Fluffy Sour Cream and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

If there's anything I can say with confidence....it's that I know my way around a potato.  My family used to joke that I should marry a potato farmer when I grew up....Hash browns, baked potatoes, home fries, fries, crack casserole, potato pancakes, potatoes with butter, cheesy potatoes, tator tots--you name it, I love them all.

After years of experimenting with mashed potatoes-roasted garlic, boiled garlic, milk, cream, cream cheese, sour cream, mashed, whipped...here's the recipe that I stick to.

Behold.  Fluffy, sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes.

The Playa's:
Potatoes
Sour Cream
Butter (I used one entire stick)
fresh crushed or chopped garlic (raw)
kosher salt
black pepper


There are a lot of different kind of potatoes out there and it definitely matters, but for this recipe, you just have to be sure not to choose a waxy type potato like red or purple.  For this, I used a russet.  Yukon gold works great to but the point I'm trying to make here is that you don't have to go searching for any special kind of potatoes, you just want to avoid the waxy kind or you won't get a fluffy mashed potatoes.

We should start by talking about how many potatoes to use.  Generally, I use one small to medium potato for 1 person.  So if I'm making for 5 people, I use 5-6 potatoes.  Actually.  That's not true.  I usually make a HUGE batch because who doesn't want leftovers to reheat or make into these?

If you have humongo potatoes like this one:

 

(Seriously, the picture doesn't do it justice.  It's the size of my foot. ) If your potatoes are from Costco, like mine are, and like everything else in Costco they are jumbo sized, then you can assume 1 large potato for 2 people.  

I scrub the potatoes because I like to save the peels to make Potato Peel Chips.  It's much easier to have clean peels when making these chips.  Trust me.  So scrub first!

I then cut the potatoes in halves (if using small sized) or quarters (when using large sized) and soak in cold water.  If I remember, I'll do these the night before so they sit over night in water.  If I don't remember, I try to at least do this an hour or so before I need to cook them.  Be sure you drain the water you soaked in and use fresh water to boil your potatoes in. 

Why?  Thanks for asking.  By letting your potatoes sit in water for awhile, you allow time for some of the starch to be removed.  This will help with making your mashed potatoes really light and fluffy.  Also, cutting your potatoes helps cut down cooking time (Thanks, Mrs. Reeves, for teaching us in high school that by cutting potatoes, you increase surface space and therefore decrease cooking time.  I also apply this principle to maximizing surface space to remove starch from my potatoes.)   You don't have to do this step.  But if you have time and remember to do it, I recommend it.

For this batch I used 8 really large potatoes.  I'm feeding a lot of people.

 

After draining the water the potatoes soaked in, refill with fresh water.  I add about 3 to 4 heaping tablespoons of Kosher salt to boil.  Yes.  I do realize this is a LOT of salt.  But I do it for 2 reasons: 1) it helps bring my water to boil faster.  2) I don't add any additional salt to my potatoes.

 

If you must know.  This method happened on accident while making mashed potatoes one year.   I dropped way too much salt in the water.  It had already started to get hot and I didn't want to dump out the water and waste it so I just went with it.  I found that after I dumped my water out, the potatoes were nicely salted.   I like that my boiled potatoes cook in the salted water and become nicely seasoned.  You can not add salt to the water and salt to taste as you mash if you prefer.

Cook times will depend on how many potatoes you're cooking.  After they are done cooking and you can easily push a fork or chopstick through them, turn off the heat and drain off ALL the water.  Push your boiled potatoes over to the side so you can see a little bit of the bottom.  Plop in your stick of butter.

Grab your raw, fresh crushed garlic and add about half a tablespoon to a tablespoon (depends on if you're making a little or a lot) and blop it right into the hot potatoes.  I like to plop it right onto the bottom of the hot pot.  Then plop in about a half to one tablespoon (use a lot if you like garlic or less if you're afraid of garlic) of raw, crushed garlic into the bottom of the pot.

Don't be afraid of the raw garlic.  I know it sees kind of scary since raw garlic can be really potent and burn.  But we will be letting it steam a bit.  I used to roast my garlic and I used to boil whole cloves with my potatoes and while I love all versions of garlic mashed potatoes, I always found myself wishing the garlic flavor was a little more pronounced and using raw, crushed garlic does exactly that.

