Crock Pot Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are my holiday-achilles-heel dish. I never have a problem making them, but they always stress me out because of timing. I try to do them last to make sure they're hot for serving, but the last 15 minutes is the most stressful time of cooking a meal for me. So I hate them. I stumbled upon this recipe thanks to Crockin' Girls on Facebook. It turned out okay, but I think I figured out what I might do differently next time.
........................

Ingredients:

3 lb red potatoes (I would probably use yellow or white next time)
5 garlic cloves
1 diced onion (I would omit next time for a smoother texture)
2 T olive oil
2/3 c water (I found this to be a bit too much, 1/2 c should be plenty)
1 c cream cheese with chive and onion (I used the Philly Italian cooking creme instead, but had mixed results)
2 T butter
1/2 c milk

1. Dice potatoes (for regular potatoes, I would also peel) and add to crock pot. Add garlic, onion, salt & pepper to taste, water and oil; toss to coat. Cook on high 3-4 hours.

2. Mash potatoes to desired consistency, adding cream cheese, butter and milk. Leave in the crock pot on warm until served!

................
Regardless of the recipe itself, I LOVED using the crock pot to cook and serve the potatoes. It made things so much simpler to have one less pot on the stove, one less colander to wash, one less thing to do 10 minutes before serving, and one less trivet to find for the table!