Potatoes mashed or as biscuits, as a kitchen cycle comes to a close

Iam fascinated by cycles in the kitchen. I love when making one thing results in making another thing. Cooking beans creates a nice broth. Carrot tops become treasure in a stock bag. Soft, homemade ricotta yields a whey that becomes bread. Part of my pursuit of feeding my family is the search for this knowledge -- how it all is connected. How cooking supports the real work of daily life, and how something that sometimes feels like a chore can be an insight into how humans everywhere put one foot in front of another daily and feed themselves.

For a long time now, you all have been part of my own kitchen cycle. I've tweaked and played and thought over what to cook for you. I've loved putting recipes out there, hoping that, with my teacher's heart, you might learn a new skill and try something out.

In 2015, the Kitsap Sun tasked me with writing a recipe column that would teach basic skills. It's been a joy and an honor, getting to know readers through email, running into questions about ingredients in the grocery store, having people tell me they put my recipe on their fridge. I've grown and maybe you have too. This will be my last column -- I've chosen to move on to other projects and tastes. Thanks for being my audience and thanks for being along for my own journey.

The recipe I'll leave you with is a reprise of one of my favorites and a tidy example of how a busy cook can leverage the kitchen cycle. It represents a lot of things I believe about cooking: use what seasonal ingredients you have to make delicious, simple food, be thrifty and look for ways to cut waste, and use shortcuts like freezing that make it easier for yourself to get it all done. Also, simply, mashed potatoes are one of my favorite foods in the whole world -- always have been. I usually just mash up really good local yellow potatoes with a little milk, butter, salt, and black pepper. In the darker months, going out to