Of White Snow, Music, and Purple Potatoes

Today's news: SNOW! We got six new inches last night and it's been snowing lightly all morning. Ogden City has been doing a somewhat better job of plowing the streets than in the past few weeks. We STILL have an inch of ice covering about 30% of the streets throughout the city. Now that ice is covered by new snow, but the city, thank goodness, is salting today. I saw more street this morning driving Ian to Band than I have in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, Saturday we went on our first family sledding trip. There's a great hill at a golf course near us. We had a great time, picking up awesome speed, and getting VERY cold. Maren got going SO fast she kept going on down the next little hill, then the NEXT little hill! It took her FOREVER to get back up to the top, but it was worth it!






Afterward we had a couple of kids with money burning holes in their pockets, so we went to PetSmart and bought fish.

Sunday was my first day as the new Primary Song Leader. Alas, I'm again and still in Primary, but the calling is a fun one, and I have a ton of great ideas for the coming year. I hope the pianist can keep up with me.

Also Sunday we had a lovely beef roast for dinner, complete with mashed potatoes and gravy. However, our potatoes were purple. Purple, you say? Yes, purple. And no, NOT dyed purple. Real, natural, purple potatoes that we grew in our garden. Darin took some of the leftovers with him to work yesterday and his co-workers were dismayed. They didn't believe that the potatoes were naturally purple, so he's taking a few of the potatoes to work with him today.

Anyway, often when we make mashed potatoes we make extras so we can have Shepherd's Pie later in the week. This week was no exception, so we had Shepherd's Pie with purple potatoes. Check this out:




The bottom image is of the potatoes right after they've been squeezed out of the ziploc bag. I usually cut a corner off the bag and squeeze the potatoes out like frosting in a pastry bag. The top image is after it's been cooked. Now doesn't that look appetizing? It doesn't look much better with brown gravy on it either. But once you get past the visual shock, they taste just like regular potatoes, AND they're different. That's why we like them.

My Recipe for Shepherd's Pie:
1 lb Ground Beef, browned
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can cut green beans
1 can tomato soup
1 tsp chili powder
3 to 4 cups mashed potatoes (any color)
Grated cheese, flavor or choice
9X13 pan, sprayed with cooking spray; 350 degree oven

Brown meat, remove from heat and add corn, beans, soup and chili powder. Mix thoroughly and pour in to baking pan. Top with mashed potatoes, spread evenly over the meat mixture. Top with grated cheese. Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.