i'm addicted to spuds

one of my all time favorite foods. i love sweet potatoes as well. comfort food. you can fix a spud any way and i'll still love it. boiled or fried or baked or broiled. whole or grated or cubed or mashed. they make me happy


THE ESSENTIAL THANKSGIVING: POTATOES
Choosing sides? Why not have both?By Regina SchramblingSpecial to The TimesNovember 16, 2005APPARENTLY there are people on the planet who actually think you can serve turkey without potatoes. These are the same traitors who would trot out a cheesecake instead of a pumpkin pie. Traditions are traditions, and potatoes are not just an essential ingredient. You have to have them twice in the same meal. You need mashed potatoes, creamy and soulful, to soak up the gravy — and sweet potatoes, because they taste both so different and so good with the turkey. Because the sweet potatoes are so often mislabeled as yams, which are a different tuber altogether, it must have been easy for them to slip onto the menu over the nearly century and a half since Thanksgiving became a national holiday. Because you might eat mashed potatoes at any old meal, they need dressing up for the holiday. But the sweet potatoes, which are less of an everyday thing, actually need to lose a few accessories, starting with the marshmallows and brown sugar. The best mashed potatoes start at the store. Yukon golds or russets are ideal because of their assertive flavor and excellent texture — buttery in the case of Yukon gold, flaky for russet. But if you find other smooth-textured, full-flavored potatoes at the farmers market, use them. Some taste creamy-rich even before you tear off the wrapper on a stick of Land O'Lakes. For even cooking, peel them and cut them into chunks (not slices, which turn too mushy). Start them in a big pot of cold water with salt (hot water keeps the potatoes from cooking evenly from the inside out). Cook them at a rolling simmer until they are just soft, not falling apart, then drain them completely and return them to the hot pot. Now comes the only tricky part. You can mash in as much softened butter as you find conscionable (this is a good day for an artisanal butter, or at least Plugra). Then start mashing in a mixture of cream and milk (it's a holiday; you need both). The secret here is warming the two liquids so they blend into the potatoes without cooling them down. ..........


as if that were not enough -
the potato information site