See?  I used this heaping tablespoon!  Boom!  In it goes.

The butter starts to melt right away and mixes with your garlic.

Then I like to take the hot potatoes and pile them on top of the butter and garlic to help steam the garlic a bit and melt the butter.

Put the lid on your pot and walk away for at least 5 minutes.

(Please excuse my water spotted lid)

When I come back (you always have to come back!), I add some black pepper.  I DON'T salt because I heavily salted my water and my boiled potatoes are already nicely seasoned.  If you didn't heavy salt your water, feel free to add some salt now.

Add one entire 16 oz container of sour cream to your potatoes.  I probably use more than that to be honest, but that's a good starting point.  If your mashed potatoes seem dry, you can always add more.

Now comes the fun part.  I use a metal potato masher and mash away.  Don't forget where you garlic is in the pot.  Make sure you're distributing it around or someone will get a big blop of butter garlic (winner!).

Oh, look!  There it is!

If you boiled your potatoes enough, mashing will be super easy.  Some people like to use a hand blender or potato ricer.  I just like to use a masher.  It's less stuff to clean up (or more stuff to lick mashed potatoes off of!) and I like my mashed potatoes creamy but with a few lumps.  If you like yours completely whipped feel free to use a hand held blending stick or potato ricer.  Because we pre-soaked and removed a lot of the starch, your mashed potatoes will be fluffy.

I like to then take a huge spoon and really mix up my potatoes, taking care to scrape the bottom where the garlic sat to ensure even distribution.

Viola!  Fluffy sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes!

Eat with anything you want.  You can top with gravy if you must....but I have to be honest,  I really think these mashed potatoes can stand alone.  When the Indian guy I live with pours gravy over my mashed potatoes, I have to turn a blind eye and pretend I don't see it. 

I'm responsible for mashed potatoes on both Thanksgiving and Christmas and usually my friends and family won't let me in the door unless I show them my pot of mashed potatoes.  One year, en route to Thanksgiving dinner, I looked in the backseat and noticed that the Indian guy had seat belted the mashed potatoes in.  I guess that's a huge compliment, right?

Salad Dressing Marinated Chicken Tagine-ish Style

You know those days when you come home and you need to make dinner and you have no idea where to start?  This dish started from one of these experiences.  I started to take mental stock of what I had and decided I wanted to some sort of chicken dish to go with some baked potatoes and asparagus.  I also was thinking about how much I like Moroccan Tagine cooked food.  So this is my version of tagine cooking, but without a tagine. 

They look like this:

I don't actually own one.  

But that's ok.  I use a Korean stone pot.  If you don't have one of those, that's okay too.  You can use a ceramic or glass baking dish with tin foil.

I think salad dressing is an amazing invention.  Not only is it good for salads (obviously), but also good for dipping veggies into or chips even.  I use Italian dressing when I make potato salad and it is divine!  I also LOVE to use it as a marinade for poultry, beef and even seafood.  I know, right?!  If you don't have any salad dressing at home, feel free to grab some oil and vinegar and maybe even some mayo or sour cream.

Here are the culprits:
2-4 chicken thighs OR 1-2 chicken breasts
Italian Salad Dressing
Cesar Salad Dressing
fresh crushed garlic
seasoning salt
black pepper
dried herbs
lemon

Normally, I like to use breast meat, but I happened to have thigh meat.  This method is really great for white meat because sometimes it tends to be dry.  I know...not a surprise.  But you can use either or a combo of both white and dark meat.  You can also use drumsticks or bone in chicken pieces.  I just happen to like boneless chicken so that's what I use.

I  started by cutting my chicken pieces into chunks like this:

In a different bowl, I add about a quarter cup of Italian salad dressing and a quarter cup of Cesar salad dressing.  If you don't have Italian dressing, you can use some pickle juice and some olive oil.  Yes, your read that right.  Pickle juice and olive oil.  Trust me when I say you can't mess this up. 

