Do the mashed potato (without leftovers)

Potato pic by rick

My mom is a good cook, but there are a few dishes that only my dad can make. Waffles are one. He made them every Sunday morning for as long as I can remember.

And then there’s mashed potatoes. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard my dad whistling as he beats the potatoes, adding a couple tablespoons of butter, a splash of milk and a little bit of salt and pepper. And then, always, tapping the beaters in rhythm on the edge of the bowl: shave and a haircut…two bits!

I love potatoes of all kinds, but I don’t make mashed potatoes often. Neither one of us likes leftover mashed potatoes, and it seems like a lot of work to peel and boil and mash just enough for two of us.

But when I told Mark that I planned to make meatloaf on Sunday night, he asked if I could please make mashed potatoes. What could I say to that?

Luckily for me, he offered to peel the potatoes: my least favorite part of the process. So all I had to do was boil them to a perfect consistency (until a fork can break them apart easily) and mix them up. Here’s what I did:

Mary’s Mashed Potatoes
1-2 lbs. Russet potatoes
2 T butter (or Blue Bonnet Light margarine)
¼ c. milk (skim)
¼ c. sour cream (light)
salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes. (As I said.) Drain and add butter. If you have lids for your pots, put a lid on it and let the butter melt. If you don’t (I know. Who doesn’t have lids? Oh yeah. Me.), just stir it around until it melts. Add sour cream, milk, salt and pepper. Beat on low setting with mixer. Personally, I don’t beat all the lumps out, but that’s up to you.

Mark didn’t jump up and down at the addition of sour cream. Even though, as I told him, that’s how they make them in restaurants. Then again, I didn’t exactly time dinner right, and the potatoes weren’t nearly as hot as the meatloaf. So I guess that might have had something to do with it.

Oh well. At least two of us enjoyed them. (And we only threw out a couple spoonfuls of leftovers, thanks to big bites and second helpings.)

What’s your favorite way to eat potatoes?

P.S. “Do the mashed potato” is a lyric from Do You Love Me, featured in that classic movie I may have mentioned before right before the watermelon scene I may have mentioned before.


This post will be linked to Mouthwatering Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, What's Cooking Wednesday, Friday Food, Foodie Friday and Food on Fridays.

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Pizza Crust from Scratch

About a week ago, I saw Jill post a question on Twitter. She was looking for a good recipe for blueberry muffins.

Because I am well-known as a cooking expert, I replied. I said, “88-cent mix from the store + water + bake for 10 min = Voila! Muffins.”

She didn’t like my answer. Apparently she was looking for something with more ingredients and less packaged mixes. I still don’t understand that.

However, even though I was joking about that being an appropriate recipe for muffins (though it is, indeed, exactly how I make mine), later that night I had to think twice when it came time to bake something else.

Smitty came over, and I offered to make us chicken pizza. Normally, I use the refrigerated pizza dough in a can, but I was out. What was I going to do?

Oh yeah. I could make like my friend Jill and actually bake from scratch!

So, while Smitty entertained Annalyn by reading her latest favorite book about a dozen times, I pulled out my recipe binder and found my mom’s formula for homemade pizza dough. Fortunately, she doesn’t do anything crazy, like make dough that has yeast or any other needs-to-rise ingredient. [Whew!]

I added Prego spaghetti sauce (sorry, I can’t do that much homemade!), grilled chicken, red onion, mozzarella and provolone. And it was delicious! Here’s my mom’s pizza crust recipe:

Pizza Crust
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup milk
¼ cup oil

Mix together, and press onto baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees (or until the cheese melts and starts to brown).

It turned out pretty well, although I definitely used too much flour to keep it from sticking to the baking sheet. Even without too much flour, I wonder if the crust would taste too plain. Next time, I might brush it with olive oil or add a little garlic powder to the dough.

What foods do you make from scratch?

This post will be linked to Mouthwatering Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, What's Cooking Wednesday, Friday Food, Foodie Friday and Food on Fridays.

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The deviled egg is in the details.

Since I spent most of my weekend in the bathroom, singing the Elmo Potty Song, and the rest of it buried in paper, doing our taxes, I don’t have much new to share with you today. Instead, I thought I’d tell you about the hundreds dozens of deviled eggs that stank up my kitchen over Easter weekend.

[“Stank” does not sound right. Although it does properly describe the nastiness that was my sulfur-laced fridge. And I’m fairly certain it’s grammatically correct. At least if I base my grammar on Dr. Seuss, and hello? Who doesn’t? Just like the Grinch, those eggs “stink, stank, stunk.”]

As I mentioned in a recent weekend linky post that has yet to be named, I was excited to try a new recipe for deviled eggs. One that includes bacon and cheese. And so I did.

Deanna’s recipe yielded 10 deviled eggs. Since I wasn’t sure if my family would like the different eggs, I decided I’d make a batch of normal ones and a batch of the new ones.

But, as you may know, math is not my strong suit. I can do math, thankyouverymuch. It just doesn’t come naturally, as they say. Or quickly. Or, sometimes, accurately.

Really, the problem was that I just overestimated how excited my family would be to eat eggs. And when I was counting up people, I forgot that Chad doesn’t like eggs at all (although he was proud to tell me he just recently ate his first omelet and it wasn’t bad), and my Nana is still on a diet. Plus, my cousin Craig and his wife weren’t there.

So, to make this story a smidge shorter than it could be, because believe me, I could go on – I made too many eggs. So this recipe will show you how to make 20 deviled eggs. But only do so if you actually intend to feed a small egg-eating army.

