The BEST mashed potatoes EVER!

As promised on facebook yesterday today yesterday, here is my recipe for what we have decided is the best mashed potatoes I've ever made!
Let me preface this with a quick note. This batch was HUGE. The first time I made them I used locally grown baby reds, I wasn't so lucky this time, and got carried away and cut the whole 5lb bag! On the bright side, Hubby makes a mean potato cake and now we have plenty left over for him to work his magic with ;)

I started with these ingredients:

Red potatoes (baby reds are best!) with skins left on, washed and quartered.
Garlic powder
1 pouch of real bacon pieces
butter
splash of milk
salt and pepper

Instructions:

 In a large pan, cover your potatoes with water, bring to a boil and boil uncovered until tender, drain. Transfer potatoes to large mixing bowl.

add butter, garlic powder and a splash of milk and using a masher (these are definitely not mixer potatoes due to the skins.) mash potatoes until still mostly lumpy.

add salt and pepper to taste.

Finish mashing potatoes until lumps are gone (or as close as possible)

open pouch of bacon pieces and remove freshness packet. empty the pouch into the potatoes and mix well.

 Serve warm.

They were the perfect compliment to the ribeye and sweet corn. The best part? even with the bacon and butter used, without the gravy (traditional mashed potatoes) or sour cream (baked potato) we were able to cut out a bit of fat, which is always a good thing.

I'm thinking of using greek yogurt in place of the butter next time, baby steps!

Quick Tutorial

While doing some blog reading a week or 2 ago I was reminded of a small inexpensive little doodad I had been meaning to order and found it at LaurieAnna's. The price was certainly right ($5.95) so I popped it in my cart and started to pay for it only to be disappointed..There is a $30 minimum to order online :(

So I did a bit of searching, and found it on another website for $8.95, but with $6.00 shipping..um no. and found it again on eBay with a whopping $18.99 (free ship)price tag. Now, normally I would consider the $14.95 including shipping not bad, but after having been going to get it for half that price at LaurieAnna's if I'd had enough in my cart I just wan't going to go there. So, I made my own, and now I'm going to show you how I did it!

This literally took longer to gather the supplies into 1 spot than it did to make it!

What you will need:

1.A drill and drill bits (I used a 5/16 for the scissors hole, but would have used a larger one if we had it!)

2. a dowel rod (I bought 3/4" dowels, but discovered a scrap end of a 1" dowel from a previous project I ended up using..didn't have to cut the dowel down that way LOL)
3. Screw driver
4. Long screw (mine was a 2")
5. sand paper
6. saw to cut the dowel.
7. Unfinished wood plaque. I got mine at Hobby Lobby for $0.50 regular price.

Steps:

 1. Cut your dowel to 4.25"
2. Sand off the sharp edges of one end, creating a slightly rounded effect. This will be the top.
3. Drill your hole for the scissors. Find the center of your dowel and drill straight down. I just used my scissors to gauge when to stop.

4. Drill pilot holes. You will want to drill straight through the plaque, and about a half inch through the bottom of the dowel.

5. assemble. From the bottom of the plaque, screw your screw through until the top 1/4" is showing on the top of the plaque. Twist your dowel onto this tip so that the screw grabs hold. Holding the dowel piece firmly  finish screwing the 2 pieces together.

Place a spool of twine on the holder and insert your scissors in the hole and that's it, a nice little caddy that keeps your twine and scissors together neatly.