If you don't have Cesar dressing, ranch works or even some mayo or sour cream.  You can also just opt to use the Italian dressing ONLY if you wanted too!  Decisions, decisions.

To the salad dressings, I added a heaping tablespoon of fresh crushed garlic.  If you don't have fresh, you can use garlic powder.  Be careful about using garlic SALT.  Garlic salt will make this dish too salty.

 

I also added seasoning salt and black pepper and some dried herbs.  I happened to have herbs de provence mix which is just a fancy way to say I used savory, marjoram, rosemary and thyme and oregano.  Feel free to use whatever herbs you have on hand.

Give your marinade a nice mix up.

Coat your chicken pieces in the marinade.  You don't need a lot of marinade.  The idea is to coat not soak the chicken in it.  In tagine cooking, the cone shaped lid traps the steam and sends it back down into the base so you will end up with a nice, rich broth.  So don't worry about not having a lot of marinade left in the bottom.

 

As I mentioned before, I don't actually own a tagine.  So I use my Korean stone pot.  Koreans use these for making soybean paste stews.  You can check out my LA version of Army

Base Soybean stew by clicking here.  

Add all your marinade coated chicken into your stone pot.  If you don't have one, you can use a small oven proof baking dish with a lid or  just cover with foil.  Easy!

I take one lemon and give it a rinse because I use the rind in this dish.  Thinly slice your lemon.  I used half this lemon, but you can use the entire lemon if you prefer.

I layer the thinly sliced lemons on top of my chicken...

 

and cover with the lid.

Ready to go in the oven!

I should mention that you can add green olives, sliced almonds and dried apricots to this and it is amazing.  The Indian dood I live with might possibly have a heart attack if I did that so I didn't for this meal.  But I highly recommend that you sneak them in. 

Bake at 400 for 40 minutes.  I even threw in some potatoes to bake at the same time.  See what a multi-tasker I am?

This smells divine.  

See what I mean about all the steam being pushed back down to create a nice lemony broth? 

I served the chicken with braised asparagus and baked potatoes.  You can also serve with rice, noodles, over salad... Use the broth to dip bread into, or spoon some over your chicken.

You can even save the liquid for soups, for cooking rice in, cooking veggies in.  Freeze in a container or freeze in an ice cube try for little blocks of flavor.

Thanksgiving Left Overs Waffle/Thanksgiving Redoux

Thanksgiving is easily my most favorite holiday of the year.  Why?  Because we get to see friends and family and stuff ourselves with some delicious food!
I have so much to be thankful for that I attend at LEAST two Thanksgivings...yes.  Full Thanksgivings.  One on actual Thanksgiving and one the Saturday after.  I'm just blessed like that.

If your cup runneth over like mine does,  you probably have a fridge full of leftovers.  After a day or two, the thought of another turkey sandwich or reheated Thanksgiving meal probably has you singing the blues....

So do what I do....Thanksgiving Redoux!

Usually, I take this recipe and I make fried croquettes.  This year, I did both waffles and fried croquettes.  The beauty is that it's the same "recipe".  Why am I putting quotes around recipe?  Because it's kind of hard to call something a recipe when all your doing is throwing everything into a bowl and mushing it together with egg and cheese, but that's really all we're doing here.

Grab yourself the following leftovers:
stuffing
mashed potatoes
turkey
And grab:
1-2 eggs
shredded cheese (optional)
chopped green onion (optional)
panko bread crumbs (if making croquettes)

Plug in your waffle iron so it can heat up while you're mixing up your ingredients.

I eyeballed the amounts.  Just use as much or as little as you like.  You really just want to make sure it's not too much mashed potato or your batter is really soft.  Not unusable, you just have to be more careful with it.

In this bowl, I probably have about 1 cup leftover, cold mashed potatoes, 1 cup of stuffing, and about a cup of shredded turkey.  You can feel free to leave out any of these leftover ingredients.  I've done just stuffing and mashed potatoes and also just stuffing and turkey.  You can use just mashed potatoes, but they won't crisp up in the waffle maker.  If you want to just kick up your mashed potatoes, I would follow this recipe.

To this, I added 2 eggs.  I say use 1-2 depending on how much you're making.

