Mashed (Pumpkin) Potatoes

'Tis (still) the season for pumpkins at our house. Sunday evening, when we were scooping out the pumpkin seeds and flesh to freeze or dehydrate, I was also making mashed potatoes for dinner. This mixture was delicious and even won dh's approval. My poor unsuspecting family never knows what will show up in their mashed potatoes. I should say 'suspecting' family because now whenever I serve mashed potatoes they start asking about it, lol. This side dish treats pumpkin like a veggie, instead of a dessert conduit :). It's approximately 50/50 potatoes to pumpkin.


Ingredients:

4 organic potatoes (approximately 1 pound)
2 C pre-cooked pumpkin or 2 C canned pumpkin (probably one can)
2 T real butter
1/4-1/2 C milk (depends on your preference)(sometimes I use kefir in our mashed potatoes)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil potato chunks until tender. Strain. Mash. Add the butter, pumpkin, milk and mix well. Add salt and pepper and mix well. Serve warm.

[By the way, I often throw sweet potatoes in with our regular potatoes. If they are not pre-cooked then I just cook them with the potatoes. Same with beets. And squash. And cauliflower. Is it any wonder they raise eye brows when I serve mashed potatoes?]

[Another note: I love having leftover mashed potatoes because potato soup is a breeze the next day. Broth, mashed potatoes, and seasoning to taste.]

Below are pictures of pumpkin ready for the freezer; pumpkin ready for the dehydrator; pumpkin seeds ready to soak, rinse, dehydrate; and the measly 1/2 C of leftovers of the Mashed (Pumpkin) Potatoes since I didn't have time to take pictures before we ate.  I added the little miter cookies that the dc decorated and ate on St. Nicholas Day.  Since I used rapadura powdered sugar for the icing it wasn't really white.  We decided to make it red instead.

This simplistic yet real food recipe is part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:

http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/12/real-food-wednesday-12810.html