 The meeting is called to order. How would you like this for smashing potatoes? Well, actually, some of our volunteers are going to use this to smash potatoes today. Garrett Erickson, library director, city of Sheboygan, Meade Library is the sous chef today. Thank you, Garrett, my God. Thank you. And he said, Marilyn, I don't know how to cook. I said, you don't have to. I can smash potatoes. I know that. Yeah, right. And he brought some pertinent books from the library and tell them they can check them out today. Yeah, and so I just brought a piece of paper. And if someone has an active library card, go ahead and put the barcode on from the back of the book, as well as your name and barcode from your library card, and I'll make sure they get checked out. So you could go ahead and take any of those if you'd like. And just know that we've got, this is just a little, little sample of what we've got at the library. We've got a lot more where that comes from. We've got a lot in lots of different formats. But if you, I guess I should ask the question, how many people here have an active library card? Oh, fantastic. Oh, hey, hey, hey. Love to see it. So thank you. We're of the age. You're a kindergarten. Awesome. Right, right. Thank you very much. That's great. Thanks here for being here and my volunteers. Faith Gruber. So I call her Sue, but her name is Pig. Pig Watson. Candice, I know that. Terry Snow, Jackie Barbow, and Francoise Pitzner, and thank you. And of course, our table decorations and craft. Her wonderful sister Janet Ray. Oh my God, thank you. You know I couldn't possibly do this without all of their hands and their brains working together. That really, the hands and the brains working together. And I still barely know what I'm doing. Pomegranate, pineapple, mashed potatoes, make-ahead mashed potatoes. You have that recipe. You can make them three to four days ahead of Thanksgiving or Christmas. They reheat beautifully. Mother put margarine and milk in her potatoes and they reheated okay. But these reheat beautifully. Then we go on to smoked potatoes, which Jim Binversi is going to talk about. He and Evie were at Stephanos. Well come on up and then you can tell. I'll just keep going down the line. We'll come back to you. Then purple potatoes, really purple potatoes. Marianne Schellinger and Bob Schellinger. We need you up here to talk. Potato chips, let's see. Sea salt, cooked kettle, regular and kettle cooked, mixed together. So we have mashed potatoes, smoked smashed potatoes, purple potatoes, potato chips, and then sweet potatoes. I'll have Jim talk about his smoked potatoes. And then Marianne can talk about her purple potatoes. Then I'll go back and talk about pomegranates. Got that? Potato, potato, pomegranate. I'll stand at this end. Okay Jim, go ahead. Well basically we went to Stephanos and they served us smoked potatoes. Kind of upscale place. Yeah. And I asked them how they made it and he told me all the steps to do it. So I went home and smoked some and made them and they turned out to taste the same as the ones that... What kind of a smoker do you use? Just the backyard smoker. With wood or cold? Wood. Wood. Well good. You know, I've given up that outdoor cooking. But thank God Jim's still doing it. Because you know the idea is that all the husbands do the outdoor cooking. Yeah, right. But you do. Okay, you will be surprised. We're going to take these smoked potatoes that are in the nest. Smash them a little bit. The peeling is on. They're very smoked and you'll each get a smashed smoked potato. Any questions about the smoked potatoes? I don't know how long it takes. Oh yes. How long? Well, half a day. Do the cooked potatoes go into the smoker? Well, you have to pre-boil them for like 10 minutes. Okay, so not completely cooked. Okay. See, you're all going to go home and do that, right? Marianne, let's talk about purple potatoes. Jay, I'd like to try some. And he brought us black potatoes, purple potatoes which are called blackberries. Blackberry, alright. Blackberry potatoes. They grow like Yukon potatoes in the ground with the tubers. Their plants are supposed to be taller and very, very, very stiff by. So you can actually tell the difference between the Yukons and the other potatoes in the ground. They have an average yield compared to other potatoes that you can plant. And they grow mid-season just like you would do other potatoes. Anything you can do with a Yukon, you should be able to do with this blackberry potato. It's a creamy texture. One thing is like if you're using beets, if you put it on a cutting board that's porous, your cutting board will be, you're done. It'll