I'm a big girl now...

Good Evening Friends!

If you were to ask anyone who knows me well what  two of my least favorite foods in the whole world are, the correct answer would be "steak and mashed potatoes". Ever since I can remember, the mere thought of mashed potatoes has made me mentally, sometimes even physically (no joke), gag. I have a very vivid memory of sitting at the dinner table when I was 10 or 11 years old and coming oh so close to throwing up my entire dinner onto my plate when my mom made me eat a bite of mashed potatoes...not pretty.

Have I adequately conveyed my dislike for mashed potatoes? Yes? Ok...moving on....

Well folks- progress, of a sort, has been made. Much to the assumed disappointment of my father-in-law, it is not in the area of steak or red meat of any kind. It is instead in the potato arena. But don't go getting too excited just yet. The progress was made with sweet potatoes. I know, all they really share is the name. Color-wise and more notably taste-wise they are very different. But you have to give me at least a little credit. Tonight I made mashed sweet potatoes...and there was no throwing up involved!

Let me start from the beginning. As a general rule, I try to make most things from scratch, instead of buying pre-made stuff for my freezer that is often loaded with fat and sodium. But there are some nights when you really just need to have something in your freezer that you can pull out and have for dinner. I do a lot of label reading and comparing at the grocery store, which really annoys my husband, and I have come up with a few things that I feel are worthy of some of my precious freezer real estate. The following is one of them:

Check out those nutrition facts! Not bad at all. Lots of protein, a reasonable amt of sodium, not much saturated fat...good stuff!!! I buy them at Costco and yes, when they were on sale a few months ago I loaded up (Read: bought 3 bags), so we did at one point have 36 salmon burgers in our freezer. Excessive for 2 people? I think not :)

So...all I had to do tonight was pull a few of these little guys out of the bag and plop them in a pan. I also happened to have just the right amount of guacamole leftover from the party to top them with! AND some homemade tomato and black bean salsa as well:

Saute, top, enjoy!

 

 

While the burgers were cooking, I worked on the mashers. I cut up 2 sweet potatoes and tossed them in a big pot with some water.

Yes, you should leave the skins on. Let them boil away for 15-20 minutes or until they fork tender. Then drain them and plop them in a bowl...or tupperware as the case may be, since I do everything I can to avoid having to load excess dishes into the dishwasher.

 

See my cute little potato masher? My cousin got me that for my wedding shower and I hardly ever get to use the little guy! After mashing, add a splash of orange juice and sprinkle with cinnamon. Stir to combine.

Sorry the photos are a little cloudy. We haven't turned our heat on yet and in contrast to the hot potatoes, it's slightly chilly in our house :)

 Since I'm not quite brave enough to try plain old mashed potatoes, even the sweet potato variety, I topped mine with some salsa:

While I'm not adding them to my favorite foods list, I did eat almost all of the ones on my plate...I'm such a big girl :) And they weren't too bad!

I'm feeling quite energized as I had an evening cup of coffee. My to-do list is as long as my leg (and I'm quite tall, so that's quite long) so I need all the help I can get. Maybe I'll have the rest of this delightful treat if I get everything done!

Enjoy!

--Lindsay--