Mashed-Potatoes

Creamy-Garlic recipe

photo credit: Jan Norris

Chaotic Andean potato diversity program

Going on for millennia:

"The result was chaotic diversity. Potatoes in one village at one altitude could look wildly unlike those a few miles away in another village at another altitude."

And chuño, the dried potato that fueled conquering Inca armies:

Credit: Eitan Abramovich / AFP / Getty Images

"Potato Wars: eye for an eye"

Instapundit links.

I mentioned the issue here.

Compassionate conservatives in action

Hoosier Potato Farmers Singlehandedly Produce And Donate Enough For 1/10th Of Those Needing U.S. Safety Net

file: Journal Gazette

Food Insecurity: 1 in 6 Americans Struggles to Buy Food

Bittman blogs basted potatoes

What could be simpler or more perfect?

Credit: Kerri Conan

Perfect for Yukon golds: Turn the oven to 400dg, using the convection roast setting if you’ve got one. Pour a thin film of olive oil into a rimmed baking sheet and sprinkle liberally with sea salt. Trim about 1 pound of potatoes, remove any icky spots, and cut them in half crosswise. Once the potatoes are in the pan, rub them all over in the oil, and put them cut side down. Roast, brushing with the salted oil every 15 minutes or so, until they release easily, 30 to 60 minutes, depending on their size.

Hey! Teacher! Leave our spuds alone!

Potater haters.

"Just like Magritte's picture of a pipe, a potato is not just a potato," says Romain Cools, head of Belgapom, the Belgian potato trade body. "You cannot compare bintje with other varieties."

The bintje, as you probably already know, is the world's most widely grown potato cultivar. But size, as it turns out, does indeed matter and demand for the smaller shorter bintje is... well, down.

Local potato heros

Right here in Madison, Wisconsin!

Geneticists Dennis Halterman (left) and Shelley Jansky

Does this potato chip make my bean look big?

You look smashing!

"We make potato cakes, latkes, garlic roasted red potatoes and we've seen no push-back whatsoever"

"Experts defend bashed potato"

Mashed potatoes might make the ideal modified carbo-loading pre-event meal for some athletes.

Potato walks into a bar.

All eyes were on him.

"Potato's in the Paddy Wagon"

"One night mama went to fetch herself a sweet potato fell down the cellar stairs,
Stork dropped in while she was on the floor, so my sister was born down there.
Daddy said this one will be nothing but a misery, never will be worth a damn..
But mama just loved her little sweet potato baby, with a face like a parboiled yam."

Welcome, smart and funny commenters from a blog, the name of which, we dare not mention!

But, okay, "guns" is in the title. That's right: GUNS!!

Have a look around, make yourselves at home, leave your misguidedly liberal calling card if you like, and, HERE, have a taste of potato-y/pasta goodness.

Dismissive federal judge railroads potato flakes settled on big wheels after low-speed derailment damages dispute

Mash up, mash down.

Potato-y planetary gravitas

Oh, so Madison, Wisconsin isn't ground zero after all.

"la illaha illala"

Allah ha ha ha ha ha!

Potatoes

Poached.

The real deal.

DSC00372, originally uploaded by Ann Althouse.

Last night, I had the experiential pleasure of this delightful little Lithuanian dish.

Un-beet-lieve-ably divine!

"One of the varieties that will be stored in Svalbard is known as the 'bride's potato'"

Its unusual name, it is said, dates back to Incan times, when a bride was expected to peel this potato in order to display that she had the necessary skills to be a good wife.

Peruvian potato samples stored in Svalbard.

"An Irish dicktator is a french fry."

Pogo, being funny at Althouse today.

P1070076, originally uploaded by Ann Althouse.

Norma-ly, you wouldn't grow potatoes in a bag

But I dunno, Idaho - hey, grab that hoe, kick off the mud, put on your normal jeans, and try tubers a new way, Spud.

You don't mind if I call you Spud, do you, Idaho?

"...with slices of hard boiled eggs (haha),"

laughs Irene, impishly, while bringing it all back home from Lithuania.

Gražus.

"Beet and Potato Salad"

"Make sure the potatoes are cool before dressing, or they'll soak up all the good stuff."

