I love garlic mashed potatoes. Drenched in gravy. Mmmmmm. Once you start making mashed potatoes with this secret ingredient, there will be no going back to just plain mashed potatoes!
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How to make them
For this recipe, I am using 4 – 5 decent size, regular white potatoes (roughly 4″ long and 3″ wide). Adjust the recipe according to how many servings you need, and the sizes of the potatoes you are using.
Peel the potatoes
I find that using a Titan brand vegetable peeler makes the job go faster. It’s also dishwasher safe.
If you are using new or red potatoes, you can leave them unpeeled, but scrub them well before dicing.
For white potatoes, dice them into small chunks – about an inch or so square. I have found that this will speed up cooking time.
Use cold water
As you dice the potatoes, put them into cold water in a sauce pan. The cold water will keep them from turning grey, which looks pretty gross. I learned this lesson the hard way when I was making potato pancakes years ago.
Imagine grey potato pancakes. Never mind, don’t do that! That’s a pretty unappetizing visual.
Boil the potatoes until soft
Drain
Add minced garlic
The amount of garlic you use depends on how much you like garlic. I also admit to using the minced stuff from a jar. Horrors!
I use garlic a LOT, and it is a real time-saver for me.
For this recipe, I added a heaping dinner fork full.
Now add the secret ingredient
A chunk of cream cheese.
Yep.
No milk, no butter, just cream cheese. Here I am adding a piece that is about 1″ thick and the width of the block in the package of cheese.
Beat everything together at a low speed
I don’t like my garlic mashed potatoes too lumpy, so I will use the electric beater until they are fairly smooth. Adjust the time of beating to suit your preference, or you can use a masher and do it by hand if you like a lumpier texture.
TIP: You can see that I do all this with the bowl in the sink, because sometimes the beater splashes bits of mashed potato everywhere. Who wants to be scraping mashed potatoes off the wall anyway?
Add salt & pepper if you like.
Mmmmmm. Garlic mashed potatoes and homemade chicken gravy.
Side note:
The Revere copper-bottom cookware set I use daily is over 50 years old! I highly recommend these. I also have a set of Revere stainless steel mixing bowls, which are just about indestructible.
It seems that they are no longer available new from Revere, so look for them at flea markets and tag sales.
To buy the kitchen tools and other essentials I use, click here
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