be purple. When cooking with them, you can bake, boil. We have it fried them. When you do boil them and then you drain the water out, no, you get no purple water. You get yellowy, green, gunky water. It's supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be bad because that is taking the toxins that the potato stuff brings up out of the ground. Because I told my brother-in-law, I said, I don't know what I did with this. And he said, perfect, you know, just dump it and work from there. You can peel it like a regular potato. They're very high in vitamin C, very high in vitamin K, and very high in potassium. So instead of a banana, you can have a purple potato if you wanted to do that. They have an average size potato is about 3.5 ounces. They are, yeah, that's about the same. They are about 79% water, which is kind of interesting. The mayor has joined us. Hello mayor. I heard this was Maryland's first cooking show at the new building. At the new building, right. I had to make an appearance. Checking out, make sure the space is conducive. Take any complaints anyone might have. You just gave me E. Quality control. Ryan, can you stay? I got a few minutes. Okay, good. All right. Mary Ann, continue. Sorry to interrupt you. So 70% to the 7% calories, but it does taste better with a lot of salt, pepper, and butter. Just like a russet, yeah. Very, very hard to domesticate. It's made actually from, Kui was talking. Peru? Tresois? And 2000 to 10,000 years ago. That's when they first started. So that's all there. It's not very popular in the States. It's now coming into gourmet restaurants and very popular using gourmet blackberry chips. Oh, chips. So I think it's kind of like... Wait till you see the mashed. Yeah, when you mash it, I won't give my husband's comment, but I decayed that way. So if you mash it using a blender or something, it looks like purple frosting. It does. Purple, purple, purple. Different. They suggested two really good ways of using them is baked. And we didn't do it this way. We used our, you know, you put it in the oven, 350, poke it, you know, and you get it out and bake it when it's done. The best way to bake these guys is to schlep them up in olive oil, really all over with your hand. Don't drizzle salt, pepper, and bake for at 500 degrees. Ooh. Yeah, that we haven't done. So these guys are going to go home and we're going to try that. I don't trust my stove or my walls. Well, that's at 450, yeah, that would be it. And then the interesting comment that I thought is if you're doing summer grill-outs with hamburgers, it's actually better serving this as a side instead of fries, which is interesting. You wash them, cut them in half, and again, do the olive oil thing, salt and pepper, and grill them on both sides till they're crisp. So enjoy the black, berry, the green ones. This one is cooked. I'm rubbing off the peeling. I'm tearing off the peeling. Yeah, it doesn't feel like regular potatoes. Well, it looks slightly purple. And we have a whole pan full of mashed purple potatoes for you to enjoy. So Garrett or Ryan, either one. Yes? I'm a big gardener. I've never grown potatoes, though, and the thing I tasted was they were so earthy and delicious. All I could say is how earthy they were. Well, I remember my grandfather growing potatoes in Minnesota. And big potatoes, my gosh, in that soil, even though it wasn't sandy soil. But people were giant and you'd cook them and they were so earthy tasting, because they were so fresh. Garrett, can you finish peeling this purple potato? Just put the peeling here, and then this one. Then add that and mash away, and let's see how purple we can get it. Okay. And I'll talk about... I've got a question. Yes, go ahead. Where can we find those? You don't. You're hoping that Mary Ann's brother-in-law will raise them again next year. Although, I'll bet if you looked online, there would be somewhere that you could find them. Correct. They're not. And so maybe her brother-in-law will sell them at the farmer's market. I have no idea. We can only hope. But I'm not going to deprive you of having a purple potato just because you cannot get them again. Okay. Make-ahead potatoes, smoked smashed potatoes, purple potatoes, potato chips, and sweet potatoes. You're going to have a lot of potatoes today. We have a whole pan of... Oh, there it is. There it is. I'll get this out of the way. And of course, our wonderful custodian here, who's also a cook. He's going to be my sous-chef in a couple of months. Juan Garcia. So he's been helping us this morning, too. Thank you, Juan. Thank you. Thank you. The cover-on for now. Yeah. Into my skillet, turning on, and