Dirty Aul' Mashed Potatoes

Black Irish Friday, a new Thanksgiving tradition

Himself carves the bird.

One of the best things about this Thanksgiving was that the next day, instead of rushing to the malls, etc., we spent it together instituting a new tradition, Black Irish Friday.  (If you don't know what "Black Irish" is, here's the general idea.)  This pretty much means that we had a laid-back Thanksgiving-style dinner with just whomever happened to be at the house.  This year it included our neighbor, who's a Cleveland police officer, our daughter Arah and her boyfriend Sam, and of course, us.    It was a lot of fun and we plan to do it next year if I don't do the big Bredenbeck Family Thanksgiving, which is gonna be another blog post in itself.

And of course, it wouldn't be a laid-back meal without fuss-free food, and it doesn't get much more fuss-free than Dirty Aul' Mashed Potatoes.

Equipment you will need:

Steel stock pot, 5-quart or 8-quart
Good cutting knife
Hand mixer
Spatula

Ingredients:

5 lbs. russet, redskin, Yukon Gold or any other white potatoes
2 T powdered chicken or vegetable bouillon (we like Wyler's, Vegeta or Jamison's Soup Base)
1 2-oz. container dehydrated onions
1 T McCormick's Vegetable seasoning blend
12 oz. light or regular sour cream
1/2 c. real or fake bacon bits (optional)

Cut up the potatoes any old way you like, with the skins on (gasp!  yes, it's true!), put into the stock pot with about 4" of water in the bottom, add bouillon or soup base and dehydrated onions and simmer, covered, until potatoes are tender.  Using hand mixer, mash and then beat the potatoes.  If it looks like there will be too much liquid,  drain a little off; you can use it for gravy now or soup later.  When the potatoes are fairly well mauled, throw in the sour cream, the McCormick's and, if you like, bacon bits. Turn mixer to high speed, scraping sides of bowl.  At some point, you will have to stop and remove potato peels from the mixer blades, but hey -- you didn't have to peel potatoes, did you?   When everything is nicely blended, return to stove top and continue to beat over low heat for about 2 minutes until potatoes are very hot; serve.

Makes plenty for 6 hungry people and a ton of leftovers.   If you want to get all fancy and make potato pancakes with the leftovers next day, we won't stop ya.

Note:  Once the potatoes are whipped, do NOT set this back over a lighted burner unless you are beating it with the mixer.  At best you will scorch the bottom, at worst -- well, you know that cake they made on "The Little Rascals"?  Yeah.  BOO-WOW, baby, all over the stove and, if the Kitchen Gods are really up for some fun, the stove hood and even the ceiling.   If you're not serving it immediately, keep it on the stove center, which should still be hot from the turkey or whatever beast you're roasting.  (You could put it in a large Pyrex or glass serving bowl and zap it in the microwave at the last minute, too, but remember, there is air beaten into the mixture, so cover it with Saran wrap to avoid the Boo-WOW Factor.)