Smashed Brussel Taters

In the never ending quest to get attempt to persuade my boys to eat more veggies, I'm always on the lookout for a way to "cover up" the taste a veggie that will be new to them.  This recipe is PERFECT for that.  Before making this, I honestly don't know that I had ever had brussel sprouts before and I KNOW my kids hadn't.  I wasn't even sure what they would taste like.  Actually, I'm still not sure what they taste like.  THAT tells you how good this recipe is! ;-)

For Smashed Brussel Taters (I made that name up myself.  Clever, huh??? ;-) ), you peel, dice, and boil regular potatoes the same as you would for making regular mashed potatoes, but you also add brussel sprouts to the water and boil them along with the potatoes followed by mashing them along with the potatoes.  The potatoes mixed in with the brussel sprouts helps to dilute the flavor so that your kids don't notice it.  I should warn you, there will be some piece of brussel sprouts still in there that they can see so don't think you're going to completely fool them into thinking it's "just mashed taters."  Then the recipe has you add cream cheese and milk and some spices along with sauted onions and such.  The first time I made this I followed the recipe to the letter and it was scrumptious.  Last night I was making them on a whim (I just grabbed some brussel sprouts and potatoes at the store yesterday morning and didn't remember what I else I needed) so I left out the onion and garlic and even the curry powder since that was supposed to go in with the onions.  It was still YUMMY.  Even the hubs agreed.  I also didn't add the optional bacon this time (I did add it last time) because I was serving it with bratwurst and smothering it with gravy.  Also important to note is that you can adjust the ratio of taters to b-sprouts if your kids are a little more on the picky side.  One last comment, I did have trouble with it being too soupy this time.  I shouldn't have added all the milk.  I fixed this though by putting the whole mashed up goodness back into the pot I'd boiled the taters and b-sprouts in and let it simmer to reduce it down a bit.

The finished product was yummy.  I literally finished getting it all ready 10 minutes before we had to head out the door to soccer practice so at that point I'd already made PB&J sandwiches for the boys (while I was waiting and waiting for the Smashed Brussel Taters to thicken up).  But I desperately wanted to eat some so I scarfed down a brat and some Brussel Taters and gravy.  Then when we got home from soccer, I had more! Tsk, tsk.  I need more self-control.