A Few Extra Potatoes - Or a lot!

We have talked about the High School potato project and we are not quite ready to harvest those and we recently had an extreme heat spell (92 degrees for about two weeks straight) so no one was doing much cooking in the kitchens here.  That made for some awesome discounted groceries at the local store and one of those discounts was on some of the local grown potaotes and they happen to be my favorite brand!  Bannons in Sutton Alaska grow the best spuds and I was able to get 3 bags of ten pounds each for $1.99 per bag!

But that is a lot of potatoes to get used up in a short time - even if they do store well!

So I spent a day working on canning and mashing potaotes for storage.

 

The above is a stock pot with 10 pounds of the potatoes in it mashed.

 

Cheesy Mashed Potaotes

10 pounds potatoes peeled and diced

1 tbsp salt

Cover the spuds with water and boil the potatoes until they are soft enough for mashing.Drain the water and reserve 1 cup of the cooking water.   Leave potatoes in the pot, turn off heat and put the pan back on the heat.

Add 2 sticks of real butter and two packages (8 oz each) cream cheese.

Add 1 Cup whole milk or 1/2 and 1/2,

1 Tbsp pepper

1 Tbsp sea salt

 

Mix all of the ingredients together in the hot pot until smooth and creamy.  If it is too thick add some of the reserved water.

 

I put these in the freezer in gallon Ziplock bags - this is a great way to store them and makes for some easy meals.  Leftover stew?  Add a can of tomoto sauce and top with these spuds, bake at 350 for 30 minutes and you have a yummy Shepherds Pie.  These travel well on campouts as the frozen spuds act like ice packs and help keep everything cool for a long time.

 

 

After mashing and freezing 10 pounds I decided to do 10 pounds in the canner in Quart jars.  I followed the directions in the Ball Blue Book of Canning.  I reccommend when you preheat the potatoes not to cook them for quite as long as the book recommends as they cook for so long in the canner that they are a little mushy after the canning process.  They are still great for just about anything you want to use them for and they travel to the cabin or on camping trips well also.

These make easy potato cakes and you can also add garlic to them in the jars if you want to make some that way too. 

 

These  are just a few ideas that you can do to use up your extra spuds and make them last all winter - think outside the box and the possibilities are endless!  You can use them to make scalloped spuds, onion spuds and roasted spuds, all of which freeze fantastically!  

 

Food too salty?  Add a whole raw potato and it will absorb the extra salt - remove it and throw it away before serving!

 

Dont be afraid to try new potato things  - especially if you have extra or are getting them for such a great price!  Cook On!