Healthy(ish) Oven Chips

I'm English...  I love cider, salt and vinegar crisps (something Mrs Stace - and most of the other Dutch I know hate) and chips...  Whenever we go back to the UK we always have to have at least one fish and chip supper - over in Holland it's impossible to find them!

Actually, there are very few ways of cooking potatoes that I actually like...  Boiled I can do occasionally, but they are really not my thing.  The same with mash - though I am just cooking potato and spinach mash at the moment - Dutch winter recipe.  I love roast potatoes (if cooked correctly - for me that is...) and backed.  The problem with the last two is they take an age to prepare and the roast are less than healthy as well.

So when I saw a recipe for chips on TV a while a go I wondered if I could adapt it to keep the crisp and fluffy texture whilst removing the need to deep fry them - we don't have a fryer in the house and I am not planning on adding one!

So I played a bit and came up with the following:

Peel the potatoes, but keep them whole, rinse them and put them on to boil.  The time needed here will vary from cooker to cooker but on my induction (which boils water within about 1 minute) I do 10 minutes from turning the heat on to taking them off.

Put the pan under cold running water and make sure that the potatoes are completely cooled

Slice the potatoes into chips when cold - they should start to crumble slightly, but still retain their shape.  I normally cut them in to 1cm or 2cm thick chips or wedges along the length of the potatoe

When cut dry the chips off individually and put them into a bowl.  It's really important to dry them, even though it's a pain, otherwise the chips will not crisp up and stay fluffy.  After the first potato worth of chips is in the bowl add 3 table spoons of oil and mix so it covers all of the chips.

Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, only adding oil when it looks like they are not being coated - don't over oil!

Put the chips onto a baking tray, making sure that they are well separated, and place in a a pre-warmed 200C oven for 15-20 minutes.  They should be starting to crisp, but not colour at this stage.

Make sure that they are not stuck to the base of the tray - I always cook mine on a teflon sheet - and leave to cool.

Whilst the chips are cooling take a few cloves of garlic and roughly crush them, this will cause the skin to easily slip off, rather than trying to peel them still whole which is a nightmare :)  Take some red onion and roughly chop and skin as well.  Throw these randomly over the chips - use as much or little as you like to add some flavour.

Finally...  Throw the chips back into the oven for another 25 minutes - or until golden brown.  Serve whilst hot, with the onion and garlic (note - don't do this the day before a big meeting ;p)

With any luck you should have some light, crispy chips that are fluffy on the inside and have only used a few tablespoons of oil to prepare!

Sorry - no photos to show you how they turn out as I'm not that good at snapping food!  Maybe I'll try the next time I cook them!

Stace

Fun weekend

Well, it’s been a busy weekend so far – but all good.

Yesterday morning I went for my normal run.  I have cut it to 3.5KM per day for the weekend as my knees are playing up (I could barely walk on Thursday – before I fell down the stairs in my heels ;p).  I think the problem is with my running shoes.  They are a few years old, and have had quite some use; and I think that the heels have just worn out and collapsed internally – meaning I have no support or cushioning.  So on Friday I brought new shoes.  Interesting experience.  As I can’t buy men’s shoes in my size I always have to go for women’s shoes.  The guy in the first shop was great.  He went looking for the size I needed, came back saying they didn’t have it.  Then he very nervously asked if they were for me or someone else.  Me I said.  Oh, in that case we have lots of other women’s running shoes if you’d care to pick something else.  I declined (I like Asics for running – they are comfortable and give good support) – but I thought that he handled it very well.  In the second shop it was less good.  The guy did his job well enough – but there was something in his attitude that said here is a bloke buying women’s shoes.  I think that they had a laugh about it when I left. Hoh hum.  The shoes themselves are great though.  No issues when I got back yesterday, and going for a run with Mrs Stace later today.

Then I had to go into town to get the car that I am building for my niece fixed.  I brought the bits I needed a couple of weeks ago, and I thought they didn’t fit.  A quick trip back to the model store with the car, transmitter and receiver and the guy showed me that I was being stupid :)  There has been a change in technology since I first brought the car 14 years ago and I just wasn’t up to date.

