Thanksgiving

Roast Chicken
Pumpkin Pie - I want to try this next year
Baked Yams- Next year I want to try mashed sweet potatoes.  Recipe 1, 2
Stuffing - Blogger suggested?

Mashed Potatoes - Alton Brown

Ingredients
    *  1 3/4 pounds russet potatoes
    * 8 fluid ounces (1 cups) half-and-half
    * 3 cloves garlic, crushed
    * 1 tablespoons kosher salt
    * 3 ounces grated Parmesan

Directions

1. Peel and dice potatoes, making sure all are relatively the same size. Place in a large saucepan and cover with water. Add 1 tbsp of salt.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce heat to maintain a rolling boil. Cook until potatoes fall apart when poked with a fork.
2. Heat the half-and-half and the garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat until simmering. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. Remove the potatoes from the heat and drain off the water. Mash and add the garlic-cream mixture, and Parmesan; stir to combine. Let stand for 5 minutes so that mixture thickens and then serve. 

Notes: This went really well!  We bough a pint of heavy cream and used half of it for the pumpkin pie.  Half and half is just one part heavy cream to one part whole milk so I used 3/4 C heavy cream + 1/4 C 1% milk.  Cooked the potatoes for some amount of time (I think it was around 15-20 minutes, not sure I just kept checking every 5 minutes.  The fork should be able to pierce the potato and it should "squish" if you crush it with tongs.).  While it's simmering, make sure to smash up the garlic and prepare the half and half mixture.  I ended up doing too many things at once and the potatoes sat in a strainer for quite a while.  It didn't really matter, because the mashed potatoes turned out wonderfully.  It was garlicky, perfectly salted, and creamy.  It had tiny chunks of potatoes in it because I used a whip and not a rice mill, but it was still very very good!