I'm Gonna Make My Kids Love Potatoes, Dang It!
I remember when I went out shopping for our big Christmas meal of honey glazed ham and funeral potatoes, I was at Costco getting my favorite ham and I considered getting a bag of potatoes there. Of course it’s Costco, so instead of a normal 5 pound bag of potatoes, it’s 105 pounds of potatoes for $2 more than the 5 pound bag. Lol, I am kidding of course, but the 15 pound bag staring back at me might as well have been 105 pounds. You see, I adore potatoes in each and every way they are prepared but my family does not. My husband sees them as an evil starchy carb and my kids are just weird. What kid doesn’t like mashed potatoes?! They don’t like any form of potatoes unless it is deep fried. They’re all nuts.
So basically, my head told me getting a 15 pound bag of potatoes would be nuts, but the rebellious/stubborn side of me, or my heart, said that I would get this bag of potatoes and use each and every one before it went bad and my family would love every bite, dang it!
My heart won, as per usual, and I am here to give you my report. To sum it up, it was a very delicious, fun and memorable 15 days for our little family.
Let me just paint a picture for you. I grew up in the beautiful little potato farming town of Rupert, Idaho where every time I would come home to visit from college, I would feel at home as soon as I was driving along a road with beautiful fields with row after row of green potato plants, possibly with some dainty white blossoms on top. The windows would be rolled down and you could hear the faint, spaced-out tick, tick, tick of the sprinklers in the fields.
When I was about my kid’s age, every few months, two of us lucky kids would get to ride out to my uncle’s farm in my dad’s rusty old Chevy pickup and he did what any good, small-town guy would do when driving out on the highway—the classic two-finger wave above the steering wheel at every car that passed him.
The old radio would be turned to a fuzzy but beloved classic rock station, of course, and we’d just cruise on out there with the windows down. When we got to the farm, my dad would head into the potato cellar to fill his 5-gallon buckets with fresh potatoes covered in dirt and if we were lucky enough and my cousins were around, we might get to hop on their 4-wheelers and speed around the farm on the dirt roads and endless open grass fields.
That is a big part of why I love potatoes so much. They bring back such happy memories from my childhood. I live in California and can only buy whatever scraggly potatoes they sell in the tiny bags in the grocery stores, but I make the best of it to create happy memories for my family as well.
My goal was that at the end of that bag of potatoes, my children would say they loved potatoes and all would be right in the world!
The BEST funeral potatoes made from scratch.
First off we started out with some funeral potatoes with everything made from scratch for our holiday meal. I’m going to share the homemade cream of chicken soup at the end of the article because you’re going to want to start making that for any of your casseroles that call for it. It makes it SO much better!
Everyone loved the casserole with our yummy ham meal so I was thrilled! We were off to a great start!
Perfect hashbrowns for days. The second thing we had {a lot of} were perfect hash browns time and time again. The key to perfect hash browns is to par-cook your potatoes before you fry them. They get cooked all the way through and get kind of a little bit gooey on the inside, while staying perfectly crispy on the outside.
The kids loved the perfect hash browns each and every time so I was feeling pretty great at two-thirds of the way through our bag.
My very favorite potato salad. I can never have a bag of potatoes and not make potato salad. While red potatoes are my favorite to use for potato salad, Russets work perfectly too. While you might normally think of potato salad for the summertime with a nice slice of juicy watermelon and a perfectly charred, hot-off-the-grill burger, I love potato salad any time of year! Just make a delicious sandwich, have some chips and you are good to go any time of the year. Everybody loved this potato salad too.
By the end of the sack of potatoes, my kids all admitted that they now love potatoes and we were all happy from delicious meal after meal. I think a big part of this was because it was made with a little bit of extra love from Mom and my love for potatoes :)
Is there a particular dish or food that you absolutely love that your children hate{d}? Please share any and all thoughts in the comments below! In the meantime, I’m out to buy another 15 pounder and am dreaming all my other favorite potato dishes to make for sack number 2! :)
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon seasoning mix (or on your own, 1/2 tsp. onion powder, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. parsley, etc)
Directions:
Add Recipe to Cook'n
So basically, my head told me getting a 15 pound bag of potatoes would be nuts, but the rebellious/stubborn side of me, or my heart, said that I would get this bag of potatoes and use each and every one before it went bad and my family would love every bite, dang it!
