Homemade French Fries

I love potatoes in general, and french fries are obviously one of the most delicious ways to prepare them.  Even though making french fries is a relatively simple task, I used to always buy the pre-cut frozen bags.  It's silly, really, when you realize how easy it is to just cut your own fries.  Purchasing the frozen bags of pre-cut fries really is unnecessary once you know what you're doing.  Here are a few guidelines to easily making your own fries at home.

Everybody has their own opinion about what sort of potatoes are good for each particular use.  There are waxy, starchy, etc. etc.  For french fries I think good old russetts are great.  I peel them, because I have to limit my potassium intake, but they are great unpeeled too.  To cut fries, simply slice the potatoes into roughly rectangular planks and then cut the planks into fries.

One great tip I've picked up is to transfer the fries to a cold water bath as they are being cut, and let them soak for a few minutes.  Not only does the water help prevent browning, but it washes off extra starch, and keeps the fries cool and crisp. 

There are many ways to fry a french fry.  It's useful to use a deep fryer or cast iron dutch oven, but most sturdy saucepans will do as long as you are very careful.  A lighter-weight pot doesn't hold the temperature vey steady, and it's easirer to knock over or even just bump, sending hot oil sloshing all over the place.  A smaller pot will require multiple smaller batches of fries.  It's very important to not fill any vessel more than about half way, leaving plenty of room for the oil to bubble up without spilling over.  A good frying temp is somewhere around 350, but it really depends on the thickness of the fries and how you like them done.

As far as actually frying the potatoes, I have a two-step method.  After patting them dry (drops of water will cause the oil to spatter), I fry them (in batches) for a few minutes, just until they barely start to take on color, and then drain them on paper towels.  Then I fry them a second time, letting them get nice and golden brown.  Frying them twice helps them get golden and crispy while keeping the insides just right.

Salt, pepper, garlic, or any other seasonings go on asap once the fries are done frying the second time. Yum!  French fries!  There's nothing like a batch of freshly made fries.

The used oil, as long as it's not too dark, can be filtered and used for deep frying again. 

Happy eating!

I Dreamed A Dream

Dream big.

You may recall that in my previous post about High Tea, I mentioned that as I was setting the table I realized I didn't have a teapot to use.  What a silly predicament!  To serve Tea with no teapot.  In fact I didn't even have anything sortof similar to a teapot... no coffee pot either, no jug, no pitcher, not even a camping coffee pot.  I had the carafe from our coffee maker or a good ol' regular saucepan.  I used the saucepan.

We have a gift card to Macy's that we got from returning a few things we got for Christmas that we absolutely couldn't use.  For instance, one thing I got was some perfume.  I won't be able to ever use it because with my migraines I've become extremely sensitive to those sorts of smells.  (I can't even smell Dan's cologne - which I got for him last year because I loved it. Now it triggers a bad reaction.)  I hate having to return gifts, but we may as well get some use out of the giver's effort and thoughtfulness.  I hate to see that go to waste.  At any rate, when I started looking online for things from Macy's to use up our gift card, the first thing I wanted to look for was a teapot.

I found a few I liked and one topped the list.  It was just the right shape, but the design and color were just ok.  After searching through all the teapots and categorizing them by price (and excluding all the freakishly girly ones, which is most of them), this was the one at the top of the list of the ones I could afford.  Our budget is super-tight (medical bills running rampant over it), and if I don't get a teapot with this gift card, I'm not getting one anytime soon.  I had an idea of a teapot style I wanted in my head, and this teapot wasn't it, but it was good enough. 

Then all of a sudden I saw a different one.  It was actually the same teapot but with a different paint job.  And it was AWESOME.  It was actually the teapot I saw in my head!  It was just the right color, perfect shape and size, flowery and pretty but not too girly, cobalt and shades of blue just like I wanted, no pink, etc etc.  I'm not kidding - I'm surprised this teapot even exists: if I were to design one, it couldn't be more perfectly exactly the thing I was looking for!  Even the teacups & saucers are great (if I ever want to complete the set).  I love them!

