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Hi, it's Kellene Bishop. With all the cooking that we're having to do to make the most of
the meat that we've had thaw in our freezer, I decided let's throw in some mashed potatoes.
So I'm going to share with you my favorite way in the whole wide world to make the best
mashed potatoes, and it involves big, beautiful potatoes from Idaho. I consider potatoes to
be a quote unquote food storage food because they will last in my cool, dry, dark basement
for about six months. Plus they're so easy to grow, with a very short grow cycle. So
I stock up on these whole. I just buy a big old honkin' 50 lb. bag a couple times a year,
and then we just go through them. Here's the nice thing about making mashed potatoes in
a pressure canner: First of all, no cutting. Almost no cutting. That's it. All I do is
these big, old honkin' chunks and put them in the bottom of the pressure cooker. We're
just going to do that with all of these. The reason that people make mashed potatoes that
don't turn out so good is because they have too much moisture in them, too much water.
So, keep them in these nice big chunks. They won't have too much water. And they're still
going to cook just fine. Now I love these mashed potatoes but unfortunately, you can
only fill the pressure cooker to about two-thirds full. Beyond that you're going to run into
some safety problems. So, looks like we can fit maybe one more potato in there. All right.
That'll do us. It's not completely dense and it does surpass that two-thirds line just
a little bit, but we'll be good. Okay. Now, you don't want your potatoes boiling and taking
a swim in water. You just want enough water to create the pressure, to create the steam.
So, why use water when you can use chicken bouillon? I use the Shirley J chicken bouillon.
It's the only bouillon out there that I found that actually has chicken in it. Plus, it
was rated as the lowest sodium and best-tasting among several key chefs, some of your best
known restaurant chains throughout the U.S. So I'm just going to put, it only takes a
half teaspoon of chicken bouillon for a full cup of water. We're probably going to do two
cups of water, so... Use filtered water. I'm just going to pour it over the top here, and
I just want to be able to see it on the bottom of my pan. I don't want, I don't want my potatoes
going for a swim. And then last, but not least, of course, we're going to add some salt. I
use the Real Salt. This isn't just for flavoring, it also helps with the cooking. It also helps
with the proper moisture retention that I do want from the potatoes to get out that
flavor. And now we're just going to put this on high. This is just a regular little Korean
cookstove. By the way, you don't want to store your Korean cookstoves with the butane can
in there. I'm just going to shut that. And to turn it on, you just push this down, like
so. So we should have, you can see we have a full flame here. As soon as I start getting
the least little bit of steam on these potatoes, that's when I'm going to put the lid on. I
wait until I actually get that steam. In the meantime, I only use the Kuhn Rikon pressure
cooker because of it's myriad of safety features. This is easy, nice and easy to clean. If ever
you have a hard time, for some reason your pressure cooker isn't sealing right away,
you can just get this wet and then put it in, and then it will just, it will seal really
nicely. Anyway, make sure all these parts are nice and clean. Clean around here as well.
And then when it is time to use it, we just put our little, the little protective safety
feature for the Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker. Okay. As soon as this starts steaming, we
will put the lid on. So, we'll just wait a couple of minutes. All right, we have a little
steam now, so we're just going to put this on, see it's already coming up to pressure
here. We want it at high pressure for about 7 minutes is all. And, the rest is the fantastic
stuff that happens as soon as we cook the potatoes. So I'll be right back with that.
Now look, even with the littlest, this is the lowest I can get the flame to go on this,
and even with that we are still at plenty of pressure on here. So we're all finished
with this. We're just going to turn off the heat completely. And just so I don't forget,
remove the butane can, as I have a tendency to forget that. Just release the pressure.
Okay. The pressure is completely released, and I know that because it let me open it.
That's one of the nice things about Kuhn Rikon, is that it doesn't let you open it unless
the pressure is released. Now when you lift the lid, you want to make sure you lift it
away from you, to avoid any burning. So, we had this going for only 7 minutes, and you'll
see the fork just pierces these just fine and dandy. They're nice and tender. And they're
not too wet because they weren't swimming the whole time. So now comes my favorite part,
using a potato ricer. Okay. So a potato ricer is just that, you put the potatoes in and
it's going to be a little challenging because we've left the skins on like I wanted to.
That's all right. And you just push your potatoes through the ricer. It looks llike you've got
rice coming out; instead, you've got potatoes. Pretty, huh? So we're going to do that to
all of these potatoes in here. And I just mix, pull out the skin and put that into the mixture
as well. And, as soon as we get done with that, I'll be right back. You can do this
with zucchini, turnips, cauliflower, squash, anything. I mean, you can have some fun with
this wonderful little ricer. But, it's awesome with potatoes. Okay. Now we're done with that.
And now, aside from the butter and the salt and pepper, you've got all kinds of options.
Okay, fresh ground black pepper; wonderful Real Salt; and of course, butter. Now I bottle
a lot of my butter, but I also freeze a lot of my butter. And I like to cut it just a
little bit before putting it in. Now, some people put cream, some people put milk, some
people put cheese in their mashed potatoes, garlic, etc. There are all kinds of possibilities,
but you can do that even when you are living off of shelf stable foods. So for example,
you can use the non-dairy creamer, that's just basically cream, and you can mix that
into your mashed potatoes. Or you can use the powdered cream cheese, which is really
yummy as well, or you can use the powdered sour cream. Now I also wax hard cheeses in
my household, and Asiago cheese is one of those cheeses that's great to wax. If you
want more information on this, you can just go to our website at preparednesspro.com,
and look under the tab that says "Prep Pro Classes". There's a great detailed tutorial
on how to wax your own cheese. But this is Asiago, just about a third of a cup, that
I like to put in there. And now I'm just going to stir this up. You'll notice there is no
water in here, which is the number one reason why mashed potatoes don't turn out well. So,
let the...butter to melt. I'm actually going to use the cream, the non-dairy creamer. Get
me just a little bit more moisture. All you have to do is, I just do a dab of everything.
A little bit of the powdered sour cream, a little bit of the powder cream cheese, a little
bit of the non-dairy creamer, until it's a nice thick consistency, and then put that
in. Perfecto! A little bit more salt, and we have arrived. If I had some freeze dried
chives, I'd throw those in right now. Not sure where those are. Mmm. Are those beautiful or what? They're fluffy, They're
so fluffy! Fabulous. See how fluffy they are? Yet dense, they're not watery. These are going
to taste some kind of good. So great for serving with just about anything. And remember, potatoes
can last a really nice long time in your root cellar or your cool, dry, and definitely dark,
storage. Until next time, visit us at preparednesspro.com for lots more tips and tricks in living a
self-reliant lifestyle.