Mashed Potatoes with Carrots and Kale
I have officially given up feeling guilty for eating potatoes everyday.
I have wrestled with my potato addiction for a few years now. Having an Irish Papa who didn’t really like any other starchy carbs, potatoes were pretty much a staple at every meal in my household. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks – you name it and we were eatin’ spuds. But, when I started venturing down my current path of healthy eating, I discovered that potatoes may not be the best food in the whole world for me to be chowin’ down on a couple meals a day. They have a pretty darn high glycemic index, especially russet potatoes, meaning sugar spikes and more work for your pancreas. Plus, they are white and it’s always been my understanding that you should always “Just Say No” to any white foods, i.e. sugar, white flour, white rice, etc.
But, I crave them. I don’t really eat a whole lot of grain, so when I want something starchy, I want taters. Baked, mashed, roasted, gratineed, dauphinois-ed. Anyway you can eat ‘em, I want ‘em.
So, I set out to find ways to justify my tuber-addiction. First off, I found that potatoes have a surprising amount of nutrition in them. One potato (2 grams of potato with skin) contains as much fiber as most whole grain breads and nearly 50% of your daily allowance of Vitamin C. They contain tons of potassium, Vitamin B6 and trace minerals, including thiamin, riboflavin, folate, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc. And, just recently, the United Nations officially declared the year 2008 as the International Year of the Potato in order to “increase awareness of the importance of the potato as a food in developing nations” and calling the vegetable a “hidden treasure”.
How could I possibly deny a vegetable that has a whole year dedicated to it?!
Finding all of this information certainly made me feel better, but I wanted to take it one step further. I had seen recipes for mashed potatoes with other stuff mashed into them, so I decided to do that and up the nutritional value of one of my favorite foods even more. I made my normal batch of mashed potatoes, but I threw some carrots into the boiling water with the potatoes and added finely chopped kale at the end. The result was this mashed comfort food that was actually good for me!
MASHED POTATOES WITH CARROTS AND KALE
serves four hungry folks as a side dish
5 Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed clean and cut into 1 inch pieces
4 small carrots, scrubbed clean and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 Tbs. butter or Earth Balance
1/4 – 1/3 cup plain goat yogurt, plain soy yogurt, sour cream, or Tofutti Sour Cream
1/2 tsp. granulated onion
1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
1 cup finely chopped kale leaves
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1. Throw the potatoes and carrots into a big pot of boiling salted water. Cook until they are super tender, about 15-20 minutes.
2. Drain the water and add the veggies back to the pot. Over a very low flame, add the butter, yogurt, onion and garlic. Mash it all up together. Once all of the big chunks are mashed out, stir in the kale and season with salt and pepper. Cover and remove from the heat. Set aside for about 5 minutes or until the kale is wilted.
3. Put a big scoop in your bowl. Wrap yourself in your favorite cozy blanket and plop yourself down on the couch. Turn on any movie starring Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, and/or Hugh Grant and chow down, guilt-free.
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Hey Rachel- We ate stuff like this in Holland all the time. It’s called stampot and the one we ate the most is with kale. Another nice combo was onions and carrots- very sweet. And my mother-in-law made one with sauerkraut and pineapple-not a fan! They were usually served with some kind of meat and a gravy, but we usually made it veggie.