...And, Macy's has none of them.  The reason it hadn't come up in my search for 3 hours is that they have none of them to buy!  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I did a quick search, and there are plenty of those teapots our there in cyberspace.  Just not at Macy's, which is the only place I'm allowed to shop right now.  Son of a crap.  I showed Dan and whined my best tortured whine, but there's simply no way to fit it into our budget right now.  It's not very expensive, but unfortunately, paying for prescription meds has to come first. 

This photo is the lovely teapot of my dreams.  The pattern is called "Veronica" by Denby.  Cute, right?  I decided not to even order any of the other teapots because I'd rather hold out for this one.  I am spending my gift card money instead on a few other kitchen tools I've been needing.  I'll buy it someday, just not right now I guess.  Everybody needs a dream, I suppose!  Mine right now is a teapot.  Dream big!

Happy tea-ing!

High Tea

In the last few days I have learned a lot about tea and scones.  As I discussed in my previous post, I got two tea-related cookbooks from friends: one with scone recipes, and one that had miscellaneous recipes for tea.  And when I say tea, I mean Tea, the meal, not tea, the drink.  I have never attended nor hosted Tea.  I don't know much about it.  I have never cooked nor eaten a scone. 

Today I wanted to try out a scone recipe from my new cookbook, and I thought, 'why not serve the scones with tea this afternoon for my husband and I?'  But if I were going to do that I may as well make a couple other little things to eat as well.  Then I figured if I'm going to do all that I should invite over our friends Phil and Jenn, whom we haven't been able to see in quite a while (my darn illness).  So instead of having a little tea with my scone, suddenly I was preparing a full High Tea.

High Tea means a tea service that is much more elaborate and meal-like than just Tea, "regular" Tea.  It is more often served later in the afternoon and can substitute for dinner.  This is all stuff I've learned (from my new book) just in the last couple of days.  Despite the trend that many things served at Tea or High Tea are often sweets, I actually made mostly savory things.  I'm actually pretty proud of myself for what I was able to put together, considering we only have the last bits of miscellaneous stuff in the pantry and fridge, since I'm going grocery shopping tomorrow and hadn't planned on Tea when I last grocery shopped. 

I ended up putting together a few finger sandwiches, some mini lettuce wraps, mini lemon tarts, and of course the scones, which were cheese scones.  I also served toppings for the scones: mustard, marmalade, and get this: homemade carrot butter.  I'm going to talk about the carrot butter in a separate post since it deserves it's own.  Then of course we had every type of tea I had in the house, sugar, vanilla sugar, and milk.  I didn't have any lemons left in the house to serve as wedges and I'm sure some people would think that was highly abnormal, but oh well.  I did what I could.

I got out some of my "good" china (which is nice but not extremely fancy or anything) and put the sugar in the nice china sugar bowl and got out my grandmother's silver footed bowl and did the table up.  The odd thing is that, the one thing I don't own is a teapot.  Nor do I have anything that can really substitute for a teapot.  I just put a pot of boiling water out and we ladled it.  Funny having Tea and realizing you don't have a teapot.  Anyway, we sat and tea'd and ate and talked and it was wonderful.  I will definitely make scones again and also I promised Phil and Jenn that we'll doTea again sometime, hopefully soon. 

Happy tea-ing!

It's Scone Day!

We got an awesome Christmas gift a couple weeks ago from our awesome friends Donna and Bob.  They know how I've been entertaining myself while being stuck at home, tethered to my dialysis machine, by cooking foods, old and new, and babbling about it here.  They put together a lovely basket with sortof an English teatime theme, including a tea-time recipe book and a scone recipe book.  I have never made scones and I'm excited to try a few of these recipes, which sound delicious.

I've been thumbing through the books and I picked out a couple of recipes to try.  I'm going to give it a shot and I'll post more when I'm done.  Wish me luck!