November is here!  It is officially time to start thinking about holiday menus and gathering recipes old and new.  On our Thanksgiving table we always have some classics, some family favorites that are now tradition and I always look for one or two recipes that can liven things up a bit.

One of my family’s old staples is of course a big bowl of old-fashioned Basic Mashed Potatoes.  The mashed potato is one of the simplest tastes there can be with one of the biggest impacts on your table.  If they are done incorrectly it could potentially ruin the whole meal.  It’s a good thing that they are pretty easy to make!

There are companies out there who have made millions on that powdered stuff that is supposed to pass for mashed potatoes.  I never quite understood how or why anyone would go through all the work of making those fake mashed potatoes when the real thing takes about 5 minutes longer to make with basically the same cost or even less.  To me the pay off of that 5 minutes is immeasurable.  When you bite into a creamy, hearty, buttery bite of simple mashed potato, you’ve really got something special.  A good mashed potato is meant to be a back drop for all the other wonderful savory food you have on your table.

So whether it is along side your Thanksgiving turkey, meatloaf, steak, pork roast or any number of different dishes, please take the extra 5 minutes to peel up some potatoes.  I promise it will be worth every bite!

Let me show you how I do it…

I either use all-purpose white potatoes or Yukon Gold… they are both good, it depends on what I have on hand at the time.

I like a smaller dice on my potatoes so they cook faster, but remember the smaller you dice, the less starch there will be. Put your potatoes in cold water to start, add a good pinch of salt and boil until fork tender.

Salted butter. I slice it just so it melts in quicker.

Drain water from pot and add in the salted butter.

Fresh cracked black pepper is key.

Heavy cream. Sometimes if I just have 1/2 and 1/2 I use that, but anything with a lower fat content than that makes for a not so creamy mash.

Kosher salt to taste.

I use a good old-fashioned masher. I am not a fan of the masher with the grid, I like this one with the zig zag lines. You could whip your potatoes in the mixer, but then you would have whipped potatoes, not mashed.

*note – this is a completely gluten-free recipe.