Creamy Ranch Mashed Potatoes

Even though boxed mashed potatoes are super convenient, making your own mashed potatoes isn't that difficult. Plus, at least you know it's made from fresh potatoes and there's minimal to no preservative in that big bowl of creamy mashed potatoes.

I am not going to deny that I have used boxed mashed potatoes during my college years but ever since I saw how easy was it to make it on my own.. I never looked back!

For hubby's birthday, I decided to make him some Chicken Marsala and to go along it, some mashed potatoes. I wanted to just make the mash potatoes a little fancy and decided to add some ranch dressing to it. Here's the recipe!

RANCH MASHED POTATOES RECIPE
*Serves 3-4

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb Red Skin Potatoes (or your choice)
• 1/2 Cup Half & Half
• 1/4 Cup Ranch Dressing
• 2-3 Cloves Garlic, Finely Minced
• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 1 Tsp Chopped Parsley
• Salt 
• Ground Black Pepper

Method
Peel potatoes, cut them into halves ( or cubes for shorter cooking time) and place them into a medium pot. Fill pot with enough water to cover the potatoes and 2 tsp of salt. Let the potatoes boil over medium high heat and cook until potatoes are soft and fall apart when you stick a fork into it.

Drain potatoes, then add minced garlic, half & half, ranch dressing and butter. Mash the mixture together then add chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately with your favorite meat.

Enjoy!

June's Notes: If you have some left over mash potatoes (lets say maybe a little over 1/2 cup) like I did, turn them into some potato croquet appetizers the next day! All you need is some panko bread crumbs ( about 1/2 Cup), 1 egg beaten, and oil for shallow frying. All you need to do is to divide the mashed potatoes into 4 portions, roll them into ball and gently flatten them into a disk while making sure the edges are nice and smooth.  Then dip, the potato discs into the egg mixture, and then into the panko bread crumbs. Make sure the potato dics are well coated with the panko breadcrumbs. In a frying pan, heat oil enough for shallow frying over medium heat. Once oil is hot, place the potato croquettes into the pan and fry until golden brown before gently turning over the croquettes over to fry the other side. Remove once both sides are golden brown and serve warm! 

Simply June