Cleo Coyle: Happy Halloween week, everyone! For today's post, I'll show you how to dress up your plain old mashed potatoes in a beautiful costume of fall colors for Halloween (or Thanksgiving) or any day you're ready to jazz up your dinner plate. You'll not only love the gorgeous color, you'll enjoy the flavors in this recipe, too.
So let's start cooking!
🎃 A Recipe Note from Cleo
Potatoes are one of my favorite comfort foods. Unfortunately, peeling, boiling, and mashing potatoes with butter and cream leaves you with high carbs, low fiber, and not much nutrition.
This recipe is a tasty solution. The carrots and garlic bring dietary fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, and a spectacular golden-orange color to your plate. And here’s the best part: This recipe is absolutely delicious. No carrot taste. Just a creamy, garlicky, mashed potato experience. And, of course, there are health benefits from the garlic and carrots (more fiber and vitamins). I like to leave the potato skins on for even more nutrition. There is no milk or cream in the recipe, so it can be made vegan or Kosher by replacing the butter with margarine.
This recipe is a tasty solution. The carrots and garlic bring dietary fiber, vitamins, antioxidants, and a spectacular golden-orange color to your plate. And here’s the best part: This recipe is absolutely delicious. No carrot taste. Just a creamy, garlicky, mashed potato experience. And, of course, there are health benefits from the garlic and carrots (more fiber and vitamins). I like to leave the potato skins on for even more nutrition. There is no milk or cream in the recipe, so it can be made vegan or Kosher by replacing the butter with margarine.
Another thing I like about this recipe are the proportions. The amounts are very easy to commit to memory for whipping up a "from-scratch" dinner side dish fast:
3 Potatoes
+ 3 Carrots
+ 3 Cloves Garlic
+ 3 Tablespoons Butter or Margarine
= 3 Cups of No-Guilt Mashed Potatoes...
(Enough to serve 4)
🎃 Cleo Coyle's
Pretty Fall Mashed Potatoes
Pretty Fall Mashed Potatoes
Makes 4 servings
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
3 medium white potatoes*, scrubbed, skins on (about one pound)
3 large carrots, peeled and sliced (about 8 ounces)
3 cloves garlic
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1 teaspoon salt
+ salt and pepper to taste
*What kind of potatoes?: For this particular recipe, white potatoes are the best for creamy, smooth, delicious tasting mashed potatoes. Yukon gold will work, as well. But do not use russet potatoes, the results will not be as appealing.
Directions:
Step 1: Prep the veggies — Peel and slice the carrots into one-half inch rings. Cut the potatoes into sections about one-half inch thick, halving the sections again if too large. Peel and chop the garlic.
Step 2: Start by boiling carrots alone — Carrots take longer to cook than potatoes so you're going to give them a head start. Bring a large saucepan of water to a rolling boil. Add the peeled and diced carrots, return to boil for 8 minutes, uncovered.
Step 3: Add potatoes and garlic — After adding your potatoes and garlic, return the pot to a boil and simmer for approximately 20 minutes, uncovered, or until potatoes and carrots are soft enough to mash.
Step 4: Drain well, add butter, and mash — Pour the cooked veggies and garlic into a strainer and make sure water is well drained. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Add butter or margarine and mash. Marc and I use a traditional hand-masher. Then, for a creamy finish, we whisk briskly with a fork until smooth (about 30 seconds). Salt and pepper to taste. (You can also go techno and use a hand-stick or immersion blender or throw everything into a food processor.)
Marc and I like to use a hand masher.
Our secret to making roughly mashed potatoes into smoothly whipped is a vigorous 30-second beating in a deep bowl with a simple fork.
And now we're ready to eat with fall comfort-food joy!
Happy Halloween,
Everyone!
Happy Halloween,
Everyone!
CLEO COYLE is a pseudonym for Alice Alfonsi, writing in collaboration with her husband, Marc Cerasini. Both are New York Times bestselling authors of the long-running Coffeehouse Mysteries, now celebrating more than twenty years in print. With more than 1 million books sold, they have gained an enthusiastic following. Cleo's "relentlessly entertaining" (Criminal Element) novels have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, and Czech; earned starred reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus; received Best of Year selection honors from multiple reviewers; and have been recommended by Booklist as among the best culinary mysteries for core library mystery collections. Alice and Marc are also accomplished media tie-in writers who have penned bestselling properties for Lucasfilm, NBC, Fox, Disney, Imagine, Toho, and MGM. They live in New York City, where they write independently and together, including the nationally bestselling Haunted Bookshop Mysteries.
CLEO COYLE is a pseudonym for Alice Alfonsi, writing in collaboration with her husband, Marc Cerasini. Both are New York Times bestselling authors of the long-running Coffeehouse Mysteries, now celebrating more than twenty years in print. With more than 1 million books sold, they have gained an enthusiastic following. Cleo's "relentlessly entertaining" (Criminal Element) novels have been translated into Spanish, Japanese, and Czech; earned starred reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus; received Best of Year selection honors from multiple reviewers; and have been recommended by Booklist as among the best culinary mysteries for core library mystery collections. Alice and Marc are also accomplished media tie-in writers who have penned bestselling properties for Lucasfilm, NBC, Fox, Disney, Imagine, Toho, and MGM. They live in New York City, where they write independently and together, including the nationally bestselling Haunted Bookshop Mysteries.
National Mystery Bestseller
(Triple) #1 Amazon Category Bestseller
Fresh Fiction Readers' Selection
To Buy:
"EASILY ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS THAT I HAVE READ THIS YEAR...10 STARS!" —Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book
"A KNOCKOUT STORY....one of the best books in this endearing series...a TERRIFIC READ..." —Dru Ann Love, Raven Award-winning reviewer, Dru's Book Musings
No Roast for the Weary is also a culinary mystery with a killer menu of delicious recipes. Click here or on the image below to see the free illustrated guide to our book's recipe section...
Click here or the image above for
Cleo's Free Illustrated Guide to
the recipes you'll find published in
No Roast for the Weary.
National Mystery Bestseller
(Triple) #1 Amazon Category Bestseller
Fresh Fiction Readers' Selection
To Buy:
"EASILY ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS THAT I HAVE READ THIS YEAR...10 STARS!" —Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book
"A KNOCKOUT STORY....one of the best books in this endearing series...a TERRIFIC READ..." —Dru Ann Love, Raven Award-winning reviewer, Dru's Book Musings
Cleo's Free Illustrated Guide to
the recipes you'll find published in
No Roast for the Weary.
Get a free Title Checklist of
Cleo Coyle's Books in Order
Click here or on the image below.
Get a free Title Checklist of
Cleo Coyle's Books in Order
Click here or on the image below.
Cleo Coyle's Books in Order
Click here or on the image below.
