Making mashed potatoes is simple: Boil potatoes, mash them with butter and milk. Bam, that’s it.

Making mashed potatoes a little more mysterious by adding a few ingredients won’t necessarily complicate your life. It will just add some spice to the taste.

A basic recipe I’ve duplicated from my mom is her sour cream and garlic mashed potatoes.  Cube the potatoes, boil for 20 minutes (keep the skins on if you like them), drain, then dump them in a bowl with butter, sour cream, garlic, and pepper. Season it the way you like.

For three potatoes, which will easily feed six people, dump in your personal appropriate amount of each added ingredient. For us, that would be about 8 ounces of sour cream, half a stick of butter, a large tablespoon of garlic (I keep a large jar of chopped garlic handy) and 3-4 good shakes of pepper.

If you run out of sour cream, use cheese.  You can never get enough cheese.  
 
Then, just mash all the ingredients together in a large bowl until they reach the consistency you desire.

It’s delicious and is ready in 20 minutes once you have the water boiling. 

Grilled cheese is pretty basic. It’s awesome, particularly when you grill the bread just right, on butter in a pan, and the cheeses ooze out to give you those crisp chunks you can chow on when you scrape the remains off the grill.

Still, grilled cheese is grilled cheese.  Pretty basic.  Good for kids.  They love it. If you want to spice it up, get others to try something new, here are some thoughts.
 
First, get some green onions (those long tall thin ones in the produce section) and cherry tomatoes. Chop up the onions.  Slice the cherry tomatoes in half. Layer both on your bread. 
For the cheese, used grated cheddar or your favorite cheese (might as well mix it up).  Cover the tomatoes and onions with the cheese.
 
Slap some butter in the frying pan, put the sandwich in, cover the top.  Watch it closely, so it doesn’t burn. Flip when brown. Pull it out when the second side is brown.  If the cheese is not completely melted, you can cut the sandwich in half and microwave for 15-20 seconds.

What do you get? You get a grilled cheese sandwich, with some of the attributes of pizza. It’s got more flavor.  It has some zest. 
If you add oregano (a great spice) before you grill, you’ll get even more
of a pizza taste.

Try it.  Give some to your kids. 
See what they think.  If
they gag, hey, more for you.

Little critters in southeastern Oklahoma, in Beaver’s Bend State Park, gave thanks over Thanksgiving. They gave thanks to our family for our gifts of food, given without thought.  Though the critters stole from us, that’s okay.  We let them pop our ice chest and forage through our meat and cheese until they were full.  Then we bought some more food and let them have at it again.

This is a story of their banditry, a core component of “Meals We Steal,” since we’re always looking for new ideas to take from someone else and share with our readers.  This will start with a story.

My wife and our two daughters left Tuesday to stake out the campground, while my son and I were to follow the next day. The cooler was left unsecured at night, and made easy pickings for animals smarter than humans. Our Thanksgiving Day steaks were stolen, as was our hamburger meat for Wednesday night’s meal, and all of our cheese.  When we arrived Wednesday afternoon, we packed the extra food.

That night, we wedged the cooler under the cement picnic table.  We thought we were smarter than the critters.  The attacked again that night, waking us several times, and we scared them off by loudly unzipping the tents and shining flashlights on them.  Brazen creatures, of course, come back.  
 
The next day, their frantic claw marks had cut through the meat wrapping and they’d extracted most of our Thanksgiving Day steaks.  We figure they gave thanks for the humans.

As for us, we made do.  We gave thanks that we ate.  The campfire built up nicely.  We played cards.  We ate burned baked potatoes with bacon and creamed corn.  This is a simple dish, and filling.  Though we don’t recommend all the circumstances, here’s how you pull it off.

Poke the potatoes, rub some butter on them, wrap in aluminum foil, throw in the fire, flipping regularly for about an hour. This will burn the skins to a crisp and make them taste like charcoal. Heat creamed corn in the can over your grill, or if you have a gas stove to take camping, use that.  Fry up the bacon in a pan on the grill or over the gas stove. 
Fish out the potatoes. Discard the burnt skin (or if you’re smarter than us, and have rotated them more frequently, you may be able to salvage and eat the skin).  Mix in some creamed corn.  Throw in some bacon.  Mash in sour cream.  And you have a Thanksgiving meal.

It tastes better than you think, particularly if you are hungry.  If you’re around a campfire, you will think of the pilgrims and their hardships. You’ll be thankful you don’t have to forage for food, and realize we have so many blessings in this country. Remember the critters, because they’ll also be giving thanks to you.