Trial Run: The PW's Mashed Potatoes

It looks like I will be hosting Thanksgiving this year for about 13 people. Yaaaay. No seriously, it's cool, I enjoy this kind of thing. The only slight issue is that we are having Brody's birthday party the Saturday before Thanksgiving - so you can probably understand that I'm a teeny, tiny bit stressed out - since I'm making everything for his party. We are trying to make our own printables (my amazing husband is spending hours doing this for me) and I think I'm going to make all the food and everything. Then, I'll have to have everything put away and my house as spotless as it gets before Thursday.

I'm a very lucky girl - Chris will help me with everything I need help with - watching the kids, cleaning and even cooking, so it shouldn't be a huge issue as long as he takes a couple of days off. Have I mentioned how much I love him?!

OK, so anyway, I saw the Pioneer Woman make her mashed potatoes on her new Food Network show and I wanted to do a trial run of them prior to Thanksgiving. I never make anything for the first time and just serve it up - it makes me too nervous, ha!

I also rarely - and by rarely I mean probably twice in the almost 6 years we've been married - make mashed potatoes. We like them, but they just seem so bad for you, so I never make them. I'm sure you're laughing at that having read some of my previous recipes.

So here we go...

The Pioneer Woman’s Mashed Potatoes

Source: The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter, softened, plus more for pan

• 5 pounds russet or Yukon gold potatoes

• One 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

• 1 cup heavy cream

• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon seasoned salt

• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter a 4-quart baking dish.

Peel and cut the potatoes into chunks. Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add the potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender, 20 to 25 minutes

Drain the potatoes in a large colander. Place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove. Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape before adding in all the other ingredients

Turn off the heat and add 1 1/2 sticks butter, the cream cheese, heavy cream, seasoned salt, kosher salt and pepper. Mash to combine

Spread the potatoes in the prepared baking dish. Throw pats of the remaining butter over the top of the potatoes and bake until the butter is melted and the potatoes are warmed through, 20 to 30 minutes.

Verdict? Their really good. I think I expected something so spectacularly awesome that I would be dreaming about them or something, and they weren't that but they were very good. I'll be adding them to the Thanksgiving Menu, along with this recipe!