Friday, September 19, 2008

Potatoes - save money and time

Cooking meals for your family using fresh ingredients not only saves money on your grocery bill, but it also gives your family wonderful flavorful meals that aren't filled with artificial ingredients, too much salt and preservatives.

Take a walk down the freezer aisle and you'll see that there isn't much that companies won't cook and sell to us as a convenience. When it comes to groceries, there are two choices. Either convenient or inexpensive - the two rarely meet.

Here are some ideas for you, for a favorite staple - POTATOES!! Especially for all of us who are strapped for time.

Potatoes - save money by purchasing fresh potatoes in 5 or 10 pound packages, save time by peeling the entire bag once. Now they are ready to prepare for each meal.

What you'll need:
5 or 10 pound bag of potatoes
peeler (I prefer the Tupperware peeler, it is the best I have ever used)
cutting board
large bowl filled with cold water (I recommend the Tupperware Thatsa Bowl)

Wash and peel the entire bag of potatoes, place peeled potatoes in cold water. Seal bowl and place in the refrigerator.

Your potatoes will stay fresh all week and so much easier to prepare now that you've peeled them.

Meal time:

Mashed potatoes :

Dice your potatoes into 1" cubes, place in pan on top of stove and bring to a boil. Continue cooking until a fork will pierce the potatoes easily. For flavor, put in fresh diced onion or dried minced onion when you start the potatoes cooking.

Drain potatoes in colander then immediately put back into the pot - do not rinse.

Not for the faint of heart here, but this is how I make my potatoes...for 10 potatoes I add in one whole stick of margarine. For 5 potatoes I add in 1/2 stick etc. Smash the potatoes together with the margarine until the margarine is melted and the potatoes are all mashed. For creamy potatoes I add half and half but milk will do. Slowly add liquid and whip potatoes with a hand whipper until you get the consistency you desire. Please I am begging you - do not use a mixer or electric whipper - you'll end up with glue! A hand whipper will take about 30 seconds and you won't have lumps providing you cooked the potatoes thoroughly.

Leftover mashed potatoes? Not a problem - FREEZE THEM!! For goodness sakes, all the food companies are willing to sell us their factory made mashed potatoes - filled with preservatives. You CAN freeze your own! To reheat microwave on high a few minutes at a time and stir in between. They will taste just as good as when you first made them! The best freezing option is to put them into a container that will go from freezer directly to the microwave. I recommend Tupperware Rock N Serve Containers. They are airtight to keep your food fresh while frozen, then simply rock open the vent and place in the microwave for reheating. The same container can go directly onto your table for serving! The Rock N Serve containers have feet on the bottom that allow for airflow in the freezer, even heating in your microwave and then act as a built in trivet when you put them on your table!

Roasted Potatoes - EASY and delicious!!

Dice potatoes into 1" cubes, place in microwave safe container with a cover (I recommend Tupperware Rock N Serve Containers). Add 1/4 cup vegetable oil and one packet of Lipton Onion Soup mix. Shake. Microwave on high for 10 minutes. You can serve them now...but if you like them crunchy which my family does, you can put them into the oven. Place cooked potatoes on cookie sheet and bake at 400 for about 15 minutes. Done!

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