underdogishere

Judi hasn't made mashed potatoes for a while, so she decided to put them on the menu for Easter Sunday. But instead of boiling the potatoes, she decided to bake them -- baked mashed potatoes.

They were awesome.

No, this blog isn't going to turn into the Food Network, but I do want to post the recipe, because they turned out so great:

She started with a bag of plain-white-trash potatoes. We washed them, and then rubbed their skins first with butter, and then with salt. Then we individually wrapped each one, tightly, in a sheet of aluminum foil.

Judi baked the potatoes at 400 degrees for an hour and a half, and then turned off the heat and left them in the oven for another two hours, just to make sure they were good and soft. While baking, a great deal of the salt oozed out of the foil wrappers and made a huge mess in the bottom of the oven. So...

Note for next time (or for you): Bake foil-wrapped potatoes on a cookie sheet, to contain the mess.

Anyway, I cut the still-hot but very soft potatoes into rough cubes, and Judi mashed them. The flavor was terrific! I don't think we'll ever make boiled mashed potatoes again. You can add milk for traditional mashed, but Judi "loaded" hers with sharp cheddar cheese, crumbled bacon, and sour cream. Gosh they were good!

BTW, we did all this on Saturday, the day before Easter, and just had to heat them in the microwave for Easter dinner, which was a lot less stressful than trying to make them on Easter.

Heads up: There's a great Photo of the Day today over on Judi's Butterfly site, JudiButterflies.com. As you may know, a Monarch chrysalis turns clear just before the butterfly emerges, and today we have a photo of a chrysalis that's half turned clear, but still remains half opaque. In case you don't get to it until "tomorrow" and the Photo of the Day has changed, you can see all the past Photos of the Days by clicking on "Photos of the Day" under "Photo Galleries" over on the right of her site.