Rosemary and Garlic Potato Casserole

This dish is fairly self-evident, I'd like to think... Potatoes, with rosemary and garlic, baked in the oven.


But, as with all things, I make it a little more complicated.



I chopped up some potatoes (about 7 medium-sized yukon golds, if you must know), and set them to boiling.  

Whenever boiling potatoes, use the biggest pot you've got.  It can get messy.  In fact, one trick I just decided upon this go around was, once my water started boiling, I actually removed it from the stove, and put it in my sink and added my potatoes there.  This was a genius plan.  Normally this rather trying endeavour sees me daintily plopping two or three chunks of potatoes in at a time, in order to avoid splash-back.  Unsuccessfully, I do admit.  So, this way I was able to not only dump all the potatoes in much faster, but also avoid messing up my stove-top.  Did somebody say genius?  Oh yah - I did!  Heh hehe heh.  :D


Anyway, the potatoes boiled for close to 30mins...


<Meanwhile> (80s flashback-twinkle sound effect plays)...


I needed to use up some rosemary.  It was going bad.  Normally I'd take care to pick out the blackened bits, but seeing as how I plan on making this all into a kind of slurry puree thingy, it won't really matter much.

So, I stripped the rosemary, chopped about 5 large-ish cloves of garlic, 2 green onions, and milled some spices, all to go into my blender.

For the spices, I ground up some green peppercorns, a few fennel seeds, and a dash of oregano.  I didn't want to overpower the rosemary, after all.


Anyway, this got pureed for a minute in the immersion blender, with a generous tablespoon of olive oil for lubricant.

This then got poured into a large mixing bowl and set aside for the taters.

Once the potatoes were fully cooked (yes, fully cooked), I drained them and then tossed them in this herb puree.

Try to be as gentle as possible in turning them over in the slurry... but inevitably, some mashing will occur.  That's OK.


Coat the mix in a dusting of flour or three, turning the potatoes over each time, to ensure it's relatively even.

At this point it's just dump em in a greased (well) baking pan or casserole dish, and bake at 400° for as long as you want.  

This sort of thing is designed to be *almost* burn-proof.  Especially if you give it a stir once in a while.  This particular batch cooked for about an hour and a half, but I've been known to cook this sort of concoction for twice as long.


So, after an hour and a half, and two stirrings later, this is what we were left with:

Mouth-watering, deliciously warming, comfort food.


You could add some form of dairy in here too... and it's delicious, but honestly, this vegan  version doesn't really need it and is very good as it is.


Also, the rosemary could be substituted (or omitted) for any fresh green herb really... potatoes work well with pretty much any of them... some of my favourites include oregano, thyme, even dill weed!


Fun stuff.