What Do You Do With Your Potatoes?

     We've love potatoes in this house, just about any way you can fix them.  Or as my husband would say, he's never met a potato he didn't like. 
 

 I found a good deal on potatoes, not great, since it's not potato season.  They were almost past expiration so we needed to use them as soon as possible.

 I didn't even bother to put them away, just dumped them all into the sink and began the peeling process while pondering what exactly I was going to do with all of them.
  

 After the potatoes were peeled and diced I put them into a bowl of cold water to keep them from turning brown.  I decided I would freeze a few batches for one of those busy days. 
    



To do this, I simply boil water, drop the diced potatoes in there for about three minutes.  The main goal is to heat the potatoes through so they don't turn brown.  I then plunge them into cold water, or if I'm lazy, I just throw them into my colander and rinse with cool water and drain. 



Once cool, I put them onto a tray and freeze them.  Try not to pile them too high, like the picture.  A single layer is best, and I try to do that as much as I can. 

Once they are frozen, put them into a freezer bag and that's it. You now have diced potatoes, peeled and ready for a busy day.  Don't forget to put the bag into the freezer.  Label and date the bag also.  Of course it's obvious that it's diced potatoes, but if you decide to add onions or spices you could put that on the label.





What can you do with diced peeled potatoes?   Use them as you would have if you had just peeled them.  They can be boiled, boiled and mashed, fried up or used in soups and casseroles. 


Best Potato Recipes/Freezing Potatoes

Aggie Horticulture   This site uses the blanching method, which is what I do. 

Just When You Think It Couldn't Get Any Worse.....ha!

   You ever have a thought about things, thinking, well, what more could happen?  Nah, two busted pipes, two bathrooms, one living room, one hallway and one master bedroom all damaged with water, and all the carpeting and well, really, what else could happen.  Almost don't want to drive, ya know? 

     So, dummy me, I really had this idea that I could use that new shop vac to suck out a ton of water.  I just didn't realize it was two tons of water.  I plugged in the steam cleaner, so I had two machines, sucking water.  Now, see, I don't know a thing about amps and circuits.  So, I didn't know plugging two things into the same outlet was a bad idea.  Until I found myself sitting on a wet rug in the dark and I hear a two year old screaming from somewhere else in the house.

     Yeah, so, well, uhhh, I blew the circuit.  I mean, really blew it.  It won't go back on.  I burnt something somewhere and as of today we can't find it.  That's the bad news.  The good news is it didn't affect the entire house.  The bad news, well, it's a real pain to try to remember which lights work and which ones don't. 

     The good news, the shop vac still works.  The bad news, well, the hose is a bit shorter.  Taking a break in the kitchen I thought I could smell burning plastic.  I asked, "anyone else smell that?"  Then all of a sudden I hear my husband yelling french words in the bedroom.  At least I thought it was french.  I didn't want to venture any closer right then.  You see, he has this extremely bright light,....that's hot, very hot.  Melt plastic hot.  The shop vac hose was plastic.  You know that's why they make duck tape right?

The bad news, the fan on my ceiling doesn't work.  The good news, the restoration company that came out put a ton of fans in my room.  Yeah, well, can hardly hear yourself think with those things on.  But then it is a fan.  The bad news is that the dehumidifier makes the room steamy which negates anything good the fans are doing.  The good news, just maybe when I fall asleep I can pretend I'm in a heavy wind in tropical weather, like Hawaii. 

More bad news, they can't get the bathroom dry, they might have to rip it apart.  Noooo, it's the only room that's been remodeled in a nice way.  Well, they started to rip at it, but decided to give it one more night with the fans.  In that last picture you see the dehumidifier, yeah, that took most of the bathroom, our only bathroom right now.  So, needless to say, trying to "go" involved getting over a fan, wedging yourself between the toilet and the dehumidifier.  I can't really describe the next thing nicely, so I'll leave it up to your imagination.  Let's just say, having a fan blow on you full boar while using the commode is an awful thing.  And most of the toilet paper is unrolled and blowing in the air above your head. 

   How did I save any money on this venture?  Hmm, tough one.  These things happen and cost.  We did get the claim money.  I refused the restoration people at my expense, they finally conceeded to me and paid for it.  Aha, I saved the insurance company money since I did most all of the wet drywall removal and some of the water removal, and of course water shut off myself.  I thought shutting off the water was a given, but they were surprised at the work I did, joked about how I did their job and told me than many people had no idea to shut off the water.  Well, I think, ( I could be wrong) it paid off for me in that I was paid for better moulding in my room than what I actually had in there, in the closet.  Just little things like that.  Now, I was also paid at what a contractor would charge reasonably for the work that now needs done.  Which means, if I can possibly do the work myself I will save a ton of money.  I can then take that money and upgrade something else. 
Plus, they also paid me for time spent doing removal of damaged materials, and general removal of closet items. 

   It's not like I planned this at all, but when these things happen it does help to work it all out and think it through.  It's not always necessary to hire someone to do some of the tasks.  Or you might know someone who can do it for a better fee.  I still want to call the electrician, for safety reasons.  You also won't see me using a knee kicker on the carpet. 

Now, if I can just figure out where to put all my clothes.....the rest are all over the living room.  A bit of reorganizing for the duration of this will be ongoing.

NEXT:  Some of the projects I did while my house was falling apart. When I had water that is.

Plus:  What Have You Changed In Your Life This Week To Save Money?  (okay, if you must, change week to month) 

Upcoming Groupon Deal on Elf Makeup, BOL (be on the lookout) 

A New Leak and When Will This Ever End!

     Well here we go again, another leak.  If you all recall, we just did this a few weeks back.  The picture on the left shows how that looks today.  Not close to done and only one bathroom working right now. 
I know I've felt the earth move a few times and it really makes me wonder.  It could just be the crummy pipe from Home Depot.  Either way, knowing that doesn't help at all. 

 

  Ever notice how your never ready for these things to happen?  Anything you were planning to do, or working on is now null and void.  I've been planning some sewing projects for months, really, months.  I was just feeling that I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the hope that I would actually be putting the pedal to the metal on my sewing machine and now it's buried in clothes.  Trying to find a pair of jeans before the insurance plumber showed up became a "where's Waldo" type of game.  Although I'm sure he wouldn't have noticed since he would probably be grossed out by the Frito's in my teeth since I had no water to brush my teeth. 

     That's another funny thing about it.  You know you have no water in the house, you have to keep a bottle near the toilet for flushing purposes, you have bottled water in the kitchen, your socks are drenched yet you still go over and try to turn on the faucet to rinse your hands off.  Okay, maybe you don't do that, but I do.
Just like when the power was out, I walked into my room with a flashlight in my hand, and yep, I flipped the light switch to turn on the light.  Lifelong habits are hard to break I guess.  We do a lot of things that we don't even think about anymore.

      So, okay, I'm not talking about apples today.  I know I said I was done talking about apples, but I lied.  Not intentionally mind you.  But I so want to make fruit roll ups or fruit leathers.  Same thing either way.  Then I realized I don't have the right mats for my dehydrator.  So, maybe I'll just do the oven method.  Your saved from apples right now though, by an intensely huge leak in my bedroom closet that seeps out into the carpeting and another wall. 

   I wanted to share one of my little money making online things, Swagbucks.  I wanted to tell you about my last groupon deal. 
I did manage to dry some of my sage plant in the dehydrator today.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or if it was better left to dry on it's own. 

But life's little leaks get in the way.