FoodBanter.com - 25 Dec: roasted potatoes, and pasta/greens/beans

I've been cooking a lot lately, so I figured I'd share some of the
things that worked well.

Monday night, I decided to roast up some potatoes. I'm not really
sure what prompted it, besides having a bag of baby russet potatoes
and some elephant garlic, but I figured I'd see how it worked.

Elephant garlic, despite looking a lot like garlic, is more closely
related to the leek, and is much milder in flavor than its smaller
cousin. Because I was worried that the gigantic cloves wouldn't cook
properly (in retrospect, I think they would have), i sliced them into
quarter-inch slices. The aroma was INCREDIBLE as it cooked.

3 medium potatoes, cubed (~3/4-1")
1 small apple, diced
2 cloves elephant garlic, sliced
1 tsp shallots, minced (I used dried)
1 tsp aleppo pepper (fairly mild, tart/fruity red chili)
1 tsp red bell pepper flakes
2-3 bay leaves
1 tsp rosemary
black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
several Tbsp olive oil

Put everything but the salt in a large, oven-safe pan with a lid.
Mix a bit to distribute the oil and herbs.
Sprinkle the salt on top.
Cover, and bake at 350F for an hour.

The elephant garlic slices turned into the most insanely delicious
goo. The apples got pretty soft, too, but more importantly added a
hint of fruit sweetness to the whole dish.

The tricky part was balancing the meal out, with flavors that would
complement this. I decided to go with something that wouldn't compete
with the intense aroma of the roasted potatoes, but with complementary
colors an textures. Namely, my old standby of pasta with greens,
beans, and a little cheese. This incarnation was whole wheat penne
with sauteed kale, garlic, and jalapeno flakes, romano shreds
(omissible), and cannelini beans.

Enjoy,
N.