Deanna’s Deviled Eggs

10 eggs
1 cup Mayo
1 Tbsp. Mustard
2 Tbsp. Vinegar
8 slices bacon, fried crispy and crumbled into tiny pieces
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
paprika

The original recipe called for Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste, but I didn’t add any of that. Actually, I didn’t add paprika, either, because I didn’t have any. But I wanted to. Also, the original recipe, which I’ve doubled here, called for one tablespoon mustard. And so I used two tablespoons. And it kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

Boil your eggs. I used Sarah’s method for boiling eggs, and it worked beautifully. Slice them in half, pop out the yolk and mix them with the ingredients (except the paprika). Scoop the mixture into a ziploc bag, snip off the corner, and squirt into the egg halves. (Yes, those are my technical cooking terms.) If you haven’t crumbled the bacon small enough, you might notice that it gets stuck. Just snip off a bigger corner. (Again, technical words here.) Sprinkle on paprika and refrigerate until serving.

Remember, don’t go crazy with the mustard. Even if you like mustard – and I do – you don’t want it covering up the bacon and the cheese. Which are kind of the whole reason for the recipe.

In summary, my weekend included phrases like, “Where are your panties?” and “Yay!!! You peed in the potty!” as well as “We only gave how much to charity last year?” and “Why isn’t that credit showing up in our refund?” How was yours?

This post will be linked to Mouthwatering Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

WAIT! Don’t go just yet. Have you taken my blog survey? If not, please do. I promise it won’t take but a few minutes, and I really do want your input before making some changes (or not) around here. Thank you!

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Last chance for chili

The first day of spring brought sleet and snow, and I took advantage of the weird weather by making chili one last time.

I’m not opposed to chili in the summer, but Mark has this thing about hot things in hot weather. He doesn’t drink coffee in the summer either. [He’s weird.]

As I was pulling all the ingredients out of the pantry, I remembered that I’ve never posted my chili recipe. [Don’t be confused – like I was. I have written about canned chili and its use as a necessary ingredient to homemade burritos. But that’s a whole other story.]

Chili is really one of my favorite things to fix, especially now that I’ve mastered it. In addition to Mark’s seasonal chili preferences, he’s also pretty picky about the level of heat, the meat to bean ratio, and the thickness of the soup (and how it’s not a soup, because he doesn’t like soup).

So figuring out the exact chili that we both like was a bit of a challenge.

I can’t promise that our chili compromise will work for you, but it definitely works for us. And it’s super easy and healthy, too! (Yes, that’s right, folks! Chili is a miracle food!)

 
Cold-Weather Chili

1 ½ lbs. ground beef
Onion
1 large can tomato sauce
1 medium can tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies (Ro-Tel)
1 can chili beans
1 can dark red kidney beans
½ packet hot chili seasoning
½ packet mild chili seasoning

Dump it all in the Crock Pot and cook on high for two hours (or low for four hours).

A few secrets:

Don’t substitute another can of kidney beans for the chili beans. If the store is out of chili beans, just don’t make chili. Seriously. I tried it and could not figure out why the chili was so bland. It was the lack of chili beans.

Remember my tip for chopping onions in bulk and freezing them? What about my bulk beef browning? (I know. That doesn’t sound right. But I couldn’t resist the alliteration. I’m weird.) If you do these things ahead of time, making this chili literally takes 5 minutes.

 
Unless you have a Pampered Chef can opener that is smarter than, well, you. And in that case, it might take 10 minutes.

And last, but not least, I don’t stop at draining the fat off my hamburger. I actually rinse it. Some people (ahem, husband and sister-in-law, ahem!) think this is weird. I think it’s smart and healthy. You decide.

So, there you have it. The medium heat, appropriately meaty and beany, not too thin, just right for the last big snow of the winter chili.

How do you make chili? And do you eat it in all seasons - or just the cold ones?? Or, if you don't like chili at all [weird], how did you celebrate the first weekend of spring?

This post will be linked to Mouthwatering Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

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Well, I guess I could just go to bed...

We've had a lot of storms around these parts lately. And apparently they knocked out our cable last week. I say "apparently," because the cable stopped working.

And our internet is through our cable.

So on Thursday night, when it wasn't fixed, despite Time Warner's assurance seven hours earlier that "we have someone out there working on it right now," I didn't have cable TV or internet.

I really wasn't quite sure what to do with myself.

No need to panic. The local ABC channel came in well enough that I could watch the season finale of Grey's.

Thank goodness. I'd have hated to have missed that cry fest.

Needless to say, when we turned on the TV and computer last night and found that all had been returned to normal, I sighed with joy. And I patted my laptop lovingly and tell it how glad I was to have it back. Just like I'd do with any old friend.

And that story most definitely does not lead into today's post or relate to it at all. But there it is anyway.

Last night we had our small group over for a BBQ. We keep joking that we might be better suited for a supper club anyway, and last night's get-together chalked up another point in that idea's favor.

The best part of a BBQ at our house? Mark insists on doing most the work. He is a master griller and a baked bean connoisseur. (I'm not allowed to give you a recipe, but I'll tell you that there's bacon, onion, ketchup, mustard and brown sugar involved. Mmmmm...)

In other words, I'm not allowed to help. Vacuum and empty the dishwasher, yes. Touched the hamburger patties, no.

And who I am to argue? Check out this spread we had tonight:

For more good stuff in the kitchen, check out Balancing Beauty & Bedlam. Who grills at your house?