food comas

After Thanksgiving this year, I decided to get creative with my leftovers and make a Thanksgiving Leftovers Eggs Benedict. I used the leftover roast turkey slices for the meat, I added cranberry sauce to the Hollandaise sauce, and lastly I used my leftover mashed potatoes to make biscuits.

I found a recipe online for potato biscuits and tweaked it a bit to make it less sweet and more savory. I cut out the sugar the original recipe and added cheddar cheese to the dough because, well, cheese is awesome. The original recipe is best suited for “dry” mashed potatoes; however, the mashed potatoes I had were of the more creamy sort — Thomas Keller’s Purée of Garlic Potatoes. I felt I didn’t need to add any milk or water to the dough as the mashed potatoes provided enough moisture to hold the flour and dough together. This recipe would be easily made with a more basic potato mash — just boiled some potatoes and mash it with a fork and add some butter. If you do this, you will probably need to add milk to the dough.

These biscuits are so delicious and a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. I also have served them with a hearty Lamb and Winter Vegetable Stew.

Mashed Potato Cheddar Biscuits (adapted from AllRecipes.com)

Yields: 10 biscuits

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 C leftover mashed potatoes (see recipe for Purée of Garlic Potatoes)
• 2 T baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 C butter
• 1 C shredded cheese
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in butter, until pieces of butter are no larger than peas. Use a fork to stir in mashed potatoes, breaking them up into chunks. Make a well in the mixture, and pour in the egg. Stir into a loose dough using the fork. If your dough is still dry at this point, add some milk to get a more dough-like consistency. Since I had made my mashed potatoes with milk, I really didn’t need any extra liquid. Add the cheese and mix well.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and knead for 6 or 8 times so the dough holds together. Pat the dough out to about 3/4 inch thickness, and cut into circles with a biscuit cutter or drinking glass. At this point, you can freeze the biscuit dough to store and bake at later time.

To bake the biscuits, place the biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet. Brush the tops with milk (it will give the biscuits with a rich deep color when baked).

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until bottoms are golden. Sprinkle some cheese on top when you take it out of the oven, so it will melt nicely on top as it cools.