Friday, December 25, 2009

A Bit Of Christmas Dinner


You may be wondering why in the world I'm writing two posts in one day. The fact is, the pressure is on. Dave issued a challenge several months ago that resulted in me setting a goal to reach a total of 450 blog posts by the end of the year. This post will be # 447, which means that I'll only have to write 3 more posts within the next 5 days to reach my goal. To that end, I've decided to share a potato recipe that's probably familiar to my Canadian readers, but may not be known to the Americans (except for Mom; she's made these potatoes at least once in my presence). It's a great recipe from Jean Pare's wonderful cookbook series, Company's Coming. What I love about Pare's recipes is that they are easy to execute, but taste like really fancy dishes. The centerpiece of today's dinner was turkey, of course. The main side dish (aside from stuffing, to which I added about one cup of cranberries for a delicious twist - try it sometime), in lieu of ordinary mashed potatoes, was Potatoes Extraordinaire.

Here is the recipe:
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Ingredients
5 lbs potatoes
8 oz cream cheese
1 c sour cream
1/4 c butter or margarine
1 Tbsp onion salt
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Butter and paprika for garnish

Instructions
Peel and cook potatoes in salted water until tender. Drain. Mash well. Add cream cheese in pieces. Add next 5 ingredients. Beat until smooth and fluffy. Scrape into 2 quart casserole. Place dabs of butter here and there over top of potatoes. Sprinkle with paprika. Cover and heat in 350ยบ F oven until heated through. Makes about 12 servings.
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Unless you're feeding an army, you'll likely have some potatoes left over. That's not a problem, because these potatoes reheat beautifully in the microwave. But, if you really don't like leftovers, you can halve this recipe without any dire consequences. If you've never tried this recipe before, try it soon. You won't be disappointed.

1 comment:

Barbara said...

I love that cookbook series. I've never tried that recipe, but I will have to do so soon.