Cottage-Fried Potatoes

We had breakfast for dinner last night and yum - it was good! A friend of mine shared this recipe with me so I'm going to pass it on. It's not really breakfast, but it went really good with pancakes since I didn't have hash browns. It's not the healthiest of recipes, but it's a lot better than french fries and it satisfies that french fry craving. 

Cottage-Fried Potatoes

Printable Recipe

*Note: For this recipe we usually leave the peels on the potatoes, but you can peel them if you’d like!

INGREDIENTS:

3 medium sized potatoes, chopped in small pieces (about 2 cups)

3 medium sized onions, chopped in small pieces (about 2 cups)

1 large turnip, chopped in small pieces (optional)

2-3 Tbsp. canola or olive oil

Salt & pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oil in a large frying pan on medium high heat. Add potatoes, onions, and turnips to the pan and cook. With a spatula, turn potato/turnip/onion mixture every few minutes to ensure that they don’t burn to the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking until potatoes are soft and slightly crispy and onions are caramelized. It usually takes about 30-40 minutes, depending on how done you like it. Season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately or reheat later.

*We like to eat this dish for dinner as part of “Breakfast for dinner night” or as a side to hamburgers or sliders.

Recipe Source: adapted from nosurf.blogspot.com

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Changing Tastes

I've learned that are bodies are amazing in so many ways. One of those amazing things about our bodies is our taste buds. Our tastes naturally adapt to the foods we are used to eating. When we change our diet to try to eat healthier, it can be really hard at first. Sometimes healthy food might actually taste "healthy" for a while. But it's amazing how quickly our bodies can adapt. Our tastes can change and before too long healthy food tastes delicious and we lose some of that desire for unhealthy food. Our body starts to crave food that is good for it instead of the alternative.

In the last 18 months or so our family has really been trying to eat healthy food. We haven't cut out all of the unhealthy, but we have cooked more meals from scratch using whole, unprocessed foods. We used to crave "junk" food a lot more often than we do now. And as a results, we used to eat out a lot more than we do now. Here's a previous post where I gave some tips for eating out less. It's wonderful to see our family's tastes changing. We've noticed that when we start to slip back into unhealthy habits (like during busy times or on vacation), our bodies crave our natural healthier diet.

I've really noticed some big changes in our four-year-old son lately relating to his diet. He's been a picky eater, like a lot of children his age. He's pretty good with most vegetables, but he's always had trouble enjoying lettuce or spinach or other greens. Just in the last few weeks since our garden has been producing spinach, he's been eating a big plate full of salad (including spinach). He eats it just plain (he doesn't like dressing) and he loves it. We've been working with him to get him to try all of the food at our meals and it's really helped develop his taste buds to like different kinds of food.

Another point I want to make is that you can make healthy food taste good. And it's better to spend the time to make it taste good than to not eat it. A few spices, a little sweetener, some dressing or an interesting topping can go a long way to make healthy food more enjoyable. It's good for food to be enjoyable. Most of the recipes I've tried to include on this blog are healthy and enjoyable at the same time. It's okay to eat some uninteresting food once in a while if it's healthy, but it's sure a lot easier if it's healthy and tastes good too!

Here are a few tips if you're trying to help your family develop healthier eating habits:

• Try variety of different recipes! Your family will tell you which are their favorites. Make their favorites again, but always include new ones so that they will get used to trying new things.
• Sneak nutrition - this concept works well for children and adults alike. Add nutritious food to recipes that your family already likes. For instance, add some pureed vegetables to spaghetti sauce, substitute whole grain flour for white flour, or for more ideas see this previous post and this one.
• Encourage your family to try everything during the meal. This can be hard I know, but it will really help their taste buds to try a variety of different foods.
• Sit your family down together at the dinner table for meals, turn off distractions (like TVs, etc.) and encourage pleasant conversation. I've read about a lot of studies done that show this is important and really it's just common sense!

Do you have any more? I'm interested in your comments!

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Giant Bubbles - Homemade Summer Fun!

We made some giant bubbles the other day with the kids and it was a lot of fun. I have to admit that I had more fun than even the kids. I love bubbles! Here's the bubble recipe we used:

1/2 C. Dawn dish detergent
1/2 C. corn syrup
1 gallon water.

Mix them in a large flat container (we used a big plastic bin). We remodeled coat hangers to use for the bubble blowers. It worked great. I've also seen this done with a huge batch (several gallons). You put them in a mini pool and the kids stand in the middle. You use a hoola hoop to make the giant bubbles over the children! What fun!

Here's another recipe that uses Glycerin if you happen to have it on hand:

1 cup dishwashing Joy or Dawn detergent
1 gallon water
1 Tbsp. glycerin

Happy Summer!

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