Chef Maddox is all about reusing items in the kitchen. When she tells us to use fresh herbs, she always recommends saving the stems. They may be tough, but they can add surprising flavor when combined with apple cores to make an organic, disposable roasting rack. In this case, she recommends boiling your leftover herb stems in the same water as the potatoes before making mashed potatoes. You can add a lot of flavor without adding any calories.

That said, she's not afraid of delicious caloric contents, either. Chef Maddox absolves you of all your diet sins and says to go ahead and use heavy cream. You're not drinking an entire cup of it - your personal serving of heavy cream will be about a tablespoon, but what a difference that tablespoon can make!

For this recipe you'll need:

* 3 pounds of potatoes
* ½ cup heavy cream
* ½ package Boursin Cheese (your choice of flavor)

If you want to make a fancy potato dish or need to recycle leftover potatoes, she recommends adding extra heavy cream so the potatoes are a thinner/runny side. Put the thinner/runny potatoes in a baking dish, top them with breadcrumbs, and bake 15-20 minutes until they're golden brown and solid.

The KitchenAid brand mixer she uses is a great holiday present for any avid home chef. They cost between $200-300 during the holiday season (more the rest of the year, less used on eBay) but many 30-year-old KitchenAid's still see daily use. You can buy a ton of attachments making them an incredible versatile kitchen gadget. 

About this column:

Susan Maddox is Chef and owner of Le Titi de Paris. You can see her live at the Prairie Lakes Community Center here in Des Plaines where she is part of a live series on budget cooking tips. Contact the Park Service for details.