If you would like to wow your guests with an unusual side dish at your next holiday dinner…
This one is for you!
There is nothing I love more than taking classic dishes and shaking them up a little.
Before we get to this beautiful dish…two quick things:
1) Daily Pictures are up. [My excitement got the best of me and I posted them at 12:01 am. Is that nerdy or what?]
2) I am organizing and updating my recipes page.
Hallelujah! Can you hear the angels singing? I sure can.
I fell off the recipe-updating wagon for about 2-3 months, but I hope to get caught up by my 53rd birthday with any luck.
Ok, ok my 50th birthday. So demanding.
Tonight, I updated, organized, and alphabetized my Breads, Cakes/cupcakes/pies, Cookies, Muffins, Raw foods/No Bake, and Other categories!
It is incredible how long the list is getting.
It is also incredible that I remember how to alphabetize.
Or spell alphabetize for that matter.
I still have to update my Dinner, Lunch, Breakfast, and Appetizer categories though. That will be a massive undertaking. I will need a Green Monster to my right and a glass of wine to my left for that one.
I have also added my Project Food Blog posts at the top of my recipes page. If you are looking for any of the recipes I have made for PFB, that is where they are hiding!
Whew. There is hope for me yet.
Tonight, I whipped up a delicious holiday-inspired side dish that will have heads turning, tongues wagging, and drool dripping.
Or people might look at your dish and run like hell. I really can’t guarantee anything here.
Garlic Pumpkin Mashed Potatoes with Spinach
Pumpkin mashed potatoes…with SPINACH! Such a crazy, yet lovely flavour combination. I fell in love with these potatoes as did Eric. The flavours of the pumpkin, garlic, sea salt, and spinach really go lovely with the potatoes.
Adapted from Cake, Batter, Bowl.
Ingredients:
- 7 red potatoes, scrubbed & chopped (or Yukon Gold variety)
- 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1-1.5 cups pumpkin puree, to taste
- Two handfuls spinach, stems removed & chopped
- 1/2 cup Almond milk
- 2 tbsp Earth Balance or butter
- 1.5 teaspoons kosher salt, or more to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Paprika, for garnish
Directions: Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat and boil potatoes for 18 to 22 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and place in a very large bowl. Meanwhile, heat olive oil over low heat in a skillet and sauté garlic for about 1 minute. be careful not to burn it like I did! Drain and mash potato chunks in the large bowl with a fork. Mix in pumpkin puree, spinach, almond milk, Earth Balance/butter, black pepper, and salt. Makes 5-7 servings.
*Best served immediately- the potatoes tend to get a bit watery (from the pumpkin) if they are put in the fridge.
Recipe note: This is the last pumpkin recipe I am making for a while!!!
Gather the troops!
Cook, drain, and admire the beauty of zee taters.
Also, admire the beauty of your tired hand-me-down pots and pot holders.
New things are over rated.
Now magic happens….
A beautiful unison of two things I never thought I would see together: Pumpkin and Potatoes.
Isn’t that just lovely?
Add in your salt, pepper, spinach, almond milk, and [hopefully not burned] garlic and give that arm a workout.
Sprinkle with Paprika if you dare.
It adds a little flare.
Uh oh, the poet in me is coming out.
I best get myself to bed.
Speaking of sleep, I have been having the craziest dreams lately….and many nightmares about random things! Many of them involve people chasing me or trying to hurt me. I even had a few dreams about Project Food Blog this past week. One of them was that I went to submit my video this coming Sunday and Foodbuzz told me that I handed it in a week late and was disqualified. I tried to show them that my video was uploaded on November 7th, but they didn’t care. Then my head was chopped off.
Ok, that last part didn’t happen, but it could have!
I can go for weeks without remembering any significant dreams and then all of a sudden I have a slew of strange dreams and nightmares all at once and random people popping up from my past. Sometimes I ‘see’ people in my dreams and I think to myself, ‘Where the hell did you come from!?’
Do you remember your dreams much or give much thought to them? Do you think that they mean anything or are they just a product of random thoughts swirling through your mind?
I think dreams definitely have meaning! They speak to what we are anxious about, among other things.
Thanks for this recipe – it’s right up my alley, and I”ll definitely be making this!
Yummy! These potatoes look delicious! Whenever I start thinking about going back to school, I start having dreams about being late to a final and/or going to a final for a class that I always skipped. They induce terrible anxiety in me! Then there are those were all of a sudden i find myself in the middle of tons of people….without clothes! Don’t like those either! lol!!
