Divide a Large Pot to Cook Two Vegetables at the Same Time
I am very careful with my mashed potatoes. I like the mix of reddish browns and Yukon golds , but I paint Yukon ones. (I don’t like the texture of rizen red fruits.) This requires the potatoes to be divided during cooking because they are difficult to distinguish once peeled and cooked. Instead of splitting two different stock pans, I simply split my large stockpot in half using the small baking trays.
The baking sheet I borrowed from the toaster keeps the potatoes from stirring, allowing the salted water to boil around both. When they’re ready, I just use a spider to catch one potato and dump the other in a colander. I grind the redskins, yukon rice and then return everything to the pan to mix.
Of course, you don’t have to use a baking sheet, any flat piece of food-safe metal will do, and you don’t have to stick to the potatoes. You can use this trick to blanch vegetables with different cooking times, vegetables and pasta, or two types of pasta. Beth told me that her children sometimes require different shapes of pasta; parenting sounds like hell.