At some point in my childhood, I learned to look at certain foods with a critical, disapproving eye. Margarine was a thing to be abhorred. Miracle Whip was an odd relative of the mayonnaise I preferred. But nothing was quite so bizarre and unpleasant to me as instant mashed potatoes.

Now I don’t think my family really had anything against instant mashed potatoes, but they were never a product that we had in the house and I always felt that they were something to be sneered at. After all, making actual mashed potatoes isn’t that hard! Peel a few potatoes, boil the heck out of them for a half-hour or so, mash them up and enjoy! Why on earth would anyone want to pay extra money to make a side dish consisting of dried-out flakes of processed potato when real potatoes were so cheap and easy to prepare? Even after I had grown to adulthood, I remained determined to never use such a strange and unnecessary product.

Then I had a fun-loving, high-energy boy. And then I had another one. And then I started a blog. And the prep-time I put into dinner started to dwindle more and more. When my husband came home from grocery shopping one day with a box of instant mashed potatoes, I suddenly realized that I had virtually stopped making mashed potatoes as a side dish. Rice and pasta were just so much easier!

At that moment, I decided to throw caution to the wind and see what those little potato flakes were all about. I followed the instructions, pushed aside all my reservations and made my first-ever pot of instant mashed potatoes.

And you know what?

After going to bed at two in the morning, getting up again at seven, feeding and dressing children, packing lunches, playing games, answering emails, planning blog posts, picking people up, dropping people off, washing dishes, cleaning up toys AND making dinner for my family at the end of it all…I actually found that those instant mashed potatoes tasted pretty darn fabulous!

Even if it’s just a different food, why not try something new today? You may end up pleasantly surprised by something you were convinced would be gross!