you notice the fancy-schmancy outlets. You know, that might even work at home. Well, my ceiling would probably collapse. Okay. I'm going to simply use the rest of this. Vicki, can you bring some butter from your kitchen? We need butter in our sweet potatoes. Oh, you know what? Why don't I just use the olive oil that's here? Thanks. Can you stay under the door? Sure. Marilyn, did you want that whole piece? Sure, the whole piece. You bet. And then salt and pepper. Okay. And some people are extremely careful with peeling. And that's wonderful. Good for them. And we have lots of these done. And I have one more. And I think technically these may be called yams. Because what are called scientifically sweet potatoes look like a russet, and they're more pale in yellow color. The yams are the most orange, and I think the most flavorful, even though the words are used interchangeably. And of course, you can cut these as carefully as you want. Let's see. I'll bet there's a towel here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Francoise. Thank you. Yep, that's good. All right. And pineapple. I didn't talk about the pineapple yet, did I? But I'm going to take that canned pineapple and put it in here. Then I'll go back to the pineapple, and I'll talk about the fresh pineapple, and put some more in here. This one will be kind of pineapple with sweet potato added. This big pan is sweet potato with a little pineapple added. When Vicki comes back, there she is. Because I forgot about the butter, olive oil. No, no. And a little maple syrup, local maple syrup. This one is, anybody read that without their glasses? May. Oh, Maywood. Well, I should have recognized that. It's Maywood. I did go out there this year at Christmas time, and I said, do you have any left? And they said, yes. So I bought 10 of them, and that's what most of my family got for Christmas presents with cheese and sausage. What's the easiest thing to give in Sheboygan? Food. What's the easiest for grandmas to give in Sheboygan? Food. Beats the heck out of shopping for blue jeans and shirts. OK, back to the pomegranate. Garrett, just give that a stir every once in a while. If it starts to smoke, pull out the cord. OK. Pomegranate. Oh, well, let's do the pineapple. We have pineapple slices. Oh, we thought these were fabulous as children. If we've got half of a pineapple slice, whoa. Crushed pineapple, which is OK for jello. And then the newest thing, which is already 60 years old, is the tidbits or chunks. And fresh pineapple. Now, it's kind of like mushrooms. When you're looking for mushrooms, the ones that are not perfectly white and plump, you kind of get one that have a couple of spots on them. And even the markdowns have a lot more flavor. Well, they're kind of the same with the pineapple. They shouldn't look too perfect. There should be some yellow on it. And it should be able to take this off pretty easy in the grocery store. That means it's pretty ripe. Let's see about, let's try this. Oh, yeah. Yep. So I carved this one. I'll show you how I carved it. There's a couple ways of doing pineapple. And then usually you peel this like that, and you get some eyes left because you're not ruthless enough. I will show you with the next one how to be ruthless enough. And then you dig around and try to dig out the eyes. Well, I'll show you a fancy way of digging out the eyes if you want to do it fancy. But being a cooking show, there should be some of that, right? OK. With a sharp knife, diagonal cuts to get rid of the eyes if you want to take the time. You can see there's a kind of fancy on this side. And if you do the whole thing, you have this fancy schmancy pineapple. Now, when you cut this, you have kind of a mess. So let's do the ruthless way of cutting the pineapple. I'll just put this in the... Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yep, I do need it back. I'm going to... No, we're fine. OK. Cut off the head, cut off the bottom, and then cut deep enough to get rid of the eyes. Because when I cut this ruthlessly, I'll end up with the same amount of edible pineapple as cutting it this way. But this will be neat pieces, and this will be a mess, and it'll take three times as long. But it'll be pretty. OK, we'll put this in the garbage, go ahead. Candice, lots of garbage. And sometimes the core is edible, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's hard as a rock, and sometimes it's not. Let's find out today. Mighty chewy. I don't want to eat that core today. Oh my, I'm going to be chewing for a long time. Excuse me. The peelings. What about the peelings? Yeah, you keep them. You put them in the water, you boil them, and