Idahoan instant potatoes

I know, the title of of this blog is "learning how to cook..." and I haven't actually posted anything that I've cooked recently. File this under "other kitchen adventures."

I've always been a mashed potato purist. Instant mashed potatoes were the devil at my house. They did not reside in my family's pantry, ever. I've had the instant kind of potatoes in school lunches, and I remember them being sticky, yet with a gritty mouth feel. Compared to the only other kind of mashed potatoes I've had, my mom's, they were nothing I'd ever consider bringing into my kitchen.

Then, I had an persistent cranky wisdom tooth get infected and eating became even more challenging. Soft foods were the only thing on the menu for a while. Soup and yogurt got real old, real quick. I needed comfort food that was going to make me feel full. The solution? Mashed potatoes.

I don't know if you've ever had an infected wisdom tooth, but they are darn painful. The only worse pain I've been in was tonsillitis, and this was pretty up there on the pain scale. There was no way, in my misery, that I was going to chop and peel potatoes, boil them, then mash them. I wanted to sit on my butt and zonk out on pain meds, which ironically, I was too scared to take. I'm such a weenie.

Anyway, desperate times call for desperate measures. I reluctantly picked up a package of instant mashed potatoes. The only ones in the store that said "gluten free" on the package were Idahoan potatoes.

I took them, home, grumbled at my own traitor-ism, and in about 5 minutes I sat down with a bowl. To my great surprise, they were really good! Maybe because I hadn't eaten anything substantial in a few days, but they were delicious. Some of the flavors are a little on the salty side, but honestly I expect that in a processed, instant type of dish. I don't plan on making them a regular thing, but in a pinch, they do just fine. I just had to post, because I was so surprised that they were tasty.