Foley Mashed Potatoes

This is an old family recipe, so shhhhh, don’t tell anyone else.

Don grew up on these potatoes, and it’s on the top five (of about five) recipes he got from his folks and still serves to this day. We have this about once every two or three months, almost always with home-made fried chicken or baked ham.

It’s incredibly simple. Serving is for 4 people. ANY left-overs should be used for hash-browns with ham omelets.

Ingredients

4 medium potatoes, or 3 large. Baking variety. Pealed. Cut in 1/2 inch slices.

1 tsp Poultry Seasoning (more or less, never really measured…make it heaping)

3 Tbs margarine

1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper (guessing here, that sounds about right

1/4 cup milk.

Directions

Put the potatoes in boiling water for about 30 minutes. You want them still formed, but soft (poke a fork in them). You DO NOT want them mush.

Drain well. Get rid of all the water, or you’ll have the mash too mushy. Put back in the pan, but if you’re burner is hot, don’t put back on the burner. Put in your margarine and the poultry seasoning and pepper, pour in the milk.

Using a hand beater, beat the mix until most (if not all) of the lumps are gone. If you cooked your potatoes well, it should be creamy with no (or few) lumps, but still hold it’s own form (not pudding). Changing the milk input might change this. If it’s too solid, add a little milk. If it’s too creamy…well, next time don’t put in so much milk or don’t over-boil your potatoes. It’ll still be good.

Obviously the secret here is the poultry seasoning. The old recipe added salt to the boiling water, but we try to hold off on the salt, and feel the margarine has enough.

Experiment with the volume of the ingredients. We just do it by sight and we’re just estimating volumes. BUT, we seldom have left-overs. If we do, save them and toss them in a non-stick pan in the morning and press them flat with a spatula. Instant hash-browns.