"Stretching" your mashed potatoes

  • I love mashed potatoes, and discovered a way to "stretch" them:

    Boil your potatoes - 15 minutes before they're done, add some cauliflower. When both veggies are tender, drain the water, add some chicken broth, skim milk, Butter Buds and pepper. Mash until you have a smooth texture.

    You can figure out the points based on how many potatoes you used - the cauliflower is a freebie. Enjoy!
  • Better yet, you can do it with ALL cauliflower. It's really quite good. And incredibly healthy - fiber-ful and very low cal.
  • Believe it or not, you can stretch pasta by adding cauliflower too. Just cut the cauliflower into a size about the same as the pasta pieces. Once you get a sauce on it, you can hardly tell the difference.
  • Oh I loooooooooooooove mashed cauliflower. I'll buy a head and cook half of a large head, add a little salt & pepper and 2 tablespoons of fat-free cream cheese (just a little preference of mine, I use the cream cheese instead of milk) a few quirts of butter spray, mash it all up and sit and eat the whole dang thing.

    LOL
  • Quote: Believe it or not, you can stretch pasta by adding cauliflower too. Just cut the cauliflower into a size about the same as the pasta pieces. Once you get a sauce on it, you can hardly tell the difference.
    I'll bet I could

    I love both pasta and cauliflower, but they're also both, to me, one of those foods that when ya gotta have it, ya gotta have it and nothing else will do. Especially pasta. When I want pasta, I want pasta!
  • Wow what a great idea! We love taters in this house.... so that would be agreat way to save on cals! Thanks yall!
  • I am going to have to try it...Both sound good
  • It's REALLY good, cauliflower mixed with mashed potatoes. A great way of sneaking extra nutrients into them
  • I adapt two irish dishes, Champ and Colcannon to be more diet friendly (traditionally, they include quite a bit of butter). Champ is mashed potatoes with green onions, and Colcannon is pretty much the same with the addition of cabbage, kale or other greens.

    I saute the greens and/or onions (I use any kind of onion, but green onions are the best) in just a little butter or cooking spray and stir them into mashed potatoes made with skim milk and chicken broth (I boil the potatoes in chicken broth, and don't drain it all of the way, before mashing with a little skim milk).
  • It's not really a mashed potato stretcher, but I have another great recipe to serve with mashed potatoes, I learned from my grandmother. I do use less bacon than she did though (she used at least three slices).

    1 slice bacon, diced finely
    1 smal onion, diced finely
    1 can tomato sauce
    2 tsp sugar or artificial sweetener
    1 tsp vinegar
    1 can tomato paste (or sauce, but if you use sauce you don't add as much water, and may have to add more sugar or less vinegar).
    3 cans water
    1 can green beans (I prefer french cut).

    Saute onion in pan with bacon, until onions are tender. Bacon will be done, but still soft. Add all ingredients except green beans. Simmer until sauce is hot, stir in green beans, and simmer until beans are hot and sauce is reduced to desired consistency.

    Serve over baked potatoes or mashed potatoes made with chicken broth and skim milk as described above.

    I would eat this as a meal in college.
  • Carrots are also good mashed in with potatoes.
  • While my mom was doing Atkins, we did mock potato salad made with cauliflower. It's soooooo good, I still eat it sometimes instead of the real thing.

    You make it exactly the same way you would make potato salad, however you like, but just substitute small chunks of cauliflower for the taters.

    We also use cauliflower to stretch tater soup. You actually can't really tell much of a difference!
  • Mmmm, Coleen, I make colcannon a lot, esp in the winter. I love it. I'll bet you could do it just as well with cauliflower, or a mixture. I don't even add milk to my potatoes, just boil or steam them then mash and add to the pan with the sauteed greens/onions. Leaving a little water (or chicken broth, what a good idea btw) will give you whatever texture you want.