Buttermilk mashed potatoes

I love it when you come up with a recipe that uses the leftovers you have in your house AND comes out amazing.  Case in point: the buttermilk mashed potatoes recipe that I just came up with.  It used two things I've had sitting around for a while: red potatoes from a long-ago recipe and buttermilk from the stuffed-crab corn muffin recipe.  I had been hesitating a while on using the red potatoes as I didn't think one could make mashed potatoes from them (I've always heard to use more starchier potatoes like russets).  However, after looking it up online (isn't the internet a wonderful thing?), I found out people do make mashed potatoes out of reds.  Knowing the basic principles of making mashed potatoes, I decided to try.  Along with a special step (see recipe below).

Buttermilk mashed potatoes

Note: As I just used what I had leftover around the house, I can't really give the exact quantity on the ingredients used.  I suggest going to my previous blog http://insearchoftheperfectmacaroniandcheese.blogspot.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-feast.html if you want a more exact recipe.

Ingredients:

Red potatoes, quartered

Butter (I used 1/4 cup)

Buttermilk to tasted

Procedure:

1) Boil the quartered potatoes until they are cooked enough that you can poke a fork in them.

2) Process them in a food mill using the largest holes.

3) Put potatoes in a small saucepan and add butter.  Heat over medium heat.

4) When butter is melted, add buttermilk to taste,  Keep stirring until everything is incorporated.  Add salt and pepper if you would like (I didn't).

And that's it!  But, the special step was putting the cooked potatoes through a food mill.  I had always wanted to try this, but I didn't this last Thanksgiving because I actually wanted the skins in my mashed potatoes (and the food mill would have removed the skins).  This time, I didn't particularly care one way or the other and was just curious how it would come out.  OH. MY. GOODNESS.  I loved it!  As it turns out, the food mill did leave a few of the skins in the mashed potatoes, which is the way I like them.  But the texture; oh, the texture is something to die for!  These taste like good restaurant quality mashed potatoes: fluffy, buttery, delightful!  Now I know.  And I don't think I'm ever going back to mashing them by hand... Yum yum yum!  Perhaps I ought to make mashed potatoes more often...

Buttermilk mashed potatoes (along with a salad and oven-fried
chicken drumsticks).

This picture might look familiar...  Buttermilk mashed potatoes
as leftovers the next day with garlic-rosemary chicken
and romanesco.