CULINARY MAKEOVERS #10 – MASHED POTATOES – WHAT TO DO WITH THEM
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Bread made from Mashed Potatoes
- If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you will have noticed that I don’t like to throw away leftovers and have fun turning them into something different. Sometimes it takes a little imagination and creativityand maybe a little work, but believe me, it is well worth the thought and the effort!
- Almost everyone makes Mashed Potatoes for Thanksgiving Dinner (and other dinners) and probably almost everyone has leftover Mashed Potatoes. You can just heat them up and eat them with another meal, but if you are tired of doing that there are several things that you can turn your mashed potatoes into. These include Potato Pancakes, Shepherd’s Pie (mashed potatoes serve as a top crust), Waffles or Potato Bread. This article deals with the latter.
- Potato Bread is a delicious bread that is one of the best solutions to leftover mashed potatoes. The bread is extra good because Mashed Potatoes already have a lot of goodies in them, such as butter and milk or cream. In our case it was Half & Half but I sometimes use heavy cream or even Cream Cheese.You start with the Mashed Potatoes and just keep adding ingredients to them until it becomes bread. You will find the recipe under the Recipes/Baking/Bread Section in this blog. /breads/potato-bread/ Below are step by step photos to show you the process. I used my Kitchen Aid Standing Mixer, but you can make the dough by hand. DO NOT try to make it with a portable mixer. You will just end up by destroying your mixer. Much better to do it by hand. Also, this is not a great dough to do in your Food Processor. I am a great believer in the Food Processor and make most of my doughs in it, but when you add eggs to a yeast dough, it has a hard time handling it. Just follow the directions in the recipe and you should have no trouble at all. Leftover Mashed Potatoes
Left over mashed Potatoes in mixer bowl.
Leftover Mashed Potatoes
Mixing the Dough with the Dough Hook
The finished dough
The risen dough waiting to be punched down
Dough divided into 3 portions
The Dough rolled out into ropes
Divide the Dough into 3 equal portions
Roll each piece out into a long rope
Fastening the dough ropes together
Pinch the ropes together at the top
Braiding the Ropes together
Braid the Dough Ropes together
The Braided Dough on greased pan sprinkled with cornmeal before rising
The Finished Braid
The final rising takes about 45 minutes.
The Risen Braid
The Baked Braid
Finished Bread Ready for Serving & Eating
LAST MINUTE THANKSGIVING RECIPES
Thanksgiving dinner is close at hand and if you are still hunting for recipes, here are a few that may help you. Most of them are simple and can be done as late as the day of Thanksgiving. Others, such as the pie or bread can easily be done a day or two before.
They are categorized in dishes and will be listed from easiest to hardest or most time consuming. Please try some out and let me know what you think about them.
Stuffed Mushrooms – a tasty appetizer that can be made a day ahead. Just heat them up right before serving. You will need plates, forks and knives and napkins for this one. /stuffed-mushrooms/
Corn Relish – a nice condiment that is perfect for Thanksgiving. This gives you a chance to do something with the end of harvest corn that is a little different from the usual. Does take some preparation time but can be done ahead and refrigerated or made in quantity and canned. /corn-relish/
Fresh Corn Relish
Golden Squash Jubilee – a relatively simple recipe that can be cooked within minutes in the microwave. The food processor does most of the prep work for you. /golden-squash-jubilee/
Creamed Spinach – another Food Processor prep and microwave cook recipe. This recipe used fresh spinach that is minimally cooked. You can taste the freshness. Very good. /creamed-spinach/
Curry Fruit Dressing – this recipe uses packaged stuffing mix but you add the vegetables and fruit.
The vegetables do have to be sautéed. It is best to do this the day before Thanksgiving and refrigerate
it. Then you can just stuff it into the turkey right before it goes into the oven. /curried-fruit-stuffing/
Pumpkin Yeast Biscuits – if you like pumpkin and biscuits and if you like to make yeast dough.
This is a very tasty version the leftovers of which can be eaten with cranberry sauce or just plain butter. Make these the day or days before. They can be frozen before the final raising and baking. /pumpkin-yeast-biscuits/
Uses for Leftovers:
Indian Corn Waffles – a great breakfast, luncheon or supper dish. The waffles are made with
cornmeal and you have the option of adding fresh, frozen or canned corn kernels to the batter. Great as a base for Turkey Ala King. /indian-corn-waffles/
Turkey Frittata – made with leftover turkey and is great for brunch or lunch. /turkey-frittata/
Cranberry Sauce Biscuits – a great use for leftover Cranberry Sauce. Very tasty and colorful. /cranberry-sauce-biscuits/
Cranberry Biscuits ready for the oven
Hope these suggestions and recipes will come in handy for you.
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THANKSGIVING MAKEOVERS
We all look forward to Thanksgiving and the big bird, but once we have had the big dinner and a few
sandwiches from leftovers, we begin to tire of the repetition. This is where your imagination and creativity needs to come into play to help you create totally new dishes from those leftovers. Usually the best part of the turkey is gobbled at Thanksgiving dinner and after the sandwiches there are only what seem like scraps of what is most probably dark meat left. The dark meat actually has the most flavor and can be used for a variety of leftovers. One of these may be a Frittata which is the Italian term for an
Omelet. The Frittata may be made with the leftover turkey scraps as well as any leftover vegetables. A is great for brunch, lunch, dinner or a midnight snack. For the complete recipe please see the recipe section/lunches of this blog. http://www.sylveeeskitchen.com/recipes/lunch/turkey-frittata/
Another item that some of us make too much of is Cranberry Sauce. When you get tired of eatingcranberry sauce, the leftovers can be put into Jello, mixed with other fruit for a compote or
can be put into quick bread products. One such is Cranberry Sauce Biscuits which by the way would be excellent even for Thanksgiving dinner. The biscuits are made just like any biscuit recipe but the cranberry sauce is added at the end. Sauce made from the whole cranberry works best with this recipe which is under recipes/bread on this blog. http://www.sylveeeskitchen.com/recipes/baked-goods/breads/cranberry-sauce-biscuits/ The biscuits dough in the picture below was made in the food processor. Whenever you make any dough in the food processor you usually need to reduce the liquid as the processor goes at such a rapid rate that it incorporates more liquid into the flour than you can do by hand.
Cranberry Biscuit Dough
Cranberry Biscuits before being Baked
When you make your Cranberry Sauce Biscuits, you do need to strain the sauce before you use it as the liquid portion would make the dough to soft and sticky unless you eliminate the sour cream. Instead of throwing out the strained liquid put it into a glass or pitcher (depending on how much you have) and add some sparkling water or wine to it and you will have a delicous spritzer.
Cranberry Spritzer
Since Thanksgiving is the end of fresh corn season many of you may have elected to serve corn in one of your Thanksgiving dishes. If so, try putting that extra corn into a mixed vegetable dish or into a bread product. Leftover sweet potatoes can be turned into pancakes or more biscuits.
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