Hi Angela, beautiful dish! Pity we don’t have the convenience of canned pumpkin here in Ireland, I think I would go mad on it. With regard to the dreams, it can be useful look at the exact emotions you experienced, try to recall them as they felt in the dream, your responses etc. these are emotions that want to be heard and are being expressed in the dream because possibly you aren’t accepting them in waking life – maybe see if you can recognise, accept, investigate, non-personalise with the strongest ones. The process is explained here if it’s of interest :) https://sites.google.com/a/audiodharmacourse.org/mindfulness-meditation/five-hindrances
Thank you again for all your beautiful recipes and photos, your blog is my favourite this last ages, I look forward to it when I open my reader every day :)
Garlic makes everything better if you ask me =)
I think smoked paprika would be even better!
Last week I had a dream (nightmare?) that my husband had an affair because I don’t like bacon.
That is so funny! Ahahahah!! LOL.
Can’t get enough pumpkin. Looks great :)
Those look yummy! I only remember dreams when I wake up and fall back asleep (like in the morning). I usually don’t really think they mean anything…it’s just a hodgepodge of things that went through my head the day before.
Geat idea adding the PFB category!
I don’t eat potatoes, but this recipe makes me want to give them another shot. YUM!
This looks delicious! Last Thanksgiving was the 1st time I cooked everything and I tried to choose a lot of healthy/different/random dishes. This isn’t too far out there but I’d love to try it!
And it’s funny, I was just talking to a friend yesterday about dreams. She has THE most intense ones almost nightly–I don’t remember the last dream I had….
I rarely remember my dreams and the ones I do remember never make any sense. I’m sure they mean something, but as long as I’m working things out while I’m asleep I try not to think about it much!
Thanks for updating your recipe page! I’ve been looking for your newer recipes but wasn’t able to find them on the list. Pumpkin, potatoes, and spinach all in one? Yum!
I always have strange dreams. Like last night I had a dream about owning a Vitamix and trying to protect to from getting stolen at my school.
Angela,
I have been reading your blog for about 3 months now…sorry not to have commented. I LOVE your blog, your recipes, your sentiments, and your humor. I also love your pictures! You are just wonderful and your blog has become my favorite. I have cooked many of your recipes and everything has turned out wonderfully. Because of this I am SO happy you are organizing your recipe page. I find myself just poking around looking for recipes on your posts since they aren’t all on your recipe page yet. Better yet…maybe its time for an OSG Cookbook? :) I would buy it in a heartbeat. You are a daily inspiration for living better. Thank you SO much for your blog. I just love it.
On another note…I have been having crazy dreams lately too. I had a nightmare that I ate a beef burger ( I don’t eat meat) and have had some strange cooking failure dreams too. Weird.
Anyway, have a lovely day!
Thanks Amanda!
This recipe is so cool Ange. Love that you added some greens to the mix!
Most nights, I do dream… but don’t remember them. When I do remember them, I sometimes think about them a bit while waking up, but then soon forget…. however, sometimes the dreams are SO vivid (and also no ‘fun’ or happy) and I can’t seem to get them out of my head. I really don’t like this… bc well, it’s justa dream… right ? But still, I think dreams is your mind trying to release emotion or feelings that may not nessisarily be appropriate to express OR they are simply bizzaro and mean nothing at all. Maybe the dream came from something you watched on TV a few days ago. Things like that… But I def do feel that if there are things that a person is repressing… can come out in dreams bc there is no other way to release them. Just my opinion ;)
what a gorgeous potato dish! i’ve been having very vivid dreams lately and think they all mean something, but who knows.. looking forward to the new recipe page! i’m always browsing through it :)
It seems I too have been having a slew of bad dreams lately. Last night I dreamt that I was killed and turned into a ghost and was trying to save people from being blown up on a train (that wasn’t moving… and kind of like a house)… but being a ghost and all it was hard to get them to pay attention to me, they could only see me when they were about to die… weird.
Sometimes if you start having nightmares and don’t usually have them, it might mean that you’re pregnant! In the first weeks, week 2 to 4. :)
This recipe is fantastic! I will try it out for sure.
Yes, random dreams latley too for me, what gives?! I always need a moment in the morning to snap out of it!
Yum-ola!! I’m a sucker for anything with a sweet potato in it!
I remember all my dreams – every night. A lot of them often involve people from high school I haven’t seen in years, or people I was friends with and lost touch with. And (TMI coming up!) they often involve me being embarrassed about an overflowing toilet, or not wearing any underwear, or some other awkward situation. I definitely have dreams related to important events or meetings I have coming up too. I’ve never really bothered to think about what they might mean at an emotional level – usually I can pinpoint exactly why that person showed up in my dream (may have talked about them with a mutual friend, or saw them on FB etc).
Love all the colour in that mash – definitely trying that one!!
I am making these today! I think I’ll bring them to thanksgiving so people have another option besides regular ones, thanks so much! :)