Rutabagas as sub for mashed potato?

amother

Wed, Dec 18 2019, 10:41 am

I have tried mashing different veggies to replace mashed potatoes--cauliflower, parsnips, turnips. None of them have the right texture and taste.

Have you done this with rutabagas? What else can I do with rutabagas? I have a large supply sitting around.

Thank you.

zaq

Wed, Dec 18 2019, 7:10 pm

Sorry, but nothing that isn’t a potato will sub for a mashed potato except a mashed sweet potato, and even then the taste is different. Maybe better, but still different.

A better bet is to be honest with yourself and learn to like parsnips, yams, rutabaga and cauliflower. It’s thinking of it as a mashed potato substitute that causes the disappointment. Like the old ad “It’s not fake anything, it’s real Dynel”—you’re better off being honest about what it is than trying to persuade yourself it’s fake something else.

I learned this early on in HS when I tried a WW recipe for “legal” popcorn. This was back when popcorn was not allowed. The recipe called for cutting up raw cauliflower into tiny pieces and tossing in a bowl with some salt and other seasonings. If you cut it up real small (you could burn 1000 calories just cutting it up) and you put on your grandmother’s smeary glasses and looked at it in a room lit only by a TV screen, it did sort of look like popcorn. But tongues are smarter than eyes. They know cauliflower ain’t popcorn. Better to be honest and call it a veggie bowl than to call it “legal” popcorn. My momma didn’t raise no fool and neither did yours.