Toys in the Kitchen - Part 6, and Mashed Potatoes

In November leading up to Thanksgiving, stores carry a lot of kitchen gadgets and small appliances because, of course, everybody is going crazy getting ready for Turkey Day and the related cooking frenzy.  This past November I picked up a couple of inexpensive but really handy items.

Don't these look like torture devices?

I'd been wanting (needing!) a way to lift large roasts out of the slow cooker or roasting pan.  Using a couple of serving forks just wasn't cutting it - half the time the meat would fall back into the pot or pan, making a mess and getting myself burned. 

In one of those pre-Thanksgiving ads, I saw just the thing - turkey lifters - big ol' forks I sure wouldn't want to be poked with.  Since I bought them, I've used them on beef roasts, pork loins, corned beef, pork ribs, and yes, believe it or not, even a turkey!

The ricer - you'll develop a firm
grip using this gadget!

The other thanksgiving gadget I bought is a potato ricer.  I'd read somewhere that was the way to make the best mashed potatoes.  You boil the potatoes until they're tender, then squish them through the ricer, add milk and butter and stir them up.  They come out fluffy like mashed potatoes should, without lumps.  Using the ricer avoids overworking the potatoes and making them gluey.

Mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes!

We don't have mashed potatoes very often because I've never felt like mine are consistently good.  Well, no more!  Here's the last batch I made with the ricer.

Mom's old cookbook.
It still works - LOL!

I had to look up exactly what to do, so I dug out Mom's old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, probably the most popular one at the time of its printing.  This is the 1953 First Edition, Eighth Printing.  It's older than I am!  As you can see, it's a three-ring binder.  In the Better Homes and Gardens magazine, the recipe pages were meant to be cut out and inserted into your cookbook, so it was a living document - a continual work in progress.

Here are the pages that describe how to make mashed potatoes.  Not really a recipe - just directions.  Leafing through the pages is like getting into a time machine like in Back to the Future.  Culture shock!