Here is another side dish we had with our dinner the other night. For some odd reason, my kids won't eat mashed potatoes that don't have roasted cauliflower in them. So, here is a small head of cauliflower that I've prepped to go into the oven with salt & pepper and drizzled with olive oil.
I already had the oven set to 375 F for when I was making the
brussel sprouts, so these fit in the oven just fine. I baked them for 35 - 40 minutes until it was nice and tender. You can check it by looking at the nice lightly browned color & when you insert a knife it should go in easily.
Once I got the cauliflower in the oven, I got the potatoes boiling. A lot of the time when I make mashed potatoes, I also roast the potatoes, but this time I decided to boil them. Once your salted water with the potatoes in it starts to boil, it usually takes about 20 minutes for them to be cooked. Again, an inserted insert knife should go in easily. Drain & return them to the pan & burner that it was on (this will help the butter to melt & the potatoes to stay warm).
Yes, I also left the skins on this time as well. You can peel them before you boil them if you don't want the skins in your mashed potatoes. When I roast them, I leave the skins on and then peel them before mashing. I freeze the skins and then pull them out for loaded potato skins for lunches.
Now here's where I'm going to tell you NOT to do what I did. I don't make mashed potatoes all that often & I forgot I needed to separate the cauliflower and put them into a separate food processor with some milk. Once those are processed into a fine paste they can go into the pot.
What did I do? I used my immersion blender & that wound up creating too much shear for the potatoes, making them a bit on the gummy side. They were still tasty, but the texture would have been better if I had used my old fashioned hand masher & added in the already pureed cauliflower.
Here is what my final product looked like. I used 1 stick of butter and a generous 1/2 cup of milk in this batch. I also added salt to taste. Sometimes I also add pepper, this time I didn't. Some purists chefs will say to only use white pepper so you can't see it as much in the potatoes. I say use what you & your family like.
All in all, this batch turned out pretty tasty, and we have been enjoying leftovers warmed up in the microwave with some melted shredded cheese on them. You could also add some bacon crumbles, sour cream, green onions, or whatever you have on hand that you like to have with potatoes.
Let me know what you all think of these & what combinations you come up with to use the leftovers with!
3 comments:
You know, I'm going to try to roast my cauliflower before making mashed potatoes. Maybe that will help with the consistency. We only eat cauliflower mashed as potatoes, but they turn out so thin and watery. Thanks, as always, YOU ROCK!
Looks yummy! I've read about mixing cauliflower in with mashed potatoes but haven't tried it. Since I don't have a food processor, can I use my stick blender on the cauliflower and add it to the hand-mashed potatoes?
Holly = Yes! Put your cauliflower & milk in a deep container & then puree it with your wand blender, then add the potatoes to mash.
Karie- Try roasting your potatoes first, or really let them drain well if you boil them. It sounds like they are keeping too much of the water from boiling.
Post a Comment