Mashed Potatoes with roasted garlic, rosemary and parmesan

You know mashed potatoes are good when you fight over who gets to lick the bowl.

This is a conglomeration of recipes, so I'm calling it my own.  It's the magic that happens when you read a half-dozen mashed potato recipes on epicurious.com the week before Thanksgiving.  You could easily half this, as written it served 13 with only a couple cups leftovers.  

Mashed Potatoes with roasted garlic, rosemary and parmesan
4 lbs red potatoes
4 lbs yukon gold potatoes
1 t salt

Wash, trim and cube potatoes (I peeled about 1/3 of them). Cook in salted water until they fall apart when pierced with a fork.  Remove from heat and drain, reserving about 1 cup of water.

4 heads garlic (16 cloves), roasted
1 c milk, 2%
4 T butter
1 T fresh rosemary, minced
6 T parmesan cheese
Salt & pepper to taste (I started with 1 t salt and added from there)

Combine above in small saucepan and bring to a low simmer.  I used an immersion blender to liquefy the garlic, you could also toss it into a blender.  Mix into mashed potatoes, serve.  Hope for leftovers.

State Fair Potato Salad

This is possibly the best ever potato salad... Yummy! 5 gold stars!! Actually, it was probably a blue ribbon...


State Fair Potato Salad
"Drizzling sweet pickle juice over the warm potatoes is the secret to this delicious salad."

• 3 1/2 pounds red-skinned potatoes, washed, cut into 3/4-inch pieces

• 1/3 cup juices from jar of sweet pickles

• 1 cup mayonnaise

• 1/2 cup buttermilk

• 2 T Dijon mustard

• 2 teaspoon sugar

• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 5 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, chopped

• 1 cup chopped celery

• 1 cup chopped sweet pickles (Vlassic no sugar added baby gherkins)

Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, 10-20 minutes.  Drain.  Drizzle pickle juice over warm potatoes and stir (this might be my favorite part of the whole recipe).  Cool to room temp.  I place the pot in the sink with salted ice water to speed this process.

While the potatoes are cooking and cooling, chop the celery, hard-boiled eggs, and pickles.  Put these in the large bowl you'll serve in. 

In medium bowl, whisk together mayo, buttermilk, mustard, sugar and pepper.  Add potatoes and sauce to chopped goodies and stir well.  Chill.    

Enjoy!

Original Recipe http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/STATE-FAIR-POTATO-SALAD-106834#ixzz22c0LlY2M