"Purple potato plant a perennial pleasure"

Yeah, perennial if you live in southern Florida or California. Otherwise, an annual one better pot up and protect through frost. Pretty, huh?

Image from here.

“This is no longer just a seed certification problem. The problem now affects all aspects of potato production.”

“We’re at a tipping point. We don’t see a lot of necrotic strains when we do our surveys but they are there. If we do nothing, we will end up in the same situation as Europe.”

Potato-disparaging metaphor alert

"Hot, greasy potato"

See what they're doing there? Corporate misbehaviour, bribery = Hot, greasy potato.

Shameful.

"We found out that majority of potato growers also has projects on growing of traditional borsch vegetables."

Borsch vegetables: onions, cabbages, beets, and carrots.

"Potato and Vegetables of Ukraine-2011"

All That Meat And No Potatoes

"We follow South American tradition: We eat them on the 29th and put money under our plates, praying it will increase."

ñoquis.

"Sweet Potatoes With Tang, Spice and Sweetness"

Recipe.

'Pink Fir Apple' Potatoes

What's new is what's old.

"[Cause of death:] everything from the end of the Mayan calendar to the second coming and the apocalypse."

Nope - only moldy sweet potatoes.

"On top of that, the fairly low incidence of blight - thanks to all that sunshine - could be a further incentive to go big on spuds in 2011."

Strong demand in 2011.

"Working in ‘tatties’ led to the establishment of the Gowanbank Potato Company, in partnership with Duncan Henderson."

Rest in peace, Alister Wilson.

"This is our generation's Spudnik moment."

Beet... beet... beet...

1. Potato 227 up, 15 down

White people living or travelling in South East Asia.

White ex-pats are often seen as fat, white and inert. Common variants are "fat potato", "stupid potato", "dirty potato" and so on.

Potato was first coined in 2008 by ex-pats living in Vietnam. It was first reference in the Vietnam Times in January 2009, and spread quite quickly throughout Vietnam and is currently becoming pervasive in major ex-pat hubs including Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City. Term has also surfaced in the SE Asian community in Australia.

In Sydney the increased Anglo-Saxon interest in Asian cultures has led to this word being used in a derogatory manner to describe Anglo-Saxon patrons to SE Asian establishments.

Potatospeak is a humorous term used to refer to metaphors which use this slang, including:

Potato Salad - a large gathering of potatoes, usually around hotel swimming pools.

Mashed Potato - amotorbike accident involving at least one potato. Often includes a muffler burn.

Baked Potato - sunburn

Potato Wedge - a poorly executed motorbike manouever

Potato Famine - a potato orders a meal at a local restaurant. On arrival he realises it is completely inedible.

Atkins Diet - a period of time when the potato decides he or she doesn’t want any more potato in his life.

Bubble and Squeak - older potato who has hooked up with a younger, beautiful local girl

Fauxtato - a local person who is sitting in a Hard Rock Cafe.
"We went to this really nice Italian Restaurant in the old quarter of Hanoi, and it was full of potatoes."

"You should have seen the potato salad around the pool at the Sofitel last weekend."

Potatobama

Photobama

"My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here."

Porntato.

"You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labour and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why."

-Vincent van Gogh
 to Theo van Gogh
 Thursday, 30 April 1885

(click to enlarge)

"Standing 6” tall, this player is the perfect size."

The officially licensed Green Bay Packers Mr. Potato Head. Buy it here:

"There are a good deal of vitamins and minerals in potato residues, and it's free of gluten."

"That means that people with celiac disease or gluten intolerance may eat the bread."

"I guess you've noticed something a little strange with Dad. It's okay, though. I'm still Dad."

"I know this sounds crazy, but ever since yesterday on the road, I've been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows... Dammit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important."

Don't shoot, piano player

"[H]e seemed to be the typical college student and none had witnessed any unusual behavior from him in the past."

"So. I had a big baking potato, a medium-sized beet, and a small sweet potato — "

Bittman is all about pancakes today which is fine - I love my sweet syrupy p-ann-cakes as much as the next guy. But this is a blog with a potato purpose. So I did a quick search and found just what I was looking for: Unbeetable!

"When I first started, there weren't any wild hogs around. And sweet potatoes are like candy to a wild hog."

