Gratitude Monday--Ambitious Sprouts Edition

Several potatoes are growing wild in my garden. At least a dozen plants have popped up and are smiling at me.
It's good to see them. I have a limited amount of room in my garden so it is devoted to salad spices and a few other things including a few carrots and peas.
The spuds are a bonus and I am grateful for them.
What happened is we compost. Each year the compost is dug into my garden and thus random veggies struggle up each year and I commonly leave them be.
We had potatoes from my FIL this year and as they sat awaiting their fate they do as potatoes do, they sprouted. It is those ambitious little sprouts that got their start in a box in a darkened corner of my kitchen that are now waving their leaves in the breeze and helping themselves to the nutrient-rich soil bed.
I weeded them today, assuring them they have as much right to be there as anything deliberately planted. As I did I realized life finds its own level. It will start where it can, when it can, and what it can, and it will survive as best it can.
What more can we ask?

Not a Thief of Time

Don't fear the spud.

The commercial for the following product irks the hell out of me.
It's a simple unadorned potato product ready for use and the ad for it starts out about how you don't have the time to mash potatoes. It is a sad statement on people's priorities if they can't even organize enough time for that.
McCain Purely Potatoes (TM) are clearly meeting a need and good for the company for realizing it and going after the market.
All that aside, the mere fact there's a market for potatoes that are already peeled and cut and ready to cook bothers me.
Seriously, how long does it take to peel a potato or three?
What delights me, though, is users of this product still mash their own spuds once they're out of the microwave or off the stove.
Consumers are being sold on the notion that they're saving time by using this product.
What are they saving? The potatoes still take as long to cook no matter who peels them. Any sitting afterward, or additions of milk or butter or garlic or what-have-you take as long.
It takes a few minutes to get the potatoes, and then peel, wash, and cut them. It takes not quite as long to get the package from the freezer and open it.
Fair enough. I'd say a consumer of this product does save 3-5 minutes.
But tell me something, how much money is it costing them to save those minutes?
A 10 lb. bag of potatoes is relatively cheap on it's own. Compare it against a ready- to- go product and those become some very costly minutes.
I think that's what galls me the most about the commercial for this product. It's not the humble spud itself; it's the idea that we don't have enough time to feed ourselves and underneath it is the suggestion that if you do have this time, then you are not part of the current culture.
You have time? What's wrong with you? Where are you failing in you life that you have enough time to peel your own potatoes?
I say enough is enough. Having the time to prepare your own food is not a sign of failure.
People, take a stand. Grab a peeler and take back your life, one spud at a time.

Spuds Merengue. What Food Bores You?

This seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was wrong.

Some culinary experiments are best left unperfected. The other day I made Spuds Merengue and it’ll be a one-shot wonder.
Mike had baked. He made Wickelkuchen (rolled coffee cake) and it is magnificent. The recipe called for four egg yolks plus one whole egg. We had egg white. We wondered what to do. I was inventing a potato dish with some sweated onions and had the brilliant idea to put a meringue on it. I prepared the onion and mashed the potatoes. I put a cup of onion in the spuds and let it sit in the fridge for the afternoon.
It reheated in the oven for 20 minutes or so and Mike whipped the egg whites for me. I spread them on. It cooked another 12 or 15 minutes. I sprinkled parsley on top. It looked good.
It’s not.
It is quite possibly the most boring thing I have every created.
I’d be ashamed, but it’s too dull a dish to warrant such a strong emotion.
Oh, it’s edible. A truly hungry person would appreciate it. And there’s nothing wrong with it. The poor thing is terminally boring, that’s all. We called it “merengue” simply to give it a bit of spice. It’s like adding an exclamation mark to a sentence to fool the reader into thinking something exciting happened.
And that brings me to a question. What’s the most boring thing you ever cooked?

This is Wickelkuchen. It needs no punctuation.