This carrot potato mash was a happy accident.
I’ve been doing Mariano’s pick up groceries since I am not on Day 11 of no results yet of my COVID test. The sweet girl who did my shopping called me and said “we don’t have any one pound bag of carrots, can I substitute a pound of baby carrots?
Um, the question to that answer will always be “no thank you.” Hamsters should be the only ones eating baby carrots – has!
I told her to get me a bigger bag of bagged carrots if she could. And when I got home and opened my grocery bag, I was gifted a FIVE POUND BAG of carrots. So that’s how the carrot mash potatoes came to be – I am going to be making ALL THINGS CARROTS this week. (When it gets colder outside, I am going to make my braised beef with carrots).
And as I type this, I may or may not have a batch of carrot cake pancakes waiting to be cooked. Stay tuned for that.
You do you recipe develop?
Here is how I start out recipe developing. I search existing recipes. Um, turns out a lot of people went a very sweet route on mashed carrots adding maple syrup, cinnamon and brown sugar.
The carrots are already sweet, and that didn’t appeal to me at all. I also thought I wanted to add potato to get it the consistency I wanted – like a mashed potato, not baby food carrot puree. And I added crushed red pepper to balance the sweetness.
I peeled the potato and not the carrots. The internet will tell you that peeling carrots strips away some of the nutrients. But you are peeling such a thin layer, you aren’t really missing much by doing that. I
don’t find the carrot skin to have a bitter taste, so it boils down to personal preference. Also, it’s a lot easier to just leave it on. 😀
Carrot Potato Mash
A delicious side dish to beef, chicken or pork. This carrot mash is slightly sweet with a hit of spicy from the crushed red pepper.
Ingredients
- 9 ounces potato, peeled and cut into cubes
- 9 ounces carrot, cut into cubes
- 1 tablespoon I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
- 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (adjust to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
Put water in a stock pot. Add potatoes and carrots. Bring to a boil, cook for 5 minutes, remove from heat, put a lid on and let sit for 15 minutes. The veggies will be fork tender.
Drain the veggies. Add the butter, milk and seasonings and using a potato masher or stick blender, blend until smooth. Add additional salt to taste.
Notes
To check the WW points for your plan, click HERE! Currently on my plan as of November 2023, each serving is only ONE WW point!
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size: 3/4 cupAmount Per Serving: Calories: 89Total Fat: 3gSaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 99mgCarbohydrates: 15gFiber: 4gSugar: 3gProtein: 2g
How to cook petite sirloin.
The cut of steak I used is called a petite sirloin. It’s closer to the rump so the internet will tell you that this cut is best for braising or roasting. But it’s a steak – how do you braise a half pound of beef without cooking it to death?
So I treat it as I would a sirloin steak. Some tips about cooking beef:
(1) let the steak come to room temperature before cooking. Never put a cold steak into a hot pan.
(2) salt the beef within two minutes of cooking or after 40 minutes. Within two minutes the salt still remains on the top and will sear into the meat.
Left longer than that, the salt starts to wick out the moisture in the beef. After forty minutes though, the juices will have reabsorbed into the meat and you are good to go.
(3) cook with a meat thermometer. I cooked my beef to 120 before removing it to rest. That only took 3 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other to get to that temperature.
For my chimichurri sauce: 1 cup cilantro, 4 tablespoons grapeseed oil, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 4 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar free orange marmalade. Yes, you read that correctly – the orange marmalade balances the acidity of the cilantro and vinegar in the best way possible.
I suppose you could add honey, but I’ve not tried that. I just put all the ingredients in a wide mouth mason jar and used a stick blender to blend. You only need a teaspoon drizzled over the steak – 1 point on all WW plans and only 26 calories of delicious flavor.
While I wish I was at a restaurant being served this meal with a nice glass of cabernet sauvignon, I had to make do and make it myself, and drink seltzer water since I am on Day 20 of #dryjuly.
If I were to have this steak dinner at a restaurant I am sure I would have spent $50 and up depending on where I went. This dish cost me approximately $4.12. Um, last time I checked, you can’t get McDonalds for that price.
I hope you try this carrot potato mash. Oh, and I realized people will ask me about the green beans and mushrooms. I simply saute the mushrooms in avocado oil spray with salt and pepper. The green beans I cooked in the microwave for 1 minute, then added them to the cast iron skillet when the steak came out to get a bit of char, and added salt and pepper. That’s it!
This literally was about 20 minutes to make from beginning to end. I hope you give this a try – tag me on Instagram if you do!
Until next time, Be Kind, Be Fearless, Have Hope – Love, Biz
What a genius way to use carrots! Must give that a try. Looks delicious.
So happy to see this post! I know you don’t blog as much so I really appreciate the extra time and effort you take when you do. Carrot mash sounds amazing and since my daughter and I are transitioning to a primarily plant based diet I am on the lookout for good recipes and trust you not to make food that taste like a$$. I am curious why not baby carrots? What secret insights do you have on them ?
I’ve heard that baby carrots are soaked in water that contains chlorine and no carrot looks perfect like baby carrots!!! Plus the taste of a real carrot way surpasses that of a baby carrot! But that’s just what I’ve read and how can you believe anything on the internet anymore!
Interesting!
Hi Kym! Trying to get back into the swing of blogging – it’s just such a different flow of my time now that I am working from home. It was easy to blog on my hour train ride to work!
They strip down the best parts of the carrots to get baby carrots. You and your daughter should try to do side by side comparisons – the loose or full carrots have so much more flavor!