Holiday Mashed Potatoes

Earlier this summer, our son Jason got married.  Mr. Wonderful and I did the entire Rehearsal Dinner ourselves.  One of the dishes we did, was a mashed potato of sorts, but not just ordinary mashed potatoes, we made my Holiday Mashed Potatoes.

Imagine a loaded baked potato in a bowl without the peel.  That’s the beauty of this dish. It would make a nice kicked-up potato recipe for Thanksgiving or even Christmas.

I start by peeling 3 pounds of russet potatoes.  You could use Yukon Gold but the color of russet really makes these pretty.  When you’re finished, you’ll have pure white mashed potatoes with red and green flecks.  Yellow would ruin that.

I always chunk up my potatoes roughly just to make them cook faster.  Throw them into a large pot of salted boiling water.  They’ll need to cook for about 20 minutes, or until you stick a fork in them and it comes out very easily.  Then drain those babies and put em in your mixer bowl.

Get your mixer ready.  Hopefully you’re feeling particular naughty today.  To the potatoes, add one block of cream cheese and one and one-half sticks of butter.  Also throw in 1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

I didn’t say this was going to be low-fat.  The words “holiday” and “mashed potatoes” don’t generally mean that either..so just indulge on a holiday with these.

Or run for 10 miles after you eat them.

Please use real butter and not that oily margarine stuff.  My mom used to call it Oleo.

Shudder.

Some words just sound nasty don’t they? Oleo…ick. Sounds like it could be a form of plastic.

Oh wait, it is.

Also grate up one-half cup of parmesan cheese.

Chop up 4 green onions, the white part and the green part.  Toss both the onions and the parmesan into the mix.

Turn your mixer on for a minute to mix them in.

Also, and here is where the red flecks come into play, add in one 2 ounce jar of chopped pimentos.

Also add in 1/4 a cup of milk, 1 tablespoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper.  Potatoes need a lot of salt.  Don’t skimp!

Turn on your electric mixer and whip all this together.

Spoon it into a 9 x13 baking dish or whatever dish you like.

I used a deep dish pie dish and it was super pretty.

Sprinkle one-half a cup more of shredded cheddar cheese over top of the potatoes.

Pop them into a 350º oven for about 20 minutes, until the cheese melts and everything looks nice and heated through.

Imagine a big scoop of these alongside your turkey this Thanksgiving.  Or next to beef tenderloin at Christmas.  They just kick things up a little from plain ol’ ordinary potatoes.

Not that I don’t like plain ol’ ordinary potatoes.

But these are special.

Katie’s Printable Recipe – Holiday Mashed Potatoes

Cooking with Love,

~Katie