Roasted potatoes and vegetables

Yesterday I received my first Marley Spoon box and made roasted potatoes, red pepper, purple onion, and fennel and garlic.  The raosted potatoes I noticed I had to make sure were all cooked through because some were just slightly different sizes.  It is weird that the red peppers, onion and fennel all cook to have a similar texture even though they are three completely different foods.  They are not exactly the same but they all become very soft with a similar texture that is kind of chewy, earthy, wet, flimsy, little bit juicy with a little tiny bit of soft crunchiness.  So the fennel is completely new to me and tastes and smells slightly like licorice.  I had no idea that there was a vegetable with a slightly licorice flavor,  it certainly doesn’t look like that would be the case at all.  It looks similar to a white onion when it is cut up.  I am still amazed at how much the onion changes from a very sharp smelling, eyes watering pungent smell to a subdued and slightly sweet flavor after it is cooked.  The different ingredients also kind of take on the flavors of what’s around them I guess because some of the juice gets on each other.  Especially when the vegetables get on the potatoes; they can make the potatoes a little bit soggy which is not ideal.  The salt and pepper kind of ties everything together with that similar taste on top of everything as well.