Menu Idea Monday

Side dishes have never exactly been a strong point of mine. Although my mother is amazing and diligently made balanced meals while I was growing up, I've always leaned towards casseroles or stand-alone entrées (think mac & cheese - complete in and of itself - yum!)

I have been making an effort to branch out, though, and was pleased to find Roasted Potato Stacks. 

3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb russet potatoes
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350*. Combine oil and garlic in a small saucepan and gently warm over low heat until fragrant but the garlic is not brown. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Peel potatoes and thinly slice with a mandolin. (Note: most cheese graters have a mandolin-style flat slicing option on one of their sides. I used that and it worked perfectly.)

Brush 8 muffin tins with the garlic oil. Layer a potato slice in the bottom of a tin and brush it with a thin layer of the oil. Layer another slice and brush it with the garlic oil. Repeat until it stacks up to the top of the muffin tin. Repeat with remaining tins.

Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with thyme. Bake the stacks for 35 - 45 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown and cooked through. Serve immediately.

Opinion: 

These look nice and are great for people trying to watch their portion sizes. (I got six stacks in a jumbo muffin tin out of two large potatoes.) It was also nice that they could be made ahead and stuck in the fridge until time to bake. I was personally not a fan of the oil-and-potato combination. If I do this again, I will use butter.

My Modifications:

I subbed garlic powder for the chopped garlic because the idea of little pieces of garlic in my potato stack did not appeal.

I also skipped the thyme because I do not like thyme in anything. Otherwise this was made to spec.

Dietary Mod Friendly?

There's not much in here to disagree with anybody, so go for it!

** Please note there is no link to the original recipe source because when I wrote this post the link was no longer operational. No stealing of recipes without proper credit is intended!