best mashed potatoes ever :D

last night i tried to make chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli w melted cheese.. the broccoli was awesome! the mashed potatoes were my sister, Neela's recipe and they were the highlight of the whole meal, and the chicken.... :/ ..... was so salty we pretty much couldnt eat it. UH. i always feel like i under-season my chicken, so this time i thought i would make sure not to under-season :| obviously i went over board. anyway, i thought i would give out neelas mashed potato recipe!

Neela's recipe was derived from Tamara's twice baked potato recipe which is LITERALLY worth dying for. okay not literally haha but close!

the idea started bc im trying to make more dinners from the food we've now accumulated in our place. i had just bought chicken tenders (which seems to be my favorite cut of chicken, bc its small and easy to work with) we had a whole bag of potatoes sitting in the bottom of my pantry and a bag of broccoli in the freezer.

the potatoes i bought about a month ago, assuming that id be like our moms and actually USE them in everything... not so much. i also realized why it was taking so long to get the house full of usable pantry/cupboard food. at our houses, our moms know how to cook! they know the whole family's favorites. so they keep those things on hand. also if youre mainly making indian food, or just persian food, then you need a very specific set of ingredients for most things: onions, garlic, rice, potatoes, specific spices. then you buy some meat to make the meal. but the other stuff is made up of stock items.

beacuse 1. im learning to cook. and 2. dipak and i are pretty american, it took forever to fill the house with the "stock" items that i use. i love eating american and "italian" foods, dipak loves indian food obviously, but he'll actually eat most things. we both love mexican food! i like persian food too, but the things i love, dipak doesnt, and the things i think he'd like are just way too intimidating for me to make. ANYWAY, the point is.. i think we're finally there. theres enough in the house for any kind of food now :)

so back to my potatoes. first of all i would like to state that when food has "body parts" it grosses me OUT. why? why would you say that potatoes have "eyes" :/  i was just complaining about this to neela yesterday.. blekh! and naval oranges? why?? it makes me think of a belly button, and then theyre just super gross. "baby corn" ew. i dont want to eat a baby anything!!! call it little corn, potato weeds, just oranges. ukh. thinking about it makes me sick. hahaha.. okay im a little dramatic,

anyway, later i learned a little something. i asked this cute little aunty at the indian store the other day "how long can you keep potatoes before they go bad?" and i learned, from her and from internet searches (god bless google) that you can keep potatoes for months! as long as theyre kept in a cool and dark place. i also learned that when you buy a bag of potatoes, you should take them out of their original packaging and move them to a clean plastic bag. (apparently there could be roaches in the original bag from the warehouse they came from... gross fact #45 about potatoes) so take the potatoes and put them in a new bag. put them in the bottom drawer in your fridge. that way you can keep them the longest amount of time.

IF you leave potatoes to sit around for a while.. say a week or so, they can -blekh- grow. eyes. im sorry, but when you say it like that, doesnt that gross everyone out?? anyway, so if they "grow eyes" you can just wash them off.. i have gloves for that. then theyre okay again. and in fact, i read online that as long as the potatoes arent secreting brown ooze, you can still eat them and they wont poison you.


so thats my potato knowledge :) and now for the most amazing mashed potatoes ever. the ingredients are:
for 2 people!

3 potatoes (washed and peeled)
1/2 a packet of ranch seasoning mix (make sure youre not getting the ranch DIP, you want the salad dressing and seasoning mix)
2 tabs or tbsp of butter (salted)
splash of milk
start with 1 tsp garlic salt (then add more and more until its to your liking)
bacon bits (to your liking)


so you begin by putting a pot of boiling water on the stove to boil your potatoes. after youve washed and peeled your potatoes, put them in your pot of water and turn the heat to high. once the water stars boiling turn the heat down and let the potatoes sit for a while. i let them cook for about 25 minutes. you know theyre done when you can push a fork through the potato. you dont want to over cook them... i think neela said they get too mushy then. anyway, after about 25 minutes, i was so impatient and hungry that i dont think i could wait to let them overcook anyway lol.

then strain the water and use your potato masher to smash them in the same pot you just used to cook them in. (neela made sure i had a potato masher when i moved in :)) so after youve mashed the potatoes, toss in your tabs of butter. the reason you should cut up your butter into 2 tabs is so that it melts more evenly.. when the butter starts melting, pour in your splash of milk and ranch powder. i kept using the masher to mix all of these ingredients together, then i think its time to taste your potatoes. at this point, they will have flavor, but they will need salt. so pour in your garlic salt. then use a wooden spoon to mix it all up and taste it again. at this point youll be able to tell how much more salt you need.

then dump in your bacon bits. however much you want :) or none if you dont like bacon. and there you go! the best mashed potatoes ever!!

and yes. that is my super salty chicken on the right there.. :/ lol. but neelas potatoes were awesome!!! try them out and let me know how it goes :)