Things change. Plans change. Life changes. Most of the time, we resist it, but fortunately, there’s no escaping it; because change is good, even if endings are hard and letting go is a unimaginable task. But sometimes you’re stuck in a period of nonchange. A period of stagnant, boring, incredibly defeating, un-motivating, seemingly neverending, nonchange. And that, THAT, is when I feel the need to do something drastic, to get out of bed and get in the car and drive until gas runs out, to paint my bedroom walls a crazy neon color, to tell everyone around me about that time when they said something I didn’t like and was hurt, to chop my hair off…anything. But since I am me, and behaving properly always ends up winning and I never do any of those crazy, apparently liberating things, I’ve roasted. I’ve roasted a turkey breast in my need to do something big and exciting. I know…most people would say I’m not even slightly walking out of the boundaries of the nonchange box, and they would be right, I am not. But I’ve had three hours of therapeutic smells coming from the frying pan, the oven, and the delicious platter that comes out of it. So in my opinion, this turkey roast is great, even if it’s not neon-colored. And there’s nothing like soft, warm potatoes roasted in turkey juices and served with a dollop of cream to make you forget about that ugly, stinky box.

Roast turkey breast with potatoes
(Own recipe)

1 turkey breast (about 5lb), tied.
1 med onion, halved and sliced
4-5  large shallots, thinly sliced
2 large rosemary sprigs
2-3 cups grossly cubed potatoes, skin on
2 bay leaves
vegetable oil (of your choice)
butter
freshly ground coarse salt and pepper

Directions
Preheat the oven to 450ºF. Prepare a baking dish by adding a bed of onions with leaves of 1 rosemary sprig, bay leaves, and a few small chunks of butter.
Heat on high 4 tbsp oil in a large frying pan with high sides. While the oil heats, pat very dry the turkey breast, and then rub with oil, salt, pepper and the leaves of the other sprig of rosemary. As soon as your oil is ready, start browning the turkey breast. (You want high temperature to get a good even browning). Rotate the the breast on the pan to get all sides browned. When you rotate to brown the last side, add the shallots around the sides and let them brown as well. Transfer the shallots to the bed of onions and place the turkey breast on top. Place the potatoes all around, surrounding the breast. Bake for 50 min. to 1 hour, depending on the size of your breast.
To serve, separate the potatoes on a different platter and slice the turkey.
(You can also make a sauce out of the onion and shallot bed left on the baking dish, by adding stock and/or wine, reducing, and pureeing)