Sticky Red Potatoes

As previously mentioned I have one child who absolutely refuses to eat all white potatoes – including french fries! I have no idea where she get this from as potatoes were a pretty big staple for me growing up. These Sticky Red Potatoes from Starters & Sides Made Easy reminded me of a more sophisticated version of the erstwhile childhood favorite – fries and ketchup.

Ingredients: Yukon Gold potatoes, chili powder, ketchup, salt, oil, vinegar, garlic cloves,

honey

Substitutions: None

The Process: First the oven is preheated to 400 F. The instructions call for you to grease the pan, but I often use silicone baking mats instead. The potatoes are tossed in chili powder, ketchup, salt and oil and spread into a single layer on the baking sheet. They then bake for 45-55 minutes. While the potatoes were baking I prepared the sauce, which is a mixture of oil, ketchup, vinegar, garlic, honey and chili powder mixed in a saucepan over a medium flame. When the potatoes were ready I tossed them in the sauce and baked them for an additional ten minutes.

The Results: These tasted OK but were nothing super special. My child who refuses potatoes, still refused these. One interesting note is that the potatoes in the cookbook photo are in fact fried. A small blurb at the bottom of the recipe tells you that if you want to fry your potatoes you can, just replace the oil in the sauce with cornstarch. I was therefore not shocked to find my potatoes a bit crumblier than the ones in the photo. Many of them broke when being tossed with the sauce. They still looked nice, but not nearly as professional as the potatoes in the photo, that held together well because they had been fried. I thought it a strange choice to show a photo of food prepared using alternate instructions than those in the recipe.

Whiskey Sweet Potatoes

I have one child that likes white potatoes and one child that likes sweet potatoes.

However EVERYONE likes candied sweet potatoes. There are many variations on this theme including several that use different types of alcohol. This recipe for Whiskey Sweet Potatoes from Starters & Sides Made Easy looked like a fun variation on the theme and not too difficult in terms of prep and clean up.

Ingredients: sweet potatoes, salt, pepper, brown sugar, whiskey, honey, oil

Substitutions: None

The process: First the sweet potatoes are baked at 425 F for 20 minutes. Then I removed them from the oven and sliced them in half. The brown sugar, whiskey, honey and oil are all melted into a pot.  It takes only 2 minutes for the sugar to dissolve so don’t start too early – you’ll just burn off all the liquid waiting. I then used a silicone pastry brush to brush the mixture over the cut sweet potatoes and seasoned them with s alt and pepper. The sweet potatoes are then returned for an additional 20 minutes of oven time.

The Results: Delicious, if a bit messy for kids to eat. This was fast and tasty. The only hitch is that you must put the saucepan in water immediately after using the sauce otherwise the leftovers will form a sticky coat on the pan and become impossible to clean.