In a 10 or 12 quart stock pot, add diced celery root and rutabaga and peeled garlic cloves. Add water to cover, allowing an extra inch on top. Your pieces will float as they cook, and since it’s a long boil, water will evaporate. For this reason, do not salt the water. Boil on high until pieces are tender, about 15/20 minutes. Pierce with a fork to test doneness.

Carefully drain, add butter and cream cheese. Use a potato masher to break down slightly. You can skip this step, but it is helpful for blending. Divide mixture and blend in a bullet blender until thick and creamy. If it’s not blending, add a bit of cream or mix as needed. Remove and mix all together, finally adding salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Cauliflower is not my friend when it comes to faux-tatoes. It usually smells like feet and, call me crazy, but that’s not my favorite smell to have wafting from my plate. It honestly doesn’t even make my top 10 favorite smells. Weird, right? I knew there had to be a better way. And having fallen in love with my oven roasted rutabaga oven fries, it was an easy transition to replace foot mash with this delightfully unfooty rutabaga celery root mash.

I did know that it would need a little extra pizazz, however, because, on its own, rutabaga is the food equivalent of a book report on paint drying. But celery root is not! Winner, winner, chicken dinner! That subtle celery flavor is everything I needed to elevate this to “real potato” pedestal level. Blending is essential for a creamy, thick consistency, so be sure to go the extra mile on this one. The addition of cream cheese adds a nice bite to the light flavor of celery and garlic – and because seriously, cream cheese on celery sticks MAY be the best snack ever invented, this MAY be the best potato sub ever invented. I kept taking test bites as I made it and I was in shock the entire time over how good it really was.