Mashed Potatoes for a 100

My daughter LOVES mashed potatoes.  Always has and always will.  When she was younger we would have to cut her off at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Rest assured grandma always sent her home with plenty of left over mashed potatoes.

So for her high school graduation party we thought it would be fun to have a Mashed Potato Bar.

I began searching the internet on how to make mashed potatoes in a roaster oven or at least how to make mashed potatoes for 100 plus guests.  I didn't find directions that satisfied my need., but I did find several sites with directions for making mashed potatoes in a crock pot.  

Crock pot - roaster oven? The biggest difference is size, right?

Thus I began calculating what I would need to make mashed potatoes for a crowd - I was thinking 100-150 people..

Larger electric roaster oven

35 pounds of potatoes

6 cups of water

3 cups of butter

6 tsp slat

3 tsp pepper

8-10 cups of milk

To begin with I sprayed the inside of the roaster oven with PAM. Then I washed, peeled (I left some of the peels on), and cubed the potatoes, placing them in the roaster as I went.

I added 6 cups of water, 3 cups of butter cut in chunks,  6 tsp salt and 3 tsp pepper.  Turned the roaster on high (375-400 degrees) and  let them cook for 4 hours.  Sure enough they were soft.  

Now for the fun!  Dealing with that many potatoes at once can be quite the hot mess.  I di not drain the potatoes. I began by mashing them by hand with my antique potato masher.  Once the potatoes were semi mashed I used my electric beater, scooping potatoes up from the bottom and stirring as I beat.  I also began to slowly add the milk.  Add enough of the milk to make the mashed potatoes my desired consistency. 

I kept the mashed potatoes on warm until we were ready to serve.  

Note: I will mention that when you make mashed potatoes in a crock pot or roaster oven they will tend to be a little darker colored than the bright white mashed potatoes mom makes on Thanksgiving, but they taste just as good!

The mashed potato bar turned out fantastic.  Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in visiting with everyone and celebrating my daughter's graduation, I forgot to take pictures.

If you can imagine bowls of mashed potatoes with these toppings:

shredded cheddar

real bacon bits

popcorn chicken

gravy

sweet corn

bbq pulled pork

jalapenos

butter

sour cream

chives

Not sure how many people we had at the party, but I always worry about not having enough food.  Although the roaster looked like a ton of mashed potatoes, I made an extra 5 pound batch in my crock pot just in case I ran out.  I didn't run out, but  I did have to get the crock pot of potatoes and add them to the roaster towards the end of the party.  So we went through almost 40 pounds of potatoes!

Can you say YUM!!!