Table for One: One Potato Saves the Day

Food is a science. That I know nothing about.

But every recipe is an experiment because you just add some of this and a little of that and all the molecules and flavors and stuff come together to create something new and delicious every time!

Although sometimes the experiment fails and what you make is gross.

Feel free to quote me on any of that...

I've loved this blog because it's gotten me into cooking way more... and it's tons of fun. It's also helped bring out my creative cooking and experimental side which, I suppose has always been there but I've suppressed. Yay for self discovery! (Another wonderful aspect of the single life!)

We haven't had family dinner in 2 weeks! :( sad! So to remedy the situation, we had one on Monday this week!

I made garlic mashed potatoes.

They. Were. So. Good!!

And everything I did was completely experimental.

Like I said in my last post, Deborah and I got a huge bag of potatoes for only $1.99. So it's been a pretty potato-y week!

First, I started by washing the potatoes. I guess you should do that since they smell like dirt when you take them out of the bag. I've eaten them before without washing though. Oops...

Then, I cut them up in pretty small chunks. I used 4 since there were 4 of us :D I don't have a masher or any other tool to mash them with so I knew that if I cut them small enough, they'd be pretty easy to mash once they were cooked.

I said mash a lot.

Note* I did cook brown baking potatoes and I did not take off the skin! I was chatting with a friend who hates the skin but personally, I love it and it's the most nutritional part!

Then I put them in a big (but not too big) pot of water, making sure to just cover the potatoes. You don't want to sit there all day while the water boils since it has such a high boiling point. (See... science.)

While I waited for them to cook... I minced more garlic (uugghh!) and grabbed about a half stick of butter from the fridge.

Garlic...

Butter...

Then I got bored and had to wait..... So I put my face over the boiling potatoes and let the steam get into my pores.

After my mini spa treatment, I decided it was time to try making the garlic portion of garlic mashed potatoes. I put the piece of butter in a pan at about... medium heat (just guessed here)!

Pause! I always allwayyss heat the pan first before I make anything. My mother yelled at me once for not doing it and it's super helpful so I do it.

Look:

Pan.

Heat.

Then... after the butter melted for a bit... I added the garlic. On a complete whim...

Hmmmmmm... It smelled like fettucine alfredo. Garlic butter... hmmmmm. This could be a really good "sauce whatever thing" for some chicken, too!

I actually had to lower the heat under the pan to about medium low. I was nervous about burning the butter and the garlic so, I thought, better safe than sorry. Thankfully nothing burned! After cooking that for a little bit (8 minutes????) I added some whole milk. Yes, whole milk. My sister in law yells at me for drinking whole milk but I like it!

(Use organic milk... it's better!)

The pan...

The best part about this was the way the oil from the butter sat on top of the milk. SCIENCE.

I let that sit for time... and in the process, drained the potatoes.

Then put them back in a pot... and added the milk, butter, garlic mixture.

::freakoutmoment:: It was too soupy!!!

I got super sad because there was too much milk so my potatoes were swimming. But no fear, I racked my brain for about 2 whole seconds and quickly cooked up another potato!