My family leans towards the Tater Tot variety of potatoes - I like ‘em too - easy to prepare.
They also like the boxed version of mashed potatoes that my mother made after it became too difficult for her to peel, boil and mash potatoes from scratch.
There are also new varieties of tots made from broccoli and one from cauliflower - I was told never to fool my family again with those, only real Tater Tots are acceptable.
Potatoes are an excellent source of potassium, with one medium potato (5.3 ounces) with the skin containing 620 mg of potassium, which is 15% of your daily requirement and 40% more than a banana (422 mg or 9% DV). Purple Viking potatoes are particularly high in potassium............
I am chronically low in potassium for some reason. Many people are. So I take potassium supplements and eat potassium rich foods.........................
I don’t peel my potatoes when I plan to mash them, because the skin is good for you. I don’t think it detracts from the appearance of them either. I like being able to skip that step, which seems unnecessary to me. Once they are soft from boiling, mashing isn’t very hard, but if you have arthritis or another affliction with your hands, I agree that it could be. My mom used to use an electric hand mixer to mash them, but I still prefer to do it by hand unless I have a large pot of them to do.
I also agree with your family that the cauliflower tots are horrible, and I have the broccoli ones in my freezer but still haven’t used them. I seem to only like cauliflower raw, chopped in with a salad.
Back to taters, they are so versatile. Don’t know how I could live without them. Happy National Tater Day, everyone!
I’ve made this recipe several times. It always turns out great.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/18511/hash-brown-casserole-ii/
I’ve never tried it with tater tots as the base, but I bet they could be used also.