you make a marvelous pineapple juice. Say that louder, Francoise. You caught her? OK, but I bet the class didn't hear. Take the peelings. Save it, put it in a pot of water, boil it, and then strain it, and you make marvelous pineapple juice. So don't throw that away. You want? I don't want to take it. OK, Garrett, do you want to finish cutting these? Sure. And then these chunks, small or large, can go down there with that. I think I'll wash my sticky hands. When we moved to Chippewa Falls, when I was six, first grade in 1947, 1947, gosh, 100 years ago almost. No, not quite. And we moved from Minnesota, and I started first grade in Minnesota. But Wisconsin was the first, and they had kindergarten. Now, I missed kindergarten because we moved when I was six, but that, gosh, mother discovered canned pineapple about the same time. My, what a treat that was, canned pineapple. Woo! Good work, Garrett. Then I'll go back to the pomegranate. You know we have pomegranate, pineapple, potatoes. Lots of pretty peas, and we're wearing purple and plum and pink. And Anne and Janet decorated the tables with pink and purple. Because also you remember from grade school, elementary school, alliteration, double alliteration and triple alliteration calls attention to what you're saying. And sure enough, that's what we're doing today. You want those in the skillet? Yep. Okay. All right. The messy, messy pomegranate. They say you can cut them in half and then knock them with a hammer and they'll fall out and three or four will. And then if you let them float, some of the white papery stuff will float and some of it will. But I think a more effective way is to cut off the top. That's true. And get the ones that don't look so perfect because they will be a bit more ripe. Then I peel this hard outer core off somewhat as much as I can. Now, this is overripe. We won't use that. And of course, I suppose I could cut it like this because I know my grandchildren say, oh, grandmother, how do you do that in your hand? And every one of you grandmothers know how to do it in your hand. No? Okay. So it's like this. Put a knife in the center, kind of twist, and it opens up and I need, oh, just a paper, a giant paper towel. Take off some of this white stuff and you do have to be patient. And then all of this, yes. Let's try it with this one. Yep. And some of it floats to the top and doesn't really make much difference. Now, some people have better luck with some of these. Look at these beautiful red seeds that just come off easily. And this is soothing for the brain at night. Look at these beautiful large sections that come off. Okay. My pomegranate people here. Okay. Jana, tell me again how to do this. The outside peel. Okay. Well, let's cut this. Like we did the pineapple. Of course, you cannot see anything with this pineapple in the way. You don't peel them. So if we cut this, then, but then we have the juice squirting all over the place. I'm trying to avoid the squirting of the pomegranate juice. They cut through here, through here, and not all the way through and just hold it open like a fool. Okay. Let's see if we can do that. That's all right. At least four. At least four. Yeah. Oh! Look at that. Look at that. All right. That's how many seniors it takes to peel a pomegranate effectively. Good. It did. It did work. Good. Let's go to the make-ahead mashed potatoes which are in here. I've cooked potatoes. We're going to drain the potatoes as Vicki says, this pitiful colander with tiny little holes. Look at that. No wonder somebody threw it away. Okay. Let's put them back in here. Mashed potatoes. And the other masher is somewhere else. Okay. And into these mashed potatoes. Now this is your recipe that you have. For the stick of butter, a wad of cream cheese. Thank you. Yep. Oh, that's okay. I'll just use this one. Onion salt. How much onion salt? Salt and pepper. And as I always say every time I cook, I have Addison's disease. My adrenal gland does not work correctly and I have to have a high salt diet. Can you imagine? I do. My endocrinologist always says, Marilyn, are you getting enough salt? It's wonderful. And I can tell that the pepper is going to make me sneeze pretty soon. Okay, Garrett, you want to keep mashing? Sure. And I'm going to put sour cream in, but I had left over some ranch dip that I made with sour cream, so let's put that in there. All of it? Yep, all of it. With a rubber scraper and then mash. Okay. The make-ahead mashed potatoes really do a great job at Thanksgiving or Christmas in the refrigerator days ahead of time and then simply reheat in the oven. It works very well. And it was a woman that used to