Today I made the mock-potatoes recipe listed below. Here are a few important notes I want to add for anyone who has yet to make them.
1. BE SURE TO BLOT! So, I admit I'm impatient. I blotted the cooked cauliflower a few times and called it good. Nope. It wasn't. In fact, next time, I think I may actually let the cauliflower sit on the counter a while for some of the moisture to evaporate. Be sure to get out as much moisture as you can before you make these or they will be RUNNY!
2. Vegetable broth added great flavor, but even though I used the concentrate, it added enough moisture to make my already runny 'potatoes' TOO RUNNY. And, if you don't love the taste of vegetables (if you want it to taste more like real potatoes) skip the vege broth altogether.
3. So, I smashed them with a masher first and didn't like the consistency so I put them in my blender. That was an epic fail. Unless you have a Blendtec or a Vegematic or whatever (something better than my 10 dollar Walmart blender), then trying to blend them is useless. The blades spin and nothing happens.
4. I decided that, in order to thicken the mixture, I'd add tofu. I added about 6 oz of super firm tofu, WELL DRAINED. That helped and didn't change the flavor (plus added protein). I plan to use tofu with mine from now on.
5. The mixture was STILL too runny so I gently spooned it into a small rectangular baking dish and put it in the oven on 200 degrees for about an hour, hour and a half, stirring gently every 30 minutes. I kept the temperature low because I was worried I'd over-cook them, when really, all I was trying to do was get out extra moisture.
Guess what? That seemed to do the trick. The final product was similar in color and texture to instant mashed potatoes, although it wouldn't fool anyone, especially once they tasted them. It still tasted really good, actually. Now that I've made them once (and made mistakes), I think I can do a much better job next time. Just remember to BLOT BLOT BLOT. And try adding tofu--I'm glad I did, and like I said, I'll do that from now on.
I tried to load a photo of my dish, but my phone is being dumb...so I'll try to post it later.
I read through all of your recipes. I'm going to try all of them, except maybe the cauliflower potatoes because Spain has such wonderful yellow (healthy) potatoes. I'm also going to post another picture of the layered Tex-Mex lasagna, which makes it look better. My first batch of photos didn't do it justice.
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