Sweet potato farms are disappearing in Texas and wild hogs are part of the problem.

Potato Ships

"With cheese or without."

HELLY MACKEREL! (Or: Why I Won't Be Giving This Recipe A Go Even Though It Contains Delicious Potatoes, Love.)

1. The writer has a hyphenated surname
2. His hyphenated surname begins with "Fearnly." (Sorry - Not appetizing)
3. "Start Happy" What kind of Magic Door Candyland Sesame Street syrupy Bosco blech is that?
4. Those slabs of fish still have their skins on them.
5. The writer uses the word "deeply." I hate the adverb "deeply" almost as much as I hate skin left on my fish slabs.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to manufacture, keep, and bear do-it-yourself potato launchers, shall not be infringed."

It's in the Constitution. Sort of.

(via: chickelit (the commenter))

UPDATE: While you have a Constitutional right to manufacture, keep, and bear do-it-yourself potato launchers, you also have an ethical responsibility to practice due diligence.

The Ross Sisters

"It's the "groovy, movie salad potato, Jack."
(via peter hoh)

"well shut my mouth!!"

Sweet Potatoes
(hat tip: Althouse commenter, Lincolntf)

Leek

Matt and Leann made some pretty good looking Potato Leek Soup yesterday.

Founder of Washington Potato Commission lived 97 years.

"His first teaching job was in a one-room schoolhouse in Missouri."

"We suspect that a big portion of our stock has been smuggled out.”

Not gold. Not jewels. Not drugs. Not museum art. Potatoes!

"They are healthy"

Who knew?

Sweet Potato Biscuits

2 c. mashed sweet potatoes
1 stick butter
4 rounded tsp. baking powder
3 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
Sift flour and baking powder in a bowl. Mix remaining ingredients; gradually add flour mixture. Form into biscuits. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes

ADDED: Sweet Potato Biscuits Echo Chamber

UPDATE: 14 65 viewers! Yikes! Look out! It's an Annalanche!

Mashing More Metaphors

More violence on our favorite little innocent underground radical:

"It's important that our leaders not leave semen stains on dresses of women who are not their wives [and] know how to spell potato..."

And here is some additional advice, oh dear leaders, even if you can't spell "potato": Do not leave potato stains on your own wife's dresses.

Roasted Sweet Potato of the Day

P1050869, originally uploaded by meadelaurence.

“We still have to convince the USDA that the diet is successful and the potato is worthy to be in the WIC program and the school lunch program.”

The Potato Man of the Year.

Ray's Cheesy Potatoes

from my friend Ray's kitchen to yours:

8 oz (1 cup) sour cream (not low fat)

1 can (10.75 ounces) Campbell’s "Cream of Chicken" condensed soup

3 ounces large-curd cottage cheese (not low fat)

4 ounces shredded cheese (Sargento Bistro Blend Italian and Cheddar blends recommended)

1 Tbsp. dried onion flakes

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

generous grindings of black pepper from a pepper mill to taste

1 package (20 ounces) Simply Potatoes (plain) Shredded Potatoes (Do not substitute Southwestern-style Shredded Potatoes: this makes for a mushy, unappealing texture because of the added salsa)
4 pinches coarse kosher salt

1 ounce shredded cheese (for optional topping)



Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spray a 2-quart glass casserole dish (or a 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan) with a non-stick vegetable spray, such as "Pam."
Mix sour cream, cream of chicken soup, cottage cheese, and shredded cheese together in a large mixing bowl. The consistency will be thick and somewhat lumpy. (Avoid any temptation for smoothness that might be achieved by the additions of milk or cream – this will ruin the casserole with pools of dairy fat in the finished product. Avoid deluxe cheese substitutions, especially extra sharp cheddars and fontinas for the same reason.)
Mix in the onion flakes and garlic powder. Add several generous grinds of black pepper.
Open the package of potatoes and empty it as a pile on top of the mixture of creamed and cheesy ingredients in the bowl. Sprinkle the kosher salt onto the pile of shredded potatoes before folding them into the other ingredients. (Although ingredients such as the Cream of Chicken soup have plenty of salt, it does not penetrate raw potatoes in the same way that a sprinkling of salt will do in an instant. If you omit this step, expect the dish to be fine but taste a bit under-salted.) Blend the potatoes well.

Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. (The dish may be prepared several hours in advance at this point; keep refrigerated.)
Bake covered at 350° for 75 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with extra cheese if desired, and continue baking for 20 minutes.

Serves 3-4*


*To double the recipe for 6 people. Use the same size casserole, namely a 2-quart dish. Use 2 cans of Cream of Chicken soup, 2 packages of Simply Potatoes. Increase the remaining ingredients one and one-half times (do not double the other ingredients). Bake covered for 90 minutes. Uncover and bake 30 minutes longer.

"There's a prominent citizen who endorsed me in the 2000 election, and I wanted a chance to finally thank him for that endorsement. I was hoping to meet Jean Poutine."

When President Bush called then Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, a mess of french fried potatoes smothered in cheese curds and fat pudding-like gravy.

C'était délicieux!

ADDED: And here's Prime Minister Pudd'nhead himself.

"The salty skin that forms on the outside of the potatoes stands up particularly well to herbed or even plain melted butter."

The Salt Potato:

"The salt potato, an iconic central New York side dish, got its start in the late 1800s, when salt was distilled by boiling water from marshes around Syracuse, N.Y. Workers, many of them Irish, would dump potatoes in the boiling vats and then have lunch."

"Well, I looked at my watch, I looked at my wrist, punched myself in the face with my fist"

I took my potatoes
Down to be mashed
Then I made it over
To that million dollar bash
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
It’s that million dollar bash

The only Dylan song with the word "potato" in it.

"When you came out, looking red as a beet, you had wrinkles on the bottoms of your feet"

My Little Potato
(first song I sang to my little sweet potato, 23+ years ago)
Buy it here:



and here:


Preview

The Potato Hunter

Other Channel
Tags: Atom.com | Funny Videos | Tournament | Upload

Potato-fueled ice skating Lake Mendota

P1050738, originally uploaded by Ann Althouse.

Dee Dee

(The future Mrs. Meade @2:02)

Corn and Potato Chowder

I'll add a little bacon.

"I reckon I'll have me some a them big'ns."

Back to the potato future...

"We have Potato!", originally uploaded by Ann Althouse.

We're taking a long position.

Ron's Baked Cheese Potatoes

6 Yukon gold potatoes, thinly sliced.

1 White onion, thinly sliced.

1/2 pound grated Gruyere cheese ( or Comte...or the Cheddar of your choice! )

pint of heavy cream, 1 cup of milk

salt and pepper to taste.

butter a Pyrex baking dish.

Put a layer of potato slices down, then a layer of onion slices, w salt and pepper.

pour the heavy cream to lightly cover, adding milk to spread it out.

layer the cheese to cover.

repeat this process maybe 4-5 times, and finish with more cheese on top.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes, til you see the edge get slightly crusty and the cheese bubbles.

Good for slices, even the next day or two, excellent with a side salad.

Potato Gold, baby!

Trooper York's Sicilian Potatoes and Sausage

With jumbo black pitted olives.

pm317's Potato Recipe

With "Asafoetida if you have them."

Sweet Potato Vichyssoise

3 tbsp butter

4 leeks (white part only), well-rinsed, dried and sliced

6 cups chicken stock or canned broth

1½ cups dry white wine

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

Grated zest and juice of 1 lime

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy or whipping cream

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Slices of lime for garnish

Melt the butter in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and saute until soft and transparent. Add the stock, wine and sweet potatoes. Heat to boiling.

Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the lime zest and juice, milk and cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Puree the soup in batches in a blender or food processor until very smooth. Gently heat and serve with slices of lime floating on top. Serves 6.

Source: The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook (If you buy it HERE through Mrs. Meade's portal, you'll help me pay the rent. Thanks!)

"Only three men in history have been immortalised by having their names enter the English language as verbs..."

"The first was Irishman, Captain Boycott, whose name entered the language in the 1860s. Another was Louis Pasteur..."

Banting.  A verb.

Curried Garlicky Potatoes

New red and Yukon gold potatoes - quartered and parboiled.
Drain and then stir fry with olive oil, Madras hot curry, garlic, and coarse salt.

"There's a lot of potato detritus around here!"

Update:  Safe for work.  Of course it's safe for work!