cook with me all at the garden house 40 years ago, and she had gotten the recipe from her family in Warsaw, from the church. It's up to you how ambitious you feel. Go on and throw it away. Okay, the purple potatoes. Purple potatoes. Marianne calls them black, but I like the word purple better. Purple potatoes. Wait until you see this. And we don't have our tasting spoons here. Just grab a chopstick and somebody tastes these. Garrett, you're our sous chef. You taste these for us with a chopstick. Yeah, yeah. All right. Use it as a spoon knot. I am not used to chopsticks. Then step back when you eat it. Here we go. Yeah, good. Tastes like potatoes. It does. It does. It tastes like... Excellent. They're excellent. Now this was just butter and I think I put a... with some cream cheese, or just butter and salt and pepper. But I think if they become available any place, or if you can get them on Amazon for Thanksgiving, don't you think, you know, the make-ahead mashed potatoes and the purple. And then of course, you have your sweet potatoes. And yep, they are. We can dump those into this. Yeah. You need... Should I pull? I'll pull the plug for you. Yeah. Or vicking well. Thanks. Okay. And a little bit of toasted... Well, they're not toasted. They're sauteed with butter and salt and pepper, walnuts. Walnuts. And we did have... Let's see here. Maple syrup was put on these in the oven. But I think we should put some Grand Marnier on now, don't you? Garrett, I can't get that open. Oh, boy. Oh, let me get the corkscrew. That was stuck. Now you gotta drink it all. Yeah. Let's see if I have a corkscrew in here. Let me work on that while you move on. Yep. Yep. Do, see what you can do. Yep. And of course, my corkscrew is not in my tool chest any longer. Okay. The smoked smashed potatoes. That's the purple. We need... Yep. Let's do it in front of them. No, you don't need to. There's kind of clean this end so we have some more room. Thanks. Yep. Just kind of... Oh! I didn't use the ricer. We kids were thrilled when mother had a ricer. Oh, my gosh. That was fancy, schmancy to have a potato riced right onto our plate. Of course, they taste kind of airy and bland, but being riced was great treat. Now, mother's head was bigger and it had that red edge. Remember that from 60, 70 years ago? Yes. I remember one. Good. Good for you, Ryan. Okay. Can you... The cork is for that too if you want to go back to that. Oh, okay. And then if you lift this and put it over here so that they can start smashing into these pans. Okay. Okay, Peg, you're on. Smashing. Oh, wonderful. Yep. And who else is smashing with you? I'll smash. Okay. We're going to smash her. Here's the other one. We can smash. Okay, they're going to do it. I want the big one. Yeah. And put them in the pan to smash them. Where's the other pan? Oh, you want both of them over there? Sure. Yep. Okay. Right. And just barely smashed. Oh, barely. Yeah, barely. Barely smashed. Less than that. Less than that. There you go. That's the right amount. You guys have more here as well. Yeah. Okay, back to the grand manier. Mother and Dad always had a bottle of Morgan David in their cupboard. But it lasted six or eight years. Because it only came out at Christmas time when the one time of the year that they purchased seven up. Now we could, I wonder if we could light this. We could try. Let's see. I doubt that it's warm enough, but let's try. I don't think it'll be warm enough, but we'll try anyway. Turn off the lights. There's a little bit of fire. In February when we do lots of flaming foods, we'll do more fire. Nope. Just smash on here. Okay. Smash on there. And do we have more trays of any sort? I didn't see any at all. Let's go to the cabinets. Here. Nope. Here. Here you can smash on this. Oh, yeah. Jim, regular potatoes from the grocery store, right? What's that? Your smoked potatoes are regular. Yes. Yes. Yes. Same here. Right. I don't know about smoking in one stove in one's kitchen, that seems. Okay. All right. I think it's time for us to eat some food. Any questions about sweet potatoes with pineapple and walnuts and maple syrup and Grand Marnier, varieties of potato chips? Yep. Purple potatoes. Thank you, Mary Ann and Bob. Smash potatoes. Thank you, thank you. And they approached me, and it was their idea, and I said, oh, yes, please do. This class would love to learn all of these new things. And the maker had mashed potatoes. Then, of course, if anybody wants some of this mish mash, help yourself. But the idea there is just to show you how to do pomegranates fairly neatly. No, you're grown adults. I'm not going to call on the tables. You're not in elementary school.