My heart won, as per usual, and I am here to give you my report. To sum it up, it was a very delicious, fun and memorable 15 days for our little family.
Let me just paint a picture for you. I grew up in the beautiful little potato farming town of Rupert, Idaho where every time I would come home to visit from college, I would feel at home as soon as I was driving along a road with beautiful fields with row after row of green potato plants, possibly with some dainty white blossoms on top. The windows would be rolled down and you could hear the faint, spaced-out tick, tick, tick of the sprinklers in the fields.
When I was about my kid’s age, every few months, two of us lucky kids would get to ride out to my uncle’s farm in my dad’s rusty old Chevy pickup and he did what any good, small-town guy would do when driving out on the highway—the classic two-finger wave above the steering wheel at every car that passed him.
The old radio would be turned to a fuzzy but beloved classic rock station, of course, and we’d just cruise on out there with the windows down. When we got to the farm, my dad would head into the potato cellar to fill his 5-gallon buckets with fresh potatoes covered in dirt and if we were lucky enough and my cousins were around, we might get to hop on their 4-wheelers and speed around the farm on the dirt roads and endless open grass fields.
That is a big part of why I love potatoes so much. They bring back such happy memories from my childhood. I live in California and can only buy whatever scraggly potatoes they sell in the tiny bags in the grocery stores, but I make the best of it to create happy memories for my family as well.
My goal was that at the end of that bag of potatoes, my children would say they loved potatoes and all would be right in the world!
The BEST funeral potatoes made from scratch.
First off we started out with some funeral potatoes with everything made from scratch for our holiday meal. I’m going to share the homemade cream of chicken soup at the end of the article because you’re going to want to start making that for any of your casseroles that call for it. It makes it SO much better!
Everyone loved the casserole with our yummy ham meal so I was thrilled! We were off to a great start!
Perfect hashbrowns for days. The second thing we had {a lot of} were perfect hash browns time and time again. The key to perfect hash browns is to par-cook your potatoes before you fry them. They get cooked all the way through and get kind of a little bit gooey on the inside, while staying perfectly crispy on the outside.
The kids loved the perfect hash browns each and every time so I was feeling pretty great at two-thirds of the way through our bag.
My very favorite potato salad. I can never have a bag of potatoes and not make potato salad. While red potatoes are my favorite to use for potato salad, Russets work perfectly too. While you might normally think of potato salad for the summertime with a nice slice of juicy watermelon and a perfectly charred, hot-off-the-grill burger, I love potato salad any time of year! Just make a delicious sandwich, have some chips and you are good to go any time of the year. Everybody loved this potato salad too.
By the end of the sack of potatoes, my kids all admitted that they now love potatoes and we were all happy from delicious meal after meal. I think a big part of this was because it was made with a little bit of extra love from Mom and my love for potatoes :)
Is there a particular dish or food that you absolutely love that your children hate{d}? Please share any and all thoughts in the comments below! In the meantime, I’m out to buy another 15 pounder and am dreaming all my other favorite potato dishes to make for sack number 2! :)
Homemade cream of chicken soup
This is a super easy recipe for making your own homemade cream of chicken soup. Just four ingredients and sooo delicious!
Yield: Yield: 3 cups 1x
Serving size: 5
Calories per serving: 104
Ingredients:
Serving size: 5
Calories per serving: 104
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon seasoning mix (or on your own, 1/2 tsp. onion powder, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 1/2 tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. parsley, etc)
Directions:
Combine the chicken broth and 1/2 cup of the milk in a large saucepan. Bring to a low boil.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the flour and seasonings into the remaining 1 cup milk until a smooth, thick mixture forms.
Pour the flour and milk mixture into the saucepan with the broth mixture over low heat and stir continuously, whisking as the mixture simmers. Continue to simmer and stir/whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick, 5-10 minutes. The mixture will thicken a bit as it cools.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk the flour and seasonings into the remaining 1 cup milk until a smooth, thick mixture forms.
Pour the flour and milk mixture into the saucepan with the broth mixture over low heat and stir continuously, whisking as the mixture simmers. Continue to simmer and stir/whisk until the mixture is smooth and thick, 5-10 minutes. The mixture will thicken a bit as it cools.
Recipe formatted with the Cook'n Recipe Software from DVO Enterprises.
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Mary Richardson
Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2014
Email the author! mary@dvo.com
