Mashed Potatoes with Fresh Basil, Blue Cheese and Greek Yogurt

Know what those are?

Those are the Mashed Potatoes that won the Tastemaker 2K10 Cook off Challenge at Blissdom.

and they’re mine.

I can’t even begin to put into words how much fun the Tastemaker Challenge was.  Crazy, loud, exhilarating, insane, silly, fun, tasty…

They did such a good job driving us crazy keeping the details secret!  They had great shirts made for us that said “Team (tastemaker’s name)

There might have been a bit of competition between the Tastemaker fans, as you can see with Tanis and Casey

However, no potatoes were harmed during this picture but MANY were consumed by the hungry crowd in the form of the Mashed Potato Bar and the signature Potato Vodka cocktails.

We were given 20 minutes, a secret ingredient, a ‘style’ mashed, baked etc… and a table full of possibilities to use as well as already cooked potatoes.

My secret ingredient was fresh basil!  My first thought.. SCORE!  Y’all know that I love me some Basil!!!

I grabbed some of my favorite ingredients:

• potatoes
• greek yogurt (NOM)
• blue cheese crumbles
• tabasco
• kosher salt and pepper
• fresh basil
• a lemon
• butter

And I got to workin’ it

My fellow tastemakers were AWESOME and the competition was fierce!!!   I had more fun with this Tastemaker Challenge Process and the live cook off was like the loaded toppings on a hot perfectly cooked baked potato.

Enough chatter.. y’all want the recipe, right? RIGHT!

K.. tiny side note.. this was a challenge, I was time crunched.. the exact portions are a bit ‘iff-ish’

• 4 medium potatoes (110 calories each) (HOLLA to my Team Rachel girl SARAH who knew that when asked!)
• greek yogurt ( 1/2 C-ish)
• butter ( 2 Tbsp)
• salt and pepper
• fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 C blue cheese crumbles (this may have ended up being a cup……)
• 1 lemon’
• tabasco (y’all know it’s up to you.. I added 6 drops)
• chicken broth to moisten (milk works, too but we didn’t have any)

1. Your potatoes should be cooked (keep in mind that in the pics and for the challenge, I served my mashed potatoes in the skins of more potatoes for aesthetics.. if you want to do this, you’ll need more than 4 potatoes)
2. Finely chop 5 basil leaves (I roll them together and then chop them, much easier) if anyone took a pic of me doing that.. I’d love it!
3. Put your potatoes (yes, with the skin) in a bowl and mash the livin’ daylights out of them.
4. Add in greek yogurt, 1/2 C blue cheese crumbles, 2 tsp salt and pepper, add in basil, dashes of tabasco and some chicken broth, veggie broth or milk to moisten and the juice from 1/2 a lemon.
5. Mash some more and mix some more.. do a little hot potato dance or the mashed potato while you’re at it.

6.  Because this was a cook off challenge and we were being judged on Creativity, Taste, Health, Visual and Crowd Participation (seriously y’all.. the crowd was amazing.  The Blissdom bloggers ROCKED that party).. I purtied mine up by serving them inside the scooped out skin of two more potatoes.

7.  I filled the skins with my mashed potato mixture, topped each with a basil leaf, a bit more blue cheese, some salt and pepper and a teeny squeeze more lemon juice.

They were nommy!!!!!

I have to give a supah star shout-out to my amazing roomie Jo-Lynne because her stupendous videos won her the FAN FAVORITE award at the Tastemaker Challenge!!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who came out to support us, to the AMAZING team at Fleishman-Hillard for putting this ridiculously fun event and project together and to the United States Potato Board, this was one of the highlights of my 2009 and a seriously amazing way to kick off 2010!!!

A special thank you to my fellow tastemakers; Melanie., Jo-Lynne, Jen, Melanie, Jodi, Jim, Amy and Lindsay,  it has been my honor, privilege and joy to work with y’all.

If you’re linkin up to Mouthwatering Mondays, YAY!  Say HI, leave a comment and leave your recipe URL in the MckLinky.. visit other MWM participants and make sure to link back here so that others can share in the love.

super thank you to Casey, Jessi, Heather, Sarah and Lotus for taking pictures and letting me use them! xoxo