KITCHEN: Multi-colored Fries

Multi-Colored Fries

What I like about trying to eat "healthier" is that you can sometimes do the old "bad" habits in a new way.  Ok, so maybe french fries aren't supposed to be included in our new diets, but is there anything we can do to tweak that just a little?  I could have done this in the oven as oven fries...I didn't, but that was an option.  I could have used an egg white wash instead of olive oil and grapeseed oil, that was another option.  I wanted real french fries...so I made them with the oil and fried them in a deep skillet.  The only change I wanted to see was the colorfulness of the fries.  I used 

• Yukon Gold, for a buttery flavor
• Sweet Potato, for a lightly sweet flavor
• Blue (or purple) Potatoes, for a little more earthy flavor

The mix of the three types worked pretty well.  And I could have saved calories by using the oven fries option.  When switching a family member that is resisting the changes...you make them little by little...nothing too drastic.  We had already tried the blue potatoes, so that wasn't new, but using the sweet potato was different for us.  It turned out alright...everyone liked them.  I am liking the mix of the colors even more.  I did fry each type of potato separately though, since they have varying levels of sugars in them, I wanted to make sure some wouldn't burn while others were left undone.  I also use the process of frying the potatoes until they are transparent and have developed a "skin" from cooking, but they are not browned.  Remove them from the heat, cooling them on paper towel, and then re-frying them until they turn nice and brown.  This is supposed to help them get a good crisp, so they don't go limp.  Apparently, I did not re-fry them long enough, some of them did go a bit limp, but they tasted so good...who cares!  It has been a LONG time since I made regular french fries.  It's important to eat many "colors" as that is where the antioxidants seem to be. 
In a past blog I wrote about using tomato paste in a tube, (see Nov. 13, 2011), now there are suggestions that we switch out the use of tomato ketchup (catsup) in preference to the tomato paste in a tube.  While I could probably make the switch on a hamburger, I think I'll stick with the regular ketchup on fries for right now. 

also check out these links: Sweet potato vs. Yam

                                    : What George Washington Carver Wrote about Sweet Potato