To Add or Not To Add... That is the Question.

Oh, potatoes! How do I love thee? Let me count thy ways. Mashed, fried, scalloped, roasted, baked, hash browns, tater tots, gnocchi, soup, twice-baked, pancakes. Okay, admittedly, it sounds more like Bubba from Forest Gump, fried shrimp, shrimp scampi, shrimp kabob, shrimp gumbo... but you get the point. One of the dishes I am bringing to my Mom's house for Thanksgiving is mashed potatoes. I have to make enough for approximately 15 people. I always double that, because we've got a lot of strapping, healthy men in our family and they can pack that food away. I'm thinking I need at the very least 10 pounds of spuds. I'm not worried about peeling them, though. See, I am Evil Chef Mom with lots of sous chefs, so it works out great. Other than being tax deductions, they are master potato peelers!

The potatoes are peeled. Now what? Some people like them lumpy, with some skins in the mash. Others like them whipped using the Kitchen Aid mixer, or light and fluffy, done with a ricer. As far as I'm concerned, I like the ricer best. Why make them pasty, dense, and heavy with a stand mixer, then add more stuff to make the mashed potatoes like mortar? Or would you rather use a ricer to make fluffy and light potatoes, then add all the goodies. You won't get potatoes like mortar, or cement mix for that matter.

The whipped versus riced potatoes fight has now been settled. Riced has won by a landslide. Now the goodies. What to put in the spuds? I could do an ethereal olive oil and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Or go with the really sinful heavy cream, butter, and cream cheese spuds. You know, the kind of potatoes you would keel over and die from a heart attack approximately 20 minutes after eating them.

So I have a dilemma. To add or not to add. Maybe it should be to kill or not to kill. I guess I'll have to call my mom to see who's all coming over for dinner. Wink.Wink.