mashed potatoes
karla
03/24/11 		doing russets for a wedding, we are serving 400 so potatoes need to be premade. will they be ok if i make them in the morning 6a.m and put them in roasters lined with plastic bags and covered with wax paper. I looked at your freezeable and they do not like the added ingresients. will just be using milk and butter.
Thanks
ellen
03/24/11 		Those bags aren't safe if they are touching the walls, unless you get the ones made especially for electric roasters, which are very hard to find.

140 pounds of potatoes. This is about 8 roasters worth, but you need 8 lines to serve 400 buffet style.

What are your kitchen facilities? If this is a dinner reception, these would be better if chilled, reheated tightly covered in oven, and then transferred to roasters which are preheated to 100 degrees.

Do not cover with wax paper. Place a clean cotton dishtowel on top of the potatoes to collect moisture and seal tightly with foil.

karla
03/25/11 		I found roaster bags online

this is an outdoor wedding in a tent, we are working completely out of roasters. We will be making the potatoes at church, so if I do them the day before, chill and reheat in the roasters. I can cover them with cotton dishtowels and foil. We don't have oven space to do it. what temp should I reheat at?

ellen
03/25/11 		OK, this is what I would do:

Put the roaster bags in the roasters. Put in a layer of potatoes that is no more than 4 inches, as thicker layers will not reheat well in the roasters (this means you will have more bags than you had planned, and need more roasters). Take the bags of potatoes out in the cooking pans.

Thoroughly preheat the roaster bases at least 20-30 minutes, to 325.

Put the towels on, put the foil on, return the cookwells to the bases.

Allow a full 2 hours for the reheat. It may only take an hour.

When the temperature in the middle of the potatoes reaches 165 on a quick read thermometer, turn the roasters down to 180.

At time of service, make the tops all pretty with a big spoon to scallop them and drizzle on the butter.