Kitchen Tip Tuesday: Potato Tips

 Welcome to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays and Teach Me Tuesdays!

 I often buy potatoes in 50# bags. (potatoes = cheapest veggie on the planet;-)

I was looking up potatoes in an old book

and it had a neat section on potatoes. Some of these I've seen before, but some were new to me.Thought some of you might find these interesting.

"-French fries will be deliciously golden brown, if sprinkled with flour before frying.
-Ginger root stored with potatoes will help both of them stay fresher longer.
-To bake the perfect potato, rub butter over potatoes before baking to prevent skin from cracking and to improve the taste.
-A potato will bake faster if the skin is oiled rather than being wrapped in foil.
-Russets make the best mashed potatoes.
-To make potato salad more quickly, cook the potatoes already diced and peeled. However, this will reduce the nutrients from exposing the surfaces to air, light, heat and water.
-For the greatest gourmet french fries' let cut potatoes stand in cold water an hour before frying. Dry thoroughly before cooking. The trick is to fry them twice. The first time, just fry them for a few minutes and drain off the grease. The second time fry them until golden brown.
-To boil potatoes in less time, remove a small strip of skin from one side. After they are done the balance of the skin will come off much easier.
-To keep peeled potatoes white, place them in a bowl of cold water, add a few drops of vinegar, and refrigerate.
-If you add hot milk to potatoes when you are mashing them it will keep them from becoming heavy and soggy.
-Baked potatoes should be pricked with a fork to release the steam as soon as they are finished baking. This will keep them from becoming soggy.
-If you add a teaspoon of baking powder to potatoes when mashing, beat them vigorously, it will make them light and creamy.
-Old potatoes should have a small amount of sugar added to the water when cooking, to help bring back some of the lost flavor.
-To reharden potatoes, place soft raw potatoes in ice water for half an hour or until they become hard.
-When you store potatoes, place half an apple in with them and they won't sprout. The apple will absorb the moisture before the potato.
-Bake potatoes in muffin pans so that they will not roll around and be easier to remove from the oven.
-Brown areas on sliced potatoes mean that they have been exposed to air and light and the vitamin C has been destroyed.
-If you leave the skins on potatoes when cooking they will retain more of their nutrient value. Then remove the skin before serving.
-Potato chips are 61% fat.

Real Potato Chips

Cut potatoes in half crosswise exposing two flat surfaces. Use a wide potato sliced and cut paper thin slices. Place individual slices on an oiled cookie sheet. Brush the tops of the potatoes with a pure vegetable oil, preferably a corn oil. Bake at 450 approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown. Finally, place the chips in a brown paper bag with a small amount of sea salt (1/4 tsp. per potato) and shake. Low-fat and crunchy."