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.

Tangy Cranberry Meatballs

I love this recipe!  Serve over baked potatoes with your veggie of choice and it makes enough for 2 meals + some leftovers! I've made some modifications from the original recipe, here's my (better) version.  Lovely spooned over baked or mashed potatoes.

Tangy Cranberry Meatballs
400 degrees - 16 minutes

2lbs lean ground beef (or turkey, or a combination)
1 pkg stove top stuffing mix (I like the whole wheat)
1 cup water
2 large eggs

1 bottle (16 oz) barbecue sauce
2 cans whole berry cranberry sauce

In a large bowl, combine meat, stuffing mix, eggs and water.  Roll into 1-1/2" balls and place on foil-lined, greased (spray olive oil) cookie sheet.  You should have about 60 meatballs.  Bake at 400 degrees F for 16 minutes.

While meatballs are baking:
Combine in large pot or saucepan the cranberry sauce and bbq sauce over medium heat, stirring well to melt the cranberry jelly.  When meatballs are cooked, remove from oven and stir into sauce in pot.  Serve hot.

Saving a batch for later: (possibly my favorite part of this recipe)
Reserve half of the sauce and half of the meatballs before combining in sauce.  Put sauce in a quart freezer bag, lay flat.  Place cooled meatballs in gallon freezer bag with sauce bag on top.  To serve: Thaw sauce and meatballs then combine in pot.  Cook over low-medium heat until warm.  Serve.