Favorite Family Recipe

Roasted Potato Fries

I make these 3 times per week for a child who can mainly eat potatoes for health reasons.

Everyone who comes to the house loves them, and they are as healthy as I can get them because it’s the staple of one child's diet.
Don't skimp on the ingredients! There are only 3, if you use lesser quality ingredients, you will notice the difference.

Ingredients:
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Organic Potatoes - any kind but Russets are great, preferably locally grown
Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Iodized Natural Sea Salt (sea salt has much more flavor than regular salt)

Tools:
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Mandolin or fry press (you can get these at any cooking supply store, such as Bed Bath & Beyond) for cutting.
This saves a LOT of time, and these tools can be used to also cut yams, beets and other veggies quickly.
Large baking sheet pan
Large mixing bowl

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. (higher heat can create carcinogens in the oil)

Scrub well or peel potatoes. Cut each potato in half.
Use mandolin or fry slicer to make French fry cut slices into the bowl.
Put the baking sheet into the oven to preheat for about 40 seconds. (This makes them less likely to stick to the pan.)
Pour a generous amount of olive oil into the bowl over the slices (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup for 7 to 10 potaoes.)
With clean hands, toss the potatoes thoroughly with the oil. (Rub the remaining oil into your hands and arms, and then rinse lightly for the best skin treatment ever!)
Spread in one closely packed layer onto the hot baking pan (potatoes should sizzle.)

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until edges of fries are lightly browning.

Sprinkle pan generously with sea salt.

This method makes roasted potatoes that are technically not fries.
This actually wastes less oil, since re-heating oil can cause cancer-causing chemicals to develop.

To help the environment, put the potato peels into a compost bin. The worms love them!I have heard that refrigeration also causes some kind of change in chemistry and taste to potatoes that is not good, so we always make these fresh.

It helps to rinse or soak the potatoes before cooking.

This recipe works for any root vegetable. You can make an entire dinner this way, by cutting up other similarly hard vegetables and tossing them in the olive oil with the potatoes, such as carrots, and sweet potatoes or yams. On a separate baking pan, you can spread any in-season, locally grown vegetable, cut into serving size pieces, including tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers (all three colors), and eggplant, tossed in olive oil, and bake them at the same time, but remove this pan sooner as the softer vegetables take less time to cook--usually 10 to 20 minutes. This makes the vegetables perfectly for a side dish of roasted vegetables, and this is also a good beginning to a roasted vegetable soup.

Roasting the vegetables brings out their flavors well before making them into soup.

Enjoy!