i have been missing dinnertime for two nights now...

When I work nights, I sometimes go sleepless on my first day off to do my grocery shopping or to watch the Today show (with the occasional mimosa or two or four). This week has been extremely rough because I got off of Monday ran errands and fell asleep at one o'clock in the afternoon and woke up at 9 o'clock at night. My body has adapted to this schedule for the last few days now waking up only to see my husband soundly in bed. I'm working this whole weekend so to cover part of his meals while I'm at work and to make up for not being able to spend time with him, I made his favorite: meat & potatoes. This version happens to be Thyme Crusted Bottom Roast & Roasted Potatoes with Greens. I have to apologize for these pictures, I need to work later on tonight so I didn't have time to wait for daylight in order to take these pictures. The nasty fluorescent lights in my home made for yucky photographs. The bottom roast was on sale so I picked it up.

The night before, I coated the roast in some olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper, some minced garlic, and a hefty sprinkling of thyme (hubby's second favorite herb to cayenne). We have roasts probably once a month and this is my usual method of marinating. When it came time to cook, I set it in the oven at 325 degrees F, stuck the handy dandy meat thermometer that plugs into my oven and set the internal temperature to beep at 160 degrees F. While it was cooking, the drippings made a wonderful au jus and my husband was surprised at how tender it was.

I decided to make these potatoes to use the left over baby spinach in the fridge. I generally followed the recipe except I used olive oil instead of butter, and, I used Italian seasoning except for rosemary (though I've used fresh rosemary on these before). I usually don't have sea salt on hand and find that kosher works just fine. In the end, I tossed the potatoes with a grating of Parmesan cheese. We make these potatoes so much that I don't really even need to look at the recipe anymore. They are really good with company and an awesome alternative to mashed potatoes. They are especially good with garlic prime rib. Fresh spinach always wilts down to nothing so use plenty of it! I'm sure you could use any potato here and now that I think about it, I might try it with Yukon gold or fingerling potatoes next time. Here's another shot of the potatoes amongst my dinner mess.