Orange Mashed Potatoes

My grandma used to make orange-colored mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. When my dad and his siblings were little, they didn't "like" vegetables. But they loved mashed potatoes! So she started tossing onions and carrots in to, to make them healthier. So that's just how my family has always made them! The onion and garlic give it such a wonderful flavor. Whenever I eat potatoes anywhere else, they just taste so... bland. My sister makes them without the carrots for her in-laws, since the orange is too weird for them. They prefer her mashed potatoes over her mother-in-law's!

This is same basic idea, only I tossed in some more strange vegetables from my CSA too.

Orange Mashed Potatoes

Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
2 lbs total potatoes and kohlrabi, cubed
1/4 lb carrots, cubed
1 bulb fennel (optional)
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced (or 3-4 tsp pre-minced)
1 c water
1 tsp or less salt
Optional: 2 pats butter
Optional: 2-3 Tbsp cream, soup stock, or additional water
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Step 1: In a large saucepan (with a lid preferably, but I used a ceramic plate,) heat up 1 cup water until boiling (dissolve 1 tsp salt in the water, if using.) Turn heat down to Medium and add kohlrabi. Cover and cook approximately 10 minutes. Then add potatoes, fennel, carrots, onion*, and garlic* for 20-30 more minutes, stirring and re-covering every 5-10 minutes, until tender. 
You could also just use a pressure cooker like my family has always done, but I don't know how long that all has to happen. Ask my sisters. They pass around my dad's pressure cooker to whoever is making the potatoes for each occasion!

*Instead of steaming the onions and garlic with the rest, a more flavorful option is to cook them separately. It's a bit more effort though, so I didn't bother. Add 2 pats unsalted butter to a frying pan and sauté onions on medium low heat until softened, roughly 5 mins. Add the garlic and cook another 2-3 minutes; don't let garlic brown. 

Step 2: Mash cooked ingredients together. Add 2-3 Tbsp additional liquid (cream, soup stock, water, etc) if needed. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve warm. Preferably with gobs of butter.

I made a double batch, so I didn't have enough room in my sauce pan. So I steamed the carrots and potatoes, and mashed the potatoes in my mixer. The rest went into the food processor to make them smoother before mixing in with the potatoes. Apparently, other than fingerling potatoes, using the food processor on potatoes makes them more rubbery or paste-like. Because I used the mixer on the potatoes, these were nice and fluffy!

The Verdict:

I've always loved the orange mashed potatoes, so these were delicious to me. And I've converted Hubby (16 years together! Yikes!) so that he is no longer put off by the color. So we enjoyed them. Little Z was the big test. She loves potatoes and carrots, but she also lies like a thief about what is tasty and not, because she prefers the same favored foods over and over. She ate them. And again when we had them for leftovers. Can't ask for much more than that!

Baby loved them too!