Friday's Featured Food: Potatoes

Blame it on my Irish heritage, but I think every meal needs potatoes. I almost feel guilty if we sit down to eat without some kind of potato on the table. Thank goodness Jay is a potato-planting fool! This year, he ordered 200 pounds of seed potatoes... and then got laid up and was unable to plant. So, this is how our potato planting looked this year:

This year, we planted Yukon Gold, Red Norland, Purple Majesty, and Mountain Rose potatoes. The Purple Majesty seed potatoes were tough to find, and we ended up ordering them online, despite the shipping and handling. It was worth it, as these potatoes are double the size and twice the color intensity of the blue potatoes we grew last year. It's been a good potato year, thusfar.

Nutritionally, potatoes get a bad rap. How can a vegetable be bad for you? That, I will never understand. According to potatoes.com, the average potato with skin will provide:

• 5% of the daily value for vitamin C
• 620 mg potassium, comparable to bananas, spinach and broccoli
• trace amounts of thiamin, riboflavin, folate, magnesium, phosphorous, iron and zinc
• have 110 calories and no fat.

As far as cooking them, we make the potatoes in so many different ways: fried, grilled, baked, sauted, stewed, and of course mashed:

I have a fabulous potato soup recipe, but I'll save that for the fall, when it's truly soup season. This time of year, it's too hot to heat up the kitchen, so our favorite right-now potato recipe is grilled potatoes.


Campfire Potatoes
5 potatoes, peeled and sliced thin
1 medium onion, sliced
6 T butter or margarine
1/3 c shredded cheddar cheese
2 T fresh parsley, minced
1 T Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 c chicken broth

1. Place the potatoes and onion on a large piece of heavy-duty foil (about 20 inches by 20 inches). Dot with butter.
2. In a separate bowl, combine cheese, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper; sprinkle over potatoes.
3. Fold foil up around potatoes and add broth. Seal the edges of the foil.
4. Grill, covered, over medium heat for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Friday's Featured Food: Potatoes