Puh-tay-toh or Puh-tah-toh?

By : Jenny Pena

If you have been seeing the pattern in our winter boxes you will notice the consistency on one vegetable: POTATOES. But I have to admit I didn’t really think there where so many types; I knew about the purple ones thanks to JetBlue ☺ but before then I thought they were always yellow. The great thing about potatoes is that they are easy to store and comforting during winter months but what are we to do with all these potatoes and can we even get tired of them?

Here are my personal favorite ways to use different types of potatoes:

Sweet Potatoes – known to be nutrient dense, I personally enjoy them cubed and roasted or cooked in the air fryer with some oil and salt. But having a picky toddler, I mix boiled and mashed sweet potatoes to pancake mix and call it “orange pancakes” – he eats them and also gets some nutrients. See a 2-ingredient recipe here or do what I do; I just add one or two tablespoons of mashed potatoes to the “Just Add water” pancake mix and make it a bit healthier.

Yellow Potatoes – I love to make mashed potatoes. Goes excellent with pretty much any protein and they heat up well so it is perfect for batch cooking and easily paired with salad or pan-fried broccoli in olive oil and some garlic. This is one of my favorite ways to make mashed potatoes but a bit of milk or cream or even butter and salt can make them delicious

Purple Potatoes – I found this purple mashed potatoes recipe while researching on what can be special about these colorful ones; apparently they are higher in potassium and serve as antioxidant. See the recipe and some interesting details here. 

These are creamy and for Easter Weekend I decided to experiment and make potato salad using the purple potatoes, carrots included in this week’s box as well as some yellow potatoes I had from previous box. I have to say I love the combination of colors: orange (from the carrots), yellow (from the regular potatoes) and purple (from the purple potatoes; everyone loved it and it was a hit.

I want to share my own recipe below; I didn’t really take measurements but feel free to adjust.

Jenny’s Simple Potato Salad

• 2-3 medium carrots – peeled and diced (If organic, at times I just brush them and dice without peeling them but that’s your choice)
• 2-3 medium purple potatoes – peeled and diced
• 2-3 medium potatoes – peeled and diced
• 2-3 eggs – to boil and later chop to add to cooked potatoes and carrots
• 1 medium onion (red or yellow) – diced and marinating in a bit of salt, vinegar and drizzle of olive oil (you can use lemon as well)
• 2-3 Tbsp. mayonnaise (adjust to taste)

Boil all veggies with a bit of salt until soft (Probably boiling about 15-20 mins but check).

Drain the water from the potatoes and add the chopped boiled eggs (You can boil the eggs with the potatoes, just rinse them before and make sure you add them when water is still cold).

Add the onions (only the onions, keep marinate oil for later if needed) and mayonnaise and mix.

If you would like, add a bit of the liquid where the onions were marinated and taste to adjust salt content.

ENJOY!

 

Also, I would like to encourage you to try and make homemade mayo. If you have not had homemade mayonnaise this is something you must try. My biggest tip is to use extra LIGHT olive oil, if you use the extra virgin (I’ve been there and done that) the flavor would be too strong and to add the oil slowly to allow the emulsification to do the magic. Here is a simple recipe from nocrumbsleft’s blog.