Grab a large mixing spoon or use your hands and mix it all up into one incorporated mass of Thanksgiving leftover goo.

I decided to add some shredded cheddar cheese because...well, just because.  Did you know you can keep chopped green onions in the freezer to use whenever you need them?  You can!  And I happened to have some so I added some in too.  The cheese and green onions are optional.

Now it looks like a party!

By now, my waffle maker is nice and hot so I add in about a cup and a half of Thanksgiving goop.  It smells good IMMEDIATELY.  Spread around and close the waffle maker.  

Cooking time will depend on your waffle maker.  This only took about 7 minutes.  

You can top with gravy and cranberry sauce.  It even tastes amazing with maple syrup!  I chose to eat mine with some leftover collard greens I had.  But I drank cranberry juice while I was eating it.

I made two good sized waffles and still had enough to make croquettes.  Can we ever get enough fried foods?  To make croquettes, simply form your mixture into patties, dredge in egg wash and roll in seasoned bread crumbs or panko bread crumbs.  If your mixture is mashed potato heavy and kind of soft, let it sit in the fridge for about an hour.  Having them be cold keeps them firm and makes them easier to fry.  Then I just give them a quick fry in olive oil.  

Hopefully this will inspire you to try something different with your Thanksgiving leftovers.  

Here's to good eatin'!

Spicy, Garlic Sausage Stuffing with Chestnuts and Green Apples

Wow.  Try saying that 10 times really fast…Or better yet, just make this and EAT it really fast.
THANKSGIVING is TOMORROW!!!!!

I am one of those folks who loves stuffing.  Call it what you will…stuffing, dressing, turkey side dish.  I want it.  I'm not a huge fan of just wet seasoned bread.  I really like to kick mine up.  After a few years of playing around with different variations, this is the recipe that I landed on and stick to.

It involves:
1 12 oz box of seasoned stuffing (any brand will do.  I use Mrs. Cubbison's)
1 12 oz box of corn bread stuffing (or just crumbled up old cornbread)
1 medium to large onion
4-5 stalks of celery
1 Granny Smith Apple

16 oz Jimmy Dean HOT sausage
chopped or crushed garlic
crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 stick of REAL butter
cranberry juice and/or red wine
roasted chestnuts (already roasted)
black pepper
seasoning salt

Okay, ready?


This makes a LOT of stuffing.  I only make it once a year so I just go for it.  Feel free to use only one box of stuffing.  Or to use half seasoned and half corn bread to make one bag of stuffing.

Start by melting your stick of butter in a large frying pan on medium heat.  Please don't use margarine.  Or butter substitute.  I really think it's best to just use the real stuff.  Not just because the flavor is divine, but the fake butter and substitutes have all these weird chemicals and that can't be good.

As your butter begins to melt, dice your onion into smallish size pieces.  Think bite sized.  I don't particularly enjoy having huge pieces of onion in my stuffing so I keep that in mind while I'm chopping up my veggies.  Add into your pan with the melted butter.  Try to keep you heat medium to medium low so that you don't brown the butter (though that is delicious too!) or crisp the onions.

I also clean and chop the celery, also remembering to keep the pieces bite sized.  You can feel free to use more or less celery.  I know celery can be a point of contention for some folks (ah hem…Argelia, I still haven't forgotten about the celery incident of 2009).  I happen to love cooked celery so I like to use a good amount.

Add the chopped celery into your butter and onions.

I take the opportunity to season my veggies now.  I don't use seasoning at any other point in this recipe for two reasons:  1) I think seasoning while cooking the veggies are the optimal time to incorporate seasoning into your dish and 2) the seasoned bread crumbs have a lot of good seasoning in them so I don't want to OVER salt this dish.

I use course ground black pepper and Lawry's seasoning salt.  Feel free to use kosher or sea salt if you'd rather skip the seasoning salt.  (Lawry's seasoning salt uses no MSG so I like to use it often.)

While your onions and celery are getting yummy in the butter,  grab your stuffing.

