What to do with a mountain of somewhat questionable potatoes?
June 7, 2014 7:10 PM Subscribe
I just bought a 10-pound bag of potatoes for super cheap. Yay! On closer inspection, a whole bunch of them are about to go really bad. boo. Please give me your best recipes for quickly turning a whole lot of potatoes into something tasty!
I've already used this recipe to turn about half the bag into enough curry for the next month, but I've still got 5 pounds left, and making even more curry sounds like a good way to to get really sick of curry. I've read through this question, but seeing as it involved red potatoes and I have russet burbanks, a lot of the recipes featured within aren't optimal.
I'm looking for things that can be made in one or two large batches and can freeze and reheat well, since I cook primarily for myself.
I've already used this recipe to turn about half the bag into enough curry for the next month, but I've still got 5 pounds left, and making even more curry sounds like a good way to to get really sick of curry. I've read through this question, but seeing as it involved red potatoes and I have russet burbanks, a lot of the recipes featured within aren't optimal.
I'm looking for things that can be made in one or two large batches and can freeze and reheat well, since I cook primarily for myself.
Best answer: Shred, parboil, freeze flat in bags. Voila hash browns. You could also dice/parboil/freeze for soup and stews.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:25 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Lyn Never at 7:25 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Potato soup.
Potato+water+heat=soup, various other recipes can be found with a simple search.
You can make it plain and freeze it, adding fresh ingredients when you decide to eat it.
posted by FallowKing at 7:34 PM on June 7, 2014
Potato+water+heat=soup, various other recipes can be found with a simple search.
You can make it plain and freeze it, adding fresh ingredients when you decide to eat it.
posted by FallowKing at 7:34 PM on June 7, 2014
I've never frozen this, so I don't know how it holds up that way. But for thanksgiving I make mashed potatoes with goat cheese, bacon and red onion. It's one of best things I've ever come up with, anyway. For five pounds of potatoes, I'd make the mashed potatoes as per usual (2 cups ish of milk, stick of butter, salt, pepper) then add 6 oz goat cheese, half a red onion finely diced, and a pound of bacon, baked until crispy but not burnt. If you only want to do some of the potatoes this way, adjust amounts as necessary, but trust me: red onion, bacon and goat cheese are the peanut butter to mashed potato's chocolate.
posted by Diablevert at 7:57 PM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Diablevert at 7:57 PM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
If you have a small toaster oven, you might consider making a large batch of par-baked steak fries, and then freeze them. When you're ready to eat, just pop a few in a toaster oven to brown them up.
posted by scalespace at 8:03 PM on June 7, 2014
posted by scalespace at 8:03 PM on June 7, 2014
Best answer: Pirogies. They're a pain in the ass, but five pounds of filling will get you a goodly amount of pirogies, and they freeze like a dream. For five pounds of potato, I'd finely chop about a pound of onions and sautee them in a pound of butter, cooking them over very low heat until the onions are translucent.
While that's happening, peel and boil your potatoes. Drain them and mash them--don't add milk--and then pour in the onion-butter stuff. You can add cheese (either grated or diced), or vegetables, or whatever. My family likes cheddar, and brie + mushroom (sautee the mushrooms first) has gone over *phenomenally* well. Broccoli-cheddar have gone good, too.
Let the filling cool while you make noodles, or do noodles the next day--googling pirogie dough will get you a bunch of results, and you can go with one you like best. (My preference is sour cream dough--like, say, 1 egg, 1/2 c sour cream, and 2c flour, plus some salt and milk enough to make a dough.) Roll the dough out, cut it into circles, put a blob of potato into the middle of the circle and seal the edges. Boil the pirogies until they float, and then freeze them on cookie trays until they're hard enough that they won't stick together. I package them into ziplocks with about a serving per baggie. To serve, you can either just reheat them or sautee them with butter and onion until they're browned up a bit.
Sometimes when I'm super lazy, I make seashell pirogie, which is the filling recipe above put into boiled and drained seashell noodles, like you'd do for stuffed shells. Brown the noodles a bit before heading to the table.
posted by MeghanC at 8:13 PM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
While that's happening, peel and boil your potatoes. Drain them and mash them--don't add milk--and then pour in the onion-butter stuff. You can add cheese (either grated or diced), or vegetables, or whatever. My family likes cheddar, and brie + mushroom (sautee the mushrooms first) has gone over *phenomenally* well. Broccoli-cheddar have gone good, too.
Let the filling cool while you make noodles, or do noodles the next day--googling pirogie dough will get you a bunch of results, and you can go with one you like best. (My preference is sour cream dough--like, say, 1 egg, 1/2 c sour cream, and 2c flour, plus some salt and milk enough to make a dough.) Roll the dough out, cut it into circles, put a blob of potato into the middle of the circle and seal the edges. Boil the pirogies until they float, and then freeze them on cookie trays until they're hard enough that they won't stick together. I package them into ziplocks with about a serving per baggie. To serve, you can either just reheat them or sautee them with butter and onion until they're browned up a bit.
Sometimes when I'm super lazy, I make seashell pirogie, which is the filling recipe above put into boiled and drained seashell noodles, like you'd do for stuffed shells. Brown the noodles a bit before heading to the table.
posted by MeghanC at 8:13 PM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
Ikea food halls teach us that rosti freezes respectably well.
(Frying seems to be the way to go for the majority of potato freezing; it is a fussy root that can easily come out of the freezer mealy, and lousy.)
posted by kmennie at 8:18 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
(Frying seems to be the way to go for the majority of potato freezing; it is a fussy root that can easily come out of the freezer mealy, and lousy.)
posted by kmennie at 8:18 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Buy a bunch of leeks. Make leek and potato soup. It freezes great.
posted by fshgrl at 10:50 PM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 10:50 PM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Little tubs of frozen mashed potatoes reheat beautifully for lazy evenings for dinner!
posted by shazzam! at 1:09 AM on June 8, 2014
posted by shazzam! at 1:09 AM on June 8, 2014
Seconding gnocchi! It's not something I would want to make from scratch everytime, but it's a great experience, a lot of fun, and soooo much better than you can get in a store. For efficiency's sake, a bigger batch of gnocchi is always better than a small one, so you've got what it takes!
posted by whatzit at 6:19 AM on June 8, 2014
posted by whatzit at 6:19 AM on June 8, 2014
Response by poster: Holy shit those pirogis sound ridiculously good. If I don't make them now I'm definitely making them in the near future.
But right now I just want to get these things into a freezable form as quickly as possible, so I think I'm parboiling them for roast potatoes later. Thank you everyone for your recommendations!
posted by Dante Riordan at 7:06 PM on June 8, 2014
But right now I just want to get these things into a freezable form as quickly as possible, so I think I'm parboiling them for roast potatoes later. Thank you everyone for your recommendations!
posted by Dante Riordan at 7:06 PM on June 8, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
also, gnocchi!
posted by kerning at 7:23 PM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]