Potatoes

Creamy Potato Soup

I love potato soup! Potato soup is always greeted with excitement in our house by one and all. Usually when I make potato soup I use a mix of broth and heavy whipping cream instead of milk, but I buy a ton of cream for cooking. You might not want to do that, or then again maybe you would ;-). Milk is more affordable than cream in general making this recipe more practical for more families.

Creamy Potato Soup

Yield

4-6 Servings

Easy

Ingredients

8-10 Potatoes (medium)
1 Whole Onion (chopped)
3 Carrots (chopped)
2 stalks Celery (chopped)
6 cloves Garlic (minced)
1/2 stick Butter
1/4 cup Potato Starch
2 quarts Milk

directions

Wash and chop potatoes into uniform sized pieces (leave the skins on for added nutrition)
Place potatoes in about an inch of water and salt and pepper generously (The key to good potato soup is here, getting the potatoes salted well!)
Bring water to a boil then back down to a simmer and leave the lid on to cook potatoes until tender (10-15 minutes)
While potatoes are simmering, add the better and chopped vegetables into a pan and sautee until the onions are golden (This will help give your soup a sweeter flavor)
When potatoes are done, add the sautéed vegetables to the potatoes and water.
Add milk (leaving one cup to mix the starch in) and bring to a light simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Mix the starch with the reserved cup of milk while you bring the soup to a boil.
Add the starch while stirring constantly for two minutes.
Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with cheese and bacon (Optional but yummy!)

Which Potato Do You Buy?

by Granny Filed Under: Affording Real Food

Let’s talk potatoes shall we? The lowly dietary staple that everyone and his brother runs down as the unhealthiest thing ever. So simple, so ordinary we use it to describe lazy people ( couch potatoes ) or plain eaters ( meat and potato kinda-guy ). That potato.

Let’s just say straight out of the gate that I adore potatoes in just about any form. And I firmly disagree with any notion that they are unhealthy in any way. That isn’t what I want to talk about today. Nope, not at all. I want to talk about the processing of good healthy food into stuff that isn’t as healthy and costs a mega-truckload more to buy using the lowly potato as an example.

Are You Paying More to Buy Unhealthy Food?

Walk into a health food store and you’ll find a full aisle of potato chips made with various cooking oils, heat sources and flavorings. Most of these chips are little better for you than standard Lay’s Potato Chips. Seriously. They are by and large produced using some polyunsaturated oil all of which we should cut out of our diets as much as we can. (For more info read What Makes a Diet Good? ).

That isn’t my main point here, though. What I’d really like you to notice is how incredibly expensive it is to buy potato chips compared to just a plain, healthy raw potato!

Kettle Chips	$.33 p/ounce	$5.28 p/lb
Lay’s	$.22 p/ounce	$3.52 p/lb
Raw Potato	$.04 p/ounce	$.64 p/lb

By buying potatoes as pre-cooked chips we are now paying 500 to 900% more! For something to eat that is actually a lot less healthy for us. Does this make any sense to you?

So Forget the Coupon Clipping …

The big money in grocery savings comes from cutting out the processed crap.

I know, I know we love this stuff and it’s so convenient. But cutting out chips will make a huge contribution to both your health and having enough money for things like grassfed beef and real dairy.

Let’s grab the low hanging fruit first … cut out any remaining processed food items, slowly as your family adapts to the change. This is one of the steps in The Granny Plan, my book with a detailed plan to help you get real food into your families daily lives.

And I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the only truly healthy packaged potato chip I’m aware of: Jackson’s Honest Organic Potato Chips. I have been known to grab a small bag while I’m out shopping and they are oh so good! They are cooked in coconut oil. I can’t afford to do this too much though ;-). If you’re gonna keep buying chips anyway, and I know some of you will, this is the way to go.

Stovetop Beef Tallow French Fries

by Granny Filed Under: Recipes

Do you love french fries? To not love french fries is almost downright un-american. But I bet you feel pretty guilty about an occasional indulgence. With this recipe you can put that to rest. The only thing unhealthy about fries is the oil that they are almost universally cooked in. That is a hydrogenated vegetable oil. So we switch the oil and voilà, we have a healthy dish!

Beef tallow is the fat McDonald’s used to use for their french fries. They changed over to a vegetable fat in 1983 under pressure from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (read The oiling of America for more info ). For those of us old enough to remember the beef tallow McDonald’s fries this recipe will allow you to continue your love affair with them, since McDonald’s no longer wants to cooperate 😉 And you can do so guilt free knowing that it’s a healthy treat!

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