Today's experiment was making frozen french fries. I decided to make these because I had a few organic potatoes that were starting to sprout so I knew I had to make them before I would have to throw them out. Buying a bag of potatoes is challenging for a single person unless you have a potato obsession. I don't eat as many white potatoes as I used to but I do like to make roast potatoes with chicken once in a while and lots of recipes need potatoes but generally I have a hard time finishing off a bag of them. So this time I thought what if I prepped and froze the potatoes for later so that if I ever wanted to make some quick potatoes and didn't have any fresh ones I would be ready. So I decided to make french fries since that requires a bit more pre prep work and I thought it would be easy to store in the freezer. I had a quick look online for the best way to do it and found that the best way was to cut the fries and then rinse and blanch them in boiling water to par cook them. Then I drained them and placed them on a sheet pan..try snd keep them seperated before you put them into the freezer and just freeze on the sheet pan until they are frozen solid. Then you can take them out and toss them in a ziploc bag and they will be seperated so you can grab a handful as needed. I didn't add any seasonings and prefer to add them later depending on what I do with them.
I used to have this thing that cut potatoes into fries but it wasn't that sharp so it required a lot of muscle but I wanted to find something to cut the fries evenly so that they cook at the same time. Also to cut things like carrot sticks etc. for parties and to pre prep for other things as well.
I found this starfrit thing at Canadian Tire. It does the french fries and also does slices which will be nice for things like cucumbers and other vegetables.
It worked pretty well. a lot faster than if I tried to cut perfect fries and it had a container that it went into so there was no mess. Although if I had chef quick knife skills I would probably be able to do this more efficiently with a chef knife and a cutting board.. but since my skills aren't that great I like to find kitchen toys.
It did the job and hopefully I will find more uses for it to make it worth the money.
Now I have fries prepped for today's dinner and more in the freezer for another day and I didn't have to buy a bag of toxic preservative laden bag of fries.
Because of the documentary we will be going to farms and farmers markets over the summer and I hope to find ways to preserve some of the foods that we get there and find creative ways to do that. They are trying to eliminate as much packaging as possible and my goal is to eliminate as many preservatives and toxins that go into my body and also to save some money in the process.
Some of these things require a little more effort but some of them don't. Some things are just a little start up energy like getting my new little chopper to make it easier to do prep work in the future.
Sow the seeds now and reap the rewards later.
Great idea Linda. I love sweet potato fries and sometimes I buy a bag of the raw sweet potato fries from the supermarket but they can be pricy. I just coat them in evoo and toss them in some flour, which helps them crisp up in the oven when they bake. Last summer during cherry season, I saved some cherries, pitted them, place them in zip lock bag and threw them in the freezer. I finally used the cherries last month and made a delicious cherry cake. It was amazing to have local cherries in the winter.
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