Pour into a LARGE bowl.  Notice this is corn bread stuffing and seasoned traditional stuffing.  You can use one or the other.  I like to use both.  I should mention that it's super easy to just cube up stale bread, but that would mean I would need to plan ahead and buy bread or make corn bread, remember NOT to eat it,  let it get stale, cube it up, yadda yadda...and who really needs to add a whole bunch of extra steps to this?  Not me!  BUT if you're more put together than I am, you should totally do it.  

And look…our celery and onions are beautiful.  

I cook them until they are soft, but not browned or crispy.  

Pour on top of your bread and corn bread mix…and yes, there is a good deal of melted butter.  

It all goes in over your stuffing.

In the same pan you just used, start to cook up your sausage.  I like to use this kind:

You can use any kind of sausage you want.  I like this kind because it's easier to crumble up while cooking.  I've used andouille, kielbasa, chicken sausage and they are all good.  I just love the pork sausage and the way it works with the 

Use a spatula to smash into smaller pieces.  It's up to you how large or small you want your sausage pieces to be in your stuffing.  I like a combo of both good sized chunks and crumbles.

When it's almost done, I add an obscene amount of crushed garlic.  This was about 2-3 large tablespoons.  Again, this is my chance to get a lot of flavor in the stuffing without using salt.

I also like to add some more crushed red pepper to the sausage.  I don't find the Jimmy Dean sausage to be that spicy even though it's labeled as HOT.  I don't need this to burn anybody, but I do like a nice spicy bite so I like to add it.  This is totally optional and you can feel free to avoid it like the plaque if you want.

Cook for another 4-5 minutes.  Mmmmmm.  Spicy, garlic and sausage.

Add that into your bowl of fun.

For years, I used to peel and roast my chestnuts.  Nowadays, you can buy already roasted chestnuts.  I got these at the Korean Market near me, but I think you can buy them in non-Asian stores too.  DON'T use the canned ones.  They are mushy and overly sweet from being stored in light syrup.   If you can't find these, feel free to substitute walnuts or sliced almonds.  You can skip them too if you'd like.  The reason why I use them is I love, love, love roasted chestnuts.  They are soft and starchy and I grew up eating about 2 thousand pounds of them.  If you've never tried them, you should.  They remind me of baked potatoes with their starchy texture (no wonder I love them).   I used 4 out of the 5 packs that came in this bag.  I use a lot because I like to get a bite of everything when I eat this stuffing.  You can use more or less depending on what you like.

I like to chop about half them and keep the other half whole.

Like this:

Now is that part where you need to add some liquid to get the bread crumbs moist. 

 I call it my "wet-ner".  I use cranberry juice.  Why?  Well, I've already added a lot of butter and sausage fat so I don't really think my stuffing needs anymore flavor.  I like the IDEA of cranberries in my stuffing, but I don't really want cranberries in my stuffing.

I poured in about 2 cups to start.  You may or may not need more.  You can decide as you're mixing.  Some people like their stuffing crumbly and some like it really moist.  Get in there!  Start mixing.

I almost forgot!  Wash your Granny Smith apple because we're going to use the skin.  I like the way it looks and it helps the apple pieces keep their integrity and not turn to mush.

Chop into bite sized pieces.

Add into your stuffing. 

Do you have to use a Granny Smith apple?  No.  But I love the tart, crisp contrast of green apple balanced with the savory, buttery, garlic sausage.  So much so that I'll cut thin pieces of green apple from the core and put a bit of sausage on it and eat them right then and there.  They are like little apple and sausage canapés!  I stand there eating a lot of it actually.  Good thing this recipe is gi-normous.

I happened to have a little bit of red wine left over (or maybe I just wanted to be able to say I didn't drink the whole bottle) so I added it into my stuffing to help moisten.  Feel free to use any left over chicken stock or just more cranberry juice if you'd like.  

It's ready for baking.  Stuff into a turkey or spoon into a oven proof dish.  If baking in a casserole dish, bake covered at 350 for about 35 minutes and uncovered for another 10 minutes.  If stuffing into a turkey, be sure to follow directions regarding time and temperature as dictated by the size of your turkey.

Happpppy Thanksgiving!!!!!  Eat, Eat, Eat and be thankful!