The plus side is that I now have a working chassis.  I had forgotten how much fun it was to play with.  I hope that she likes it and that it’s not too much for someone her age…  It’s a little quick, and she is going to have to practice with it to be able to control it well – mind you it’s going to be great for hand eye coordination!  Now we just have to pant the shell before her birthday.  We brought a convertible shell, are going to paint it metallic lilac, and we are going to paint a Hello Kitty on the bonnet and boot lid as she loves that.  It’s going to be quite a family collaboration to get it done.  I am going to spray the shell, and have built the chassis.  Mrs Stace is going to stencil the Hello Kitty on the shell.  My sister in law is going to fine line the Hello Kitty as she has a very steady hand, and then Mrs Stace is going to fill it in afterwards.  I can’t wait to see the finished result.

Then it was time to do some baking.  We ordered ‘The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook’ from Amazon and it arrived on Friday.  Hehe.  The recipes look amazing, mind you for the two of us there is possibly too much – I see my team getting lots of treats in the near future as I try more recipes.  Yesterday I tried the recipe for New York Cheesecake.  It’s in the fridge looking lovely at the moment – but as it had to chill overnight I can’t say what it tastes like just yet.  That comes this afternoon.  Yum.

Finally… Having played with the new speakers for a week I have found some unexpected work.  Our set up has been an iPod for background music, and the Blu-ray for playing CD’s when we really wanted to listen to something.  There has always been a clear difference between the two, but it was always good enough.

The new speakers / amplifier have spoilt us somewhat.  It’s not that the iPod sounds worse per say.  It’s that the new set-up show’s up all of the missing signal that the iPods poor circuitry, and the MP3’s poor encoding introduces.  It sounded hollow compared to listening to CD’s – and was not pleasant anymore – even for background listening.  When you know what it can sound like, it’s disappointing to have the iPod on.

So…  I have spent yesterday afternoon sorting the CD’s back into alphabetical order (something we do every couple of years as they get mixed up) and now I am busy encoding my whole collection again; for the fourth time (hopefully the last time!).  First time was encoded for MiniDisc using Sony Sonic Stage; second time was as 196kbps MP3, then 320kbps.  Now I am using FLAC – that is about half the size of a CD (three times bigger than the 320 MP3) but crucially is a lossless encoding (it sounds as good as a CD, and contains all the information of a CD – so I can convert the FLAC to any other format I need in the future).  After spending 6 hours doing it yesterday I managed to complete ‘A’.  25 albums.  That’s about 10% of the collection.  I think it’s going to take a while before the rest are complete (I’m 4 albums into ‘B’ at the moment from the 40 that we have).  I think I may need to buy more storage as well :)

And a new one just begun.

Sorry thought I'd keep the title running from yesterday :)

We had a very late night last night, we celebrated the Dutch New Year, waited an hour and did it all again for the UK one.  It was a quiet day, except for the constant fireworks that I mentioned which continued past 3am.

Today was late getting up (10am, I *never* sleep in that late!) and having nothing to do.  Lovely.

I did go for a run for the first time in weeks (the ice has just about gone).  Was great to get out again, though after 3KM's I was thinking wow three weeks makes a lot of difference! I'm going to stick at 3 for a week and go back to 6 next week I think.

The weather here has changed for the better.  Warm - compared to the last few weeks, sunny and dry.  It should stay that way for the next week so I am planning on being the first to go to work with the bike on Monday whilst there is a break in the weather.  I oiled the chain and checked the oil today, and took it for fuel and to pump the tyres up at the local petrol station.  It was a wonderful ride, but I was reminded why I have a neckerchief when I went the long way home and froze my neck at anything over 40mph...  But the roads were fine - which is what I was checking - and so if it does not freeze tonight I'll be riding tomorrow!

Right, another Jamie Oliver creation is calling.

Hope you all had a good evening last night.

Stace

Oh, one final thing.  I did something yesterday that I did not enjoy doing too much...  I blocked someone for the first time. The image used in the avatar was a little less than PG I thought, and whilst I am not a prude I would rather that kind of picture was not associated with this blog.  Sorry Sasha.