Step Aside, Mashed Potatoes

There's a new kid in town. New to us, anyway.

I'm talking about root vegetable mash. I've had it a few times before (the side dish they serve at The Eatery stands out as one of the best I've had), but never attempted to make it. Last weekend's pre-Thanksgiving feast with foodie friends turned out to be the perfect opportunity for making it.

I looked up some recipes online, but ultimately just bought whatever root veggies I could find at the farmers market and added anything else that sounded good and made sense.

The recipe was super easy and very delicious -- the worst and most tedious part was peeling and chopping all of the vegetables. Here's what I used and what I did:

• 3 big sweet potatoes
• 4 potatoes (Yukon gold, red potatoes -- anything works)
• 6 medium-sized parsnips
• 2 celery roots
• a small carton of heavy whipping cream
• about half a stick of butter, cut into pieces
• garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut all vegetables into small cubes Fill a pot (I had so many vegetables that I need to big pots) with salted water, place cut vegetables inside and bring to a boil. Simmer (don't turn the stove too low -- you'll wnat some bubbles) for about 20-25 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Drain, and place back in pot. Mash vegetables with a masher. Pour in cream and butter, and shakes of garlic, pepper and salt, and beat with an electric mixer. It should be ready to eat then, or, if serving it later, just put back on the stovetop to heat up. This made about 10 servings.

That's all there is to it! I can't wait to try making this again. I think it would be good with any sort of vegetable you can find -- rutabagas, turnips, carrots included. If I made it again, I might tone down the cream (and use skim or 2% milk) and butter. But it's probably tastier the way I made it!

Beer-Baked French Fries

As many of you know, Nate is a home brewer. He often tweets (@NathanAlesBrew, if you're interested) about beer trends, new beers and meals involving beer. It was one of these posts that caught my eye.

He posted this recipe for Garlic and Salted Beer-Baked French Fries, and I thought they would pair nicely with some buffalo burgers. The fries were really easy to make. The recipe suggests using New Belgium's Somersault beer, but anything is fine. We used a random bottle we had in the fridge: Scrimshaw, a pilsner, from North Coast Brewing.

The only thing I might do different next time is use garlic powder and/or garlic salt, rather than minced garlic. Many of the bits of garlic fell off the potatoes and burned.

If I remember correctly, we baked our fries for about 40 minutes. Unless they're really thick-cut, I don't think you'd want to bake them for an hour.

Roasted Corn Salad

I'm not quite sure how I ended up there, but I can tell you it started while I was perusing the JSOnline's food page. The picture of the black bean tacos/burritos with rice caught my eye, and before I knew it, I was deciding to make the roasted corn salad that's on this page for a cookout last week.

The recipe was really easy, and I followed it exactly--everything sounded good to me! You could do a lot of different things with it--make it more spicy, add some chipotle flavor, use fresh corn rather than frozen--which is nice.

The dressing was nice and light--I'd make that again for regular dinner salads.

It was a hit at the cookout, and tasted great even leftover. I call that a success!

Potato & Pasta-less Side Salad

I love potato and pasta salads for cookouts or tailgates, but I was looking forward to trying this Cucumber, Tomato and Feta Salad. I thought it would nice to have something a little lighter.

We went to the Brewers game last Saturday with my parents, and I happened to come across the Epicurious salad recipe on Facebook (I believe it was). I thought it would be great with the chicken sandwiches we made for our dinner.

The recipe was super easy and straightforward. I didn't do anything differently other than halve the recipe, as I wasn't sure it would be too good leftover for too long.

The salad was very good, and I'll definitely be making it again. I threw a can of tuna in the last bit of leftovers for lunch tomorrow--we'll see how that goes, but I'm sure it will be good.

Spicy Southwestern Tabbouleh

While flipping through the July 2010 issue of Cooking Light, I found this recipe for Spicy Southwestern Tabbouleh. I thought the dish would work well as a side for a pork dish we would be making later in the week and also as a pre-workout snack (more bulgur!).

The ingredients list is very long--25 things go into it! And it takes a lot of chopping and prep work, but I think it's well worth it. The dish was delicious, and worked well as both a side dish and pre-workout snack.

If one of the ingredients isn't appealing or if you don't have it on hand (I forgot to buy queso fresco, so I used the feta I had), just sub in something else. You can also make it as spicy or not spicy as you want.

I had this in the fridge for about a week, and I would say that's just a little too long--by the end, it was pretty watery, but still pretty tasty.