Roasted Garlic & Crash Hot Potatoes

We got a lot of potatoes and garlic in the late summer with our CSA.  So, I was looking for creative ways to eat both, and I found amazing potato inspiration on Pinterest.  The first discovery was "Crash Hot Potatoes, which I found at The Pioneer Woman cooking blog.  I have to tell you - the potatoes looked great, but I mostly loved the personality in her writing.  So, I added Crash Hot Potatoes to the list of things to make with my potatoes.  She mentions in the recipe that she changes the herbs based on what she has available...  Which is where...

...the Roasted Garlic comes in!  Roasted Garlic is amazing by itself on toasted bread, especially with pasta...  Mmmm...  Now I'm thinking about garlic bread, which I have not yet made.  I'm digressing.  Back to...

Roasted Garlic

Ingredients
1 whole garlic bulb
2 tsp olive oil

Instructions
 Preheat oven to 400 F.  Cut the tops off the garlic bulb, exposing the tops of the individual cloves inside.  Place the garlic bulb into a baking dish and coat the garlic bulb with approximately 2 tsp olive oil.  Use your fingers to make sure the bulb is fully coated.

Cover with aluminum foil, and place into the preheated oven for 35 - minutes, or until the garlic is soft to the touch.

Allow it to cool, and then cut the garlic skin away from the cloves so that you can pull the garlic out.  It should be so soft that you could spread it.  That means it's done.  (And it smells amazing.)

Crash Hot Potatoes (Mostly pulled from The Pioneer Woman, with a couple variations...)


Ingredients
6 small whole new potatoes (or other small round potatoes)
1 1/2 Tbsp Olive Oil
kosher salt and pepper, to taste
roasted garlic, to taste

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 450 F.  Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.  Add your potatoes to the boiling water and cook them until they are fork tender (at least 10 - 15 minutes).  When they are easy to pierce with a fork, remove them from the water.

Drizzle olive oil on a sheet pan and place the potatoes on the oiled cookie sheet, leaving room between the potatoes.  Use a potato masher (this was important, as the slotted spoon I used made them erupt more than mash.) to slightly mash the potato, then turn 90 degrees and mash again.

Brush the tops of the crushed potatoes with more olive oil.  Sprinkle salt and pepper, and place some roasted garlic on each potato.  (The Pioneer Woman used rosemary - I think you can use any herb you want).

Bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.  Serves 6.  Enjoy!  Yum.  Mine weren't as pretty as hers, but they were yummy!