Here are the results of our first Iron Chef!  I’m glad to see that there are people who loved mashed potatoes as much as I do, I was a little worried that no one would be into the ingredient.

Joe got in first, with Po’rn Puppies – Balls of mashed potatoes dipped in corn batter and deep fried, hello!

Shannon made vegan Needham Candy, which is basically a mounds bar, but with potatoes and vegan!

Jody gives us carbs with a side of carbs with her Mashed Potato Pizza.  I’ve never had potatoes on pizza, but I know plenty of people who have so i’d imagine this tastes AWESOME (and would be good for any picky eaters you know since it’s all white foods!).

Eve Love brings us an epic tale of kitchen woe in french!  I ran this through the google translator, which I don’t think gives a perfect translation, but it’s good enough to give me the idea to pass along:  basically, she wanted to make these, decided to try dyeing some of the potatoes (one is with red cabbage), and…it didn’t turn out.  She doesn’t say if she ate them to see if they at least tasted okay.  Kudos to her for being creative and blogging her attempt anyway.

Carolyn made Sweet Potato and Black Bean Cakes, zomg!  They look really good and I am in serious want.

Megan veganized a recipe for Loaded Potato Soup from Southern Living, and if you’re as half-assed about measuring as I am, this recipe is for you!

Kelly brings us a simple yet tasty sounding recipe for Mashed Potato Pancakes – not like latkes, but breakfast pancakes!

Christina used sweet and white potatoes to make Samosas with currants and almonds, which i’ve never seen done so i’m intrigued and really want to try these!

Stephanie presents us with Korokke, which she explains is kind of like an asian croquette, aka deep fried and delicious looking!  She gets bonus points for getting almost all of her ingredients from the farmer’s market.

Kip has seduced me with her Green Curry Duchesse Jewel Sweet Potatoes in Ginger Coconut Cream.  I would marry her for the cream part alone!

Kate came up with a neat party dish – Blue Corn Chip and Sweet Potato Crushers, complete with a homemade ale-infused salsa!

Eileen used this opportunity to clean out her pantry, and came up with an amazing looking  Sweet and Savory Frozen Sweet Potato Tarts.  Holy macaroni!  And a good thing to make for those that have ice cream makers that probably aren’t seeing as much use now that summer is over.

Amanda shows us how to make Jyagatamas (potato salad balls) and gives tips for nicer balls (heh).

Kim brings us an interesting take on mashed potatoes with Porcini and Caramelized Jalapeno Whipped Potatoes.

And what did I do?  You would think that knowing what the ingredient is ahead of time would give me an advantage, but I honestly didn’t have any idea of what I was going to make until I woke up on Saturday morning.  I had sweet and yukon gold potatoes, but I went with sweet because my first thought was, “Something chocolate!”  But that’s a thought I have on the daily.  My usual thoughts for the day go:  I should wake up, chocolate, zombies, t.v., dog pills, fuzzy things, chocolate, stupid cat barfed again, song currently stuck in my head, chocolate, I should go to sleep.  /digression

Anyway, I was going to also make potato candy (i’ve made mint patties before), but with sweet potatoes.  I made chocolate cups ala Hannah, and while they froze I started to mix my sweet potatoes with powdered sugar.  Well, I forgot just how much powdered sugar is needed.  Some crazy science happens with you mix powdered sugar with potatoes, it turns to practically syrup and takes a lot to bulk back up.  I realized I didn’t have enough to even come close, and rather than waste all of my sugar trying, I dumped the bowl and tried to figure out an alternative.  I already had the cups in the fridge.  I was weary of adding flour because I didn’t want the filling to taste like…flour.  So I settled on peanut butter.

While I liked what I ended up with, the recipe definitely needs some tweaking.  For one, I would add more sugar to firm it up, and then make balls, freeze them, and dip them in chocolate because even with double the sugar, I think the filling would still be too soft for cups.  I couldn’t get an inside shot because with the thicker chocolate and the soft interior, I just crushed them.  I also might just add more peanut butter because it didn’t taste much like peanut butter at all, it was more like sweet potato pie filling (with nuts because I used chunky peanut butter).  Anyway, while not perfect, I would make again, maybe for Christmas gift baskets.

