By Susan Thomas Of Farmgirl Fare

We spent most of the last two weeks snowed in, so when I finally made it off the farm and into town the other day I was surprised to see that the bulk bins of onion sets and seed potatoes were already set up at the feed store. But a quick check of my mental calendar (March is here already?!) confirmed that it is indeed time to start planting potatoes. In fact, there are plenty of people in southern Missouri who believe that if your potatoes aren’t in the ground by St. Patrick’s Day, you might as well not bother planting them at all.

Growing up in suburban Northern California, I had no idea how potatoes grew or what a potato plant looked like. I wasn’t much of a potato eater either. Then I moved to the country and decided I would grow potatoes in my enormous new garden. I planted a whopping 250 feet of potatoes (what was I thinking?) and a few months later dug up the most delectable specimens of the number one vegetable crop in the world that I had ever tasted.

According to The George Mateljan Foundation, as long as you stay away from the extra fat and deep frying, potatoes can be considered one of the world’s healthiest foods. They’re a good source of vitamin C, vitamin B6, copper, potassium, manganese, and dietary fiber. They offer significant protection against cardiovascular disease and cancer and contain a variety of phytonutrients that have antioxidant activity.

One of the reