The BEST mashed potatoes EVER!

As promised on facebook yesterday today yesterday, here is my recipe for what we have decided is the best mashed potatoes I've ever made!
Let me preface this with a quick note. This batch was HUGE. The first time I made them I used locally grown baby reds, I wasn't so lucky this time, and got carried away and cut the whole 5lb bag! On the bright side, Hubby makes a mean potato cake and now we have plenty left over for him to work his magic with ;)

I started with these ingredients:

Red potatoes (baby reds are best!) with skins left on, washed and quartered.
Garlic powder
1 pouch of real bacon pieces
butter
splash of milk
salt and pepper

Instructions:

 In a large pan, cover your potatoes with water, bring to a boil and boil uncovered until tender, drain. Transfer potatoes to large mixing bowl.

add butter, garlic powder and a splash of milk and using a masher (these are definitely not mixer potatoes due to the skins.) mash potatoes until still mostly lumpy.

add salt and pepper to taste.

Finish mashing potatoes until lumps are gone (or as close as possible)

open pouch of bacon pieces and remove freshness packet. empty the pouch into the potatoes and mix well.

 Serve warm.

They were the perfect compliment to the ribeye and sweet corn. The best part? even with the bacon and butter used, without the gravy (traditional mashed potatoes) or sour cream (baked potato) we were able to cut out a bit of fat, which is always a good thing.

I'm thinking of using greek yogurt in place of the butter next time, baby steps!