If you would like to try this out with my suggested modifications, here’s the ingredient list:

1/2 c sweet potatoes, mashed

1/2 c peanut butter

1/4 c powdered sugar

1/2 tsp cinammon

dashes of ginger

half bag of chocolate chips

crystallized ginger (optional)

Most of you have probably seen this amazing video but if not:

I don’t have a lot of money, but when I do need clothes or household goods, I usually go to Target.  I already don’t shop at Walmart so i’m kind of running out of big box stores, but I don’t care.  I’m not going to give Target my money so they can pass it on to homophobic politicians.  I do the shopping for my office for snacks and cleaning supplies at Target too, so they also won’t be getting my boss’ money (at least not through me).

A lot of people think that things like refusing to shop at a huge store like Target is pointless, because there are millions of other people who don’t know and/or care about things like companies trying to swing elections in their favors.  One person surely can’t make a difference.  But many individuals can, and that’s why Target lost 1.3 billion in stock market value within days of their donation being brought to public attention.

It really isn’t that hard to boycott a store, even if you go there a lot, even if it’s the only mega-store in your town.  Target doesn’t sell very many unique products, you can get school supplies and groceries and movies and underwear from many other places.  You will not suffer from not shopping at Target for awhile.  If you just don’t care enough about anything besides your own convenience, well then, there’s probably no convincing you otherwise.

http://pol.moveon.org/state/target/

I’ve been trying my hand at biking lately.  I spent the past month in Illinois, taking care of my mother-in-law while she beats the shit out of breast cancer.  Except that she is one tough broad, so she doesn’t need much caring.  So mostly I was stuck in a small town outside of my much larger home town, without a car.  So I started taking her bike out, and eventually realized that there was a bike trail two blocks from her house.  And it went all the way to Springfield!  The first time I went, I trucked it all the way to the end and back, nearly eighteen miles, with barely a break.  The second time I went I brought my camera and took it a little easier, stopping to take pictures of interesting points.

The trail ends in the gigantic chain store shopping area, behind Old Navy and next to a car wash.  There’s no place to sit down and I doubt they’d let me walk my bike through the car wash, so the second time I opted to just stop at this park about a half mile from the end.

On the way back from the park is basically an alley between two streets.  Some people have gardens, but this is the only one that was really worth stopping and taking a picture of. After this, the bike path goes along a main road and past a Sonic, which is nice because you can stop and sit at their covered tables and relax a bit.  It’s bad because Somic smells like funnel cake and depression.

Most of the bike path is smooth, flat, and tree lined so you get a light breeze.  But then you get to the part where they’re doing construction on the overpass and it’s a bit of a pain.  A bumpy, crotch numbing, dusty pain.  And hell no I did not get off of my bike and walk through a cloud of dust.

This is fairly close to the beginning, at this point my labia are pretty much begging me to let them take a break and the wind is going the wrong way.  So I stopped at a bench and took this picture, the trail used to be a railroad.  Now it’s situated between a lake and a creek, with the new Amtrak rail on the other side of the creek.  Then I heard shouting and realized that I was in the perfect setting for an axe murderer movie, and despite protests from my crotch, jumped back on the bike and headed home.

And now that i’m back in Tennessee, i’m trying to keep up with biking, but it’s a lot harder here.  Not just because I don’t have easy access to a bike trail, but because, well…this is what Clarksville looks like:

It’s hilly, there are no sidewalks which I know I shouldn’t be riding on anyway, but everyone here zips around like there’s no one on the road but them.  So I actually rode these streets today to get comics, and I road through the grass down the street on the right.  It’s kind of fun to zip down hills, but that’s overshadowed by the fact that i’m constantly praying that some asshole in his sweet tricked out ride doesn’t come roaring over the hill and mow me over.

So while i’m very happy to be at home with my husband and animals (and garden and Xbox and all of that other material crap), I really miss that bike trail.  Smooth, cool, and I could wear my headphones because I didn’t have to worry about diving out of the way of a car if I heard it coming up behind me.