Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are easy to make, easy to clean up, and insanely delicious. They should be a staple of every non-cook's repertoire. Megan: make some mashed potatoes!

First things first: get a pot of water boiling. You need a fairly big pot, but you don't need to fill it up too full, I usually aim for about half-way to allow for the extra room potatoes are going to add, as well as boiling. The important thing is just to get your potatoes covered.

Add a dash of salt to your water as you put it on.

While you're waiting for the water to come to a boil, start preparing your potatoes. For one person, two or three mid-sized potatoes are probably enough, but potatoes are cheap enough and delicious enough that I usually prefer too many to too few. I use Yukon Golds for mashing but baby reds or whites work well too. Usually, you want to use them before they've been sitting out long enough to grow eyes, so that they don't look like that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa puts oatmeal on Bart and Homer's faces and they think they have leprosy. If they do though, you can just cut eyes off and the potatoes are still fine.

(As a side note, do not buy or eat potatoes with a greenish hue. This is caused by exposure to the sun, which makes the potatoes form a chemical called solanine. In addition to being bitter, enough solanine is actually toxic to humans. Eyes contain a high amount of solanine too, so when you cut them off make sure to be thorough, and cut out the green areas around them too.)

Rinse your potatoes in warm water. If you don't like skins, you can peel them; I leave mine on. I also dice my potatoes so they cook faster, but if you leave your skins on and have some extra time, you may want to leave them whole (side note two: this prevents the water from leeching vitamins out of the potatoes, and makes them a bit healthier.)

I also add some crushed garlic to my pot. Take the skin off of a clove of garlic, then place the side of a knife on top of it and press down with the butt of your hand. This causes the oils to seep out and flavor the potatoes. I used to dice garlic and mix it with the potatoes, but this way you get more bang for your buck.

Put your potatoes into the pot by carefully sliding them down down your cutting board into the water, so that none of it splashes down at your hands. Then bring it back to a boil and take the heat down to about medium. You want the water to be boiling but not too hard. After about 20 or 25 minutes, poke one of the potatoes with a fork. If it feels done, take them off and strain the water out. (Side note 3: if they still have the skins on and you want them off, pouring salt over them will cause the skins to shrink and make them much easier to peel off.)

For these potatoes, I used 3 tbsp of butter and 1/2 cup of milk. If you're making less, put in less-- it's not too hard to eyeball it. Make sure to pour the milk in slowly, you probably need less than you think. Then just mash them, salt and pepper to taste, and you're set. (Side note 4: don't mash the potatoes too hard or with an electric mixer: it will break down the starches in the potatoes and make them gluey.)

All set! If anyone can find a longer or more unnecessarilly detailed set of instructions for mashing potatoes, let me know and I will add a couple more paragraphs.