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Saturday, November 15, 2008

That will do for sometime


As I was making dinner tonight, it struck me that although I have posted mashed potatoes on this blog before, I've never actually posted a recipe. The only reason I feel like this is important is because up until about two years ago, I honestly thought mashed potatoes were made by adding milk to potato flakes.

Okay. Maybe that's not true. I'm sure I knew they could be made from real potatoes, but we didn't really have mashed potatoes growing up. We were more baked potato kind of people. Or roasted potatoes - which we called "french fries."

This entry is was also inspired by something else I learned how to make in the past few years diet soda cake. Have you made one of these yet? Basically you sub diet soda for any oil/water in a boxed cake mix and you end up with a moister, more figure friendly cake. But the magical properties of diet soda don't end there. It's also fantastic as a marinade! And it's one of the only ways Thatboy will let me use diet soda. He has a hatred for the stuff. And in general, it's not a problem, because we don't have soda in the house on a regular basis, and artificial sweeteners have been on my "avoid" list for years now. But we always have some left over from parties, and this is a great way to use it up.

And speaking of getting Thatboy to ingest something he doesn't love... tonight I learned a very important lession. Adding sour cream to peas is not a great way to get Thatboy to eat his veggies. He was not a fan. Although he loved the addition of hardboiled egg, he said he would prefer them without the addition of sour cream. I wrote that down in my extra creepy "everything Thatboy likes" diary so I'll remember in the future. I really have difficulty explaining the black eyes. There's only so many times you can "run into a door."


Diet Soda Chicken
1 whole chicken, cut into eight pieces, with skin removed
1 can of diet soda (I used diet sunkist)
1/4 cup soy sauce
Preheat oven to 325. Place chicken on a foiled lined baking pan. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine soda and soy sauce. Pour over chicken.
Bake for one hour.
Serves 4.
Each serving has:
Calories 234.5
Total Fat 4.4 g
Total Carbohydrate 1.2 g
Protein 44.6 g



Basic Mashed Potatoes
3 redskin potatoes
1/4 cup milk
2 Tbsp butter
Peel potatoes and cut into quarters. Place potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water. Cover and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
Place potatoes in kitchen aid with milk and 1 Tbsp butter and beat until desired consistency is reached.
Add 1 Tbsp butter, and season with salt and pepper.
Serves 2.
Each serving has:
Calories 308.9
Total Fat 11.8 g
Saturated Fat 7.3 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5 g
Monounsaturated Fat 3.3 g
Cholesterol 31.7 mg
Sodium 32.8 mg
Potassium 1,128.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate 46.0 g
Dietary Fiber 5.6 g
Sugars 2.0 g
Protein 6.3 g



11 comments:

  1. When you cook with soda, does the caffeine burn off or remain in the food?

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  2. Ohh, weezer has a very good question...I can't wait to hear the answer to that as well. I love homemade mashed potatoes. I just can't hardly eat them out of a box.

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  3. I'm dying laughing right now. Here are my thoughts. Since cooking with coffee and chocolate does not remove the caffeine from a dish, I would imagine that heating at oven temperatures does not affect the chemical structure of the caffeine.

    When you use orange soda you don't have to worry about caffeine because it's caffeine free! Yay! Everybody's happy!

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  4. Come to think of it we used to get a lot of instant mashed potatoes at my home when I was a kid...instant scalloped potatoes too...you know the rehydrated kind. Funny how we grow up loving things when we don't know any better:D

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  5. I'm from a "potatoes come from a box" childhood too :)
    Looks great.

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  6. Oh no! I don't think I've ever had potato flakes! Drooling over the mashed potatoes!

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  7. Mmmm I love mashed potatoes! Too bad about the sour cream

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  8. i love mashed potatoes almost as much as i love bacon. ALMOST.

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  9. we only ever had mashed potatoes during holidays when i was growing up. i try to make them on a regular basis now to make up for that. ;)

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  10. This sounds great, so simple and easy to put together - I might just do this sometime for our Sunday roast.

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