wonderful because they soak up the flavors of whatever you add to them. By now you may know I love the idea of layering flavors in a dish. So the layers of flavors in this roasted potatoes dish is both savory and sweet. I recently discovered a nice way to roast potatoes with a few cranberries and raisins. Then I topped them off with feta. Yummy!

Potatoes can be both good and bad for the diet. The key to eating potatoes is to do it in moderation. Having said that I would stay away from deep frying potatoes no matter what. Potatoes tend to absorb grease which puts on the pounds, effects your skin and is not healthy! Still, potatoes have lots of fiber, vitamin C and B vitamins. As long as you keep the portions small you can partake of any type of potato you like. For this recipe I used red potatoes. I haven’t tried it yet but I am sure sweet potatoes would taste good too. I will let you know how that one turns out later.

For those of you who don’t eat meat you can still enjoy this dish by leaving off the crumbled bacon.

Roasted Potatoes with Feta Cheese

Ingredients:
1 lb potatoes quartered
¼ cup cranberries
¼ cup golden raisins
¾ cup Gazebo Room balsamic vinaigrette
¼ cup feta cheese
2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
1 scallion thinly sliced (separate the white and green parts of the onion)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black ground pepper
½ tsp dried rosemary
½ tsp smoked paprika
3 tbsp melted butter
3 slices crisp bacon chopped
Cooking Spray

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl combine all ingredients except for the bacon, feta cheese and green onion. Mix well to coat the potatoes. Spray a lipped cookie sheet with cooking spray to prevent potatoes from sticking. Spread potato mixture with juices onto the cookie sheet. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake 30 to 40 minutes until potatoes are golden brown and fork tender. Remove from oven and place in a casserole or serving dish. Sprinkle with feta cheese, bacon and  a little green onion.