Please help with my boring catering queries - mash for 12 on Boxing Day

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We will be out visiting our families for much of Christmas Day so I like to spend Boxing Day morning playing with the children and looking at all their new things etc. But I will be catering for 12 later in the day and decided that rather than a buffet I would do sausage and mash with roast veg and Nigella's cumin, onion and red wine gravy followed by some yummy puddings.

BUT.... I don't want to spend all Boxing Day peeling potatoes. Can I make the mash beforehand? Should I fridge or freeze? What is the best way to reheat? Could I put it in casserole dishes and grate some cheese on top and stick it in the oven? Would it heat through OK that way?

Please

If you have a slow cooker you could reheat it in that on a low setting. I have used my to keep mash warm, and it works well.

You could do a trial run with a smaller amount of mash.

You can buy ready made mash in the fridge section at the supermarket, so I'm sure that would be the best way to store it.

I do have a slow cooker which I had thought about putting the gravy in. But I could put that in a normal pan and reheat quite easily. Will it not stick though?

If you have any room left in oven you could slow bake some of them in jackets then just scoop out and super quick mash them up with butter and serve the crispy skins separately. My dc love this, but maybe they are odd!

You could also do some of the mash as carrot/potato mash (or swede, or butternut squash) which still means lots of peeling, but at least not all potatoes!

Or, why not do some plain rice and as well as mash? Should still go well with saus and roast veg.

Good luck.

Good ideas - I have all those sort of veg in - well they are in my veg box order. I think I will need to ensure that I do have some plaing mash as well though for the fussy ones amongst us.

Heat the milk and heat the butter before you put it in the mash, it makes a world of difference.

boring???
just make sure you use old floury potatoes liike king edwards

mash can go very soggy and spongy so you need a high carb potatoe

and when you mash it, do drain the potatoes and put them back in the cooking pan over gentle heat so the moisture evaporates and mash the on the heat.

then drench with butter and full cream milk and keep in the pan on the stove and then just heat up gently and let the gravy be the real heating agent. No one minds mash and less than 60 degrees C and if they do then send them to the local BP for a pot noodle

yeah, she's right
she's got years of tradition behind her
but not hte 1860s when they were a bit thin on the ground

what about just having jacket spuds instead of mash?
just a thought

or smash

I meant the query was boring not the mash. Now you have got me worried because I was planning on using my veg box potatoes and I am almost certain they are not KEs. Will check on website. I was planning on using single cream rather than milk. Is it better not to make it beforehand then?

And I just don't get your second post suzy.

brie is Irish
the potato famine happened in the 1860s

look, at this time of year, all guests are grateful to have ANYTHING made with consideration and care

no one is going to kick up if the mash is not perfect.

chill and good luck

OK right with you now. Yes, I suppose the Irish should be good on potatoes.

We are indeed experts, it was all we had, then we had nuffin. One of the worlds poorest countries starving to death on the doorstep of one of the richest. Incredible. It would not happen today.

They don't stick in the slow cooker; but you have to have it on low.

Get a potato ricer from Lakeland, the best thing ever recommended to me on MN, realy easy to mash potatoes and they have no lumps.

Put butter in the empty pot and mash the potatoes via the ricer into it and make the milk really hot.

I have reheated mash in the microwave mainy a time and it has been fine. Rope everyone into peeling too.

Aha I am ahead of the game here for I already have a potato ricer....