Roasted Garlic and Green Onion Smashed Potatoes

To continue with our Mesa Grill theme I made a variation on Bobby's Green Onion Mashed Potatoes.  By variation I mean I changed up the dairy portion a bit and added cloves of fresh roasted garlic to his recipe.  It turned out great!  I mean, what's not to love about mashed potatoes!

My variation is below uses less butter and I subbed plain Greek yogurt for creme frache plus added 6-7 cloves of roasted garlic.  If you want to make Bobby's, double the butter, leave out the garlic and use creme frache.  But I think you might like mine!

PS - If you are daring, go for the whole head of roasted garlic.  That's what I will do next time!

Roasted Garlic and Green Onion Smashed Potatoes

• 3 lbs small potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup Greek yogurt
• 6-8 cloves roasted garlic 
• 6 green onions, green and white parts, thinly sliced
• fresh ground black pepper
• kosher salt

1. Break the head of garlic, drizzle with oil and wrap in foil. Bake at 300 for 45-60 minutes.  Cool a bit then squeeze the garlic mash out of the skins into a container.  Refrigerate the unused cloves.
2. Put potatoes in large pot and cover by 1 inch with cold water.  Add 1 tbsp salt and bring to a simmer over high heat.  Cook until potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife. 12-15 minutes. Drain.
3. Mix together the butter and yogurt in a bowl and season liberally with salt and pepper.  Add the garlic, using a potato masher if necessary to make it smooth.
4. Add the potatoes and using the masher, gently smash the potatoes while folding in the yogurt mixture.
5. Fold in the green onions and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

NOTE:  The recipe calls for 8 T of butter for the three pounds of potatoes.  I only used 3T and the mixture was a touch thick, so I mixed a bit of half and half and skim milk and added it.  It made them perfect!