Decadent Mashed Potatoes
Decadent, utterly fabulous, delicious, luscious and creamy, world's best, all of these describe our Decadent Mashed Potatoes! The people clamoring for them at hubby's office call them, those potatoes your wife made and Dave calls them Lisa's Famous Mashed Potatoes, but really, they are Decadent Mashed Potatoes! Truly, we don't care, they just want these carbaliscious, high fat, yummy mashed potatoes for a holiday treat. First discovered at a Thanksgiving event with our old homeschool group, Lucy McNamara made these and we went wild, so this will always be Lucy's base recipe! These are hands down the BEST mashed taters we have ever had - bar none!
Ingredients
- 10 lbs of potatoes
- 1 8 oz brick of cream cheese (you choose the fat content)
- 16 oz container sour cream
- 1 stick of REAL butter (margarine is a crime - pure and simple)
- 1 jar Better than Bouillon Chicken Base (organic)
- sea salt and cracked pepper to taste
Directions:
Clean and scrub the potatoes well. We discovered a simple and easy way to get up to 20lbs of potatoes scrubbed clean in a flash - simply load them on the top rack of your dishwasher and press "RINSE." Your dishwasher will scrub them clean in about 3 minutes, on the rinse cycle! You are ready to go!
While the potatoes are getting scrubbed in the dishwasher, take the cube of butter and cream cheese out of the fridge, and set on the counter to begin coming to room temperature.
Peel potatoes and cut into chunks.
Put a large pot of good, clean water on to boil, adding chopped potatoes. With this many taters, you may need to do two large pots, or do them in batches if your pots are smaller. We use reverse osmosis water and like to put a little bit of the fabulous Better than Bouillon Chicken Base in to flavor the potatoes as they cook.
If you are going to eat this many calories, you want the taste to be exquisite!
Once pot comes to a boil, cook potatoes for about 20 minutes. This will vary slightly, depending on how many potatoes you are cooking in each pot and whether you use gas or electric. Electric seems to take longer!
Boil potatoes until you can pierce them gently with a fork, and they easily come apart. Drain immediately - you do not want gluey potatoes.
Take about 1/4 of the hot potatoes and throw them back into the pot used to boil them. Throw the cube of REAL butter and the brick of cream cheese in, and begin to mash by hand, with a potato masher. Mix in the sour cream, until you have a nice, buttery, sour creamy, cream cheesy, potatoey base, with flavors melding together. Crack some freshly ground pepper in....oh this is getting good!
This takes a few minutes to incorporate ALL of the potatoes - but since it builds your arms up, it counts as exercise and will completely erase the guilt of these are calorie loaded mashed taters! Plus, they will taste better than if you....horror or horrors....whipped them with beaters....
Add at least a tablespoon or two of Better than Bouillon Chicken Base, which really enhances the flavor without all of the nasty chemicals inherent in most bouillon.
Add in another 1/4 of the hot potatoes and mash. Okay. Go ahead, grab an ice tea spoon and taste it, just don't double dip with a spoon. You can't help it at this point.....
Add the next 1/4 of potatoes, mash.
Add the remainder of the potatoes in and keep mashing. Add some sea salt and lots of cracked pepper to flavor to YOUR tastes and salt needs. You can add a few more dollops of Better than Bouillon Chicken Base for more intense flavor - but skip adding additional salt if you do.
Clean iced tea spoon, taste one more time, adjust flavorings, grab ANOTHER clean spoon, taste and adjust if needed. No double dipping!
Spray a large 5 quart or larger crock pot with Pam. Dump the potato mixture in, and smooth around. Plug in, turn on low and serve within 2-4 hours.
If you are taking them to a potluck, Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, simply make the potatoes the night before, put them in the crock pot and pop into the fridge overnight. Next morning, pull them out, put in crockpot, take to your event and let cook all morning (2-4 hours) for delicious potatoes for a potluck lunch.
We will be honest here, if they go a little longer and develop a tiny bit of a baked on crust on the side of the crock pot, volunteer to eat the "burnt part" yourself. It is THE best part.
Great for Sunday guests after church too, just put them in before you head to church and you will come home to a delicious side.
So there you have it, the recipe for the most fabulous batch of mashed potatoes you have ever had! Decadent Mashed Potatoes travel beautifully for Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter dinner!
Granted, this is not our normal healthy, anti-inflammatory, maximum nutrition fare, but it is GREAT to have once a year!
Lisa loves to cook great food (normally, a little healthier than this!) write, do inductive Bible study and creatively teach women how to save time, money, and effort to get that Debt Snowball paid off faster! Great ideas and tips can be found at her website www.ThePrudentWife.com
Copyright 2011 by Lisa Baughn of www.ThePrudentWife.com ~ No part of this article may be reproduced, emailed, forwarded or blogged without the author's permission
Lisa Baughn shows you how to save time, money and sanity while learning to thrive in the “new economy,” equipping you to get out of debt faster. Creative ideas to live again, nail one debt at a time, revamping your lifestyle and attitude. Enjoy signature how-to videos which explode open easy cooking techniques with simple gourmet meals and maximum nutrition. Thrive in the new economy! Great ideas and tips can be found at her website www.ThePrudentWife.com