Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I was too busy preparing and eating to do very much blogging, and unfortunately, I forgot to take a lot of photos of the amazing food that was cooked on my favorite holiday.
We have a family tradition where my mom cooks the turkey and the sweet potatoes and I cook just about all the other sides. This year our table had a wide variety of vegetables, including green bean cassorole, summer veggie medley, cheesy double baked potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, and rolls. Everything was so delicious and I am happy to say that my green beans, zuchinni and squash and my cheesy double baked potatoes went over wonderfully.
I am sure most of you have heard of twice baked potatoes, and I am known in my family for my rendition of them. I like to include parmesean and a Sharp New York cheddar cheese, along with my secret ingredient (sour cream) to really make mine stand out. You may be saying to yourself that sour cream isn't really a secret ingredient to potatoes, but in my family, I have to keep with a secret because they say that they don't like the taste of it...I happen to beg to differ, since they LOVE my potatoes, but I am not going to ruin it by telling them why they like it so much :)
Ingredients:
6 large Russet potatoes
1/4 cup of milk
2 heaping tbsp of sour cream
healthy pinch of salt and pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp parsely
Grated Parmesean cheese
Freshly grated cheddar cheese
Rinse potatoes well to get rid of any excess dirt. Dry off, and prick with a fork (so they don't explode while cooking) and then wrap in foil. Place potatoes into a 425 degree oven for 1.5 hrs. After they come out of the oven, unwrap potatoes and cut lengthwise. Scoop out potato from their shells and place potatoes into a big bowl, and the skins onto a cookie sheet. After all of the potatoes have been separated, add milk, salt, pepper, sour cream, garlic powder, parsely and parmesean cheese into the bowl with the potatoes, Mix with beaters until smooth. Once the mixture is smooth, spoon back into the potato skins. Then top with cheddar cheese and place back into the oven until the cheese has melted. Remove and serve.
My husband is a meat and potato type of guy, which by now you probably realize, I am definitely not! However, I feel the need to keep him happy and his belly full...I'm not sure why that is... :) So to keep both of us happy, I try to come up with new ways of making the same meat and potato dishes. If I come up with new ways to make the same old stuff, it not only keeps my brain working, but also makes him happy because he isn't eating the same flavors all the time. A few years back, we were both tired of eating plain mashed potatoes, so I decided to experiment with some different flavors. I found that by mixing garlic, (or garlic powder) and parsley, along with leaving some texture in the potatoes, it made them much more exciting! So without further adieu, here is my recipe for some slightly more exciting potatoes!
Ingredients:
Red potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes with the peel left on
Milk
Sour Cream
Butter
Garlic Powder
Parsley
Salt and Pepper (of course)
Place potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Bring up to a boil and let them cook in boiling water until you can stick a fork through them easily. When they are cooked, drain them, and place them back into the warm pot. (do not turn back on burner) The heat that is left in the pot will help them to dry off. Depending on how many potatoes you cooked will depend on how much of the remaining ingredients to use. I think I used about 6 potatoes, so I needed about 1 tbsp of sour cream, 1/2 cup milk, 3 tbsp butter, 1.5 tsp of garlic powder, pinch of salt and pepper, and 2 tbsp Parsley. Put all ingredients in the pot and mash until you get your desired consistency. You can add more milk if you want it thinner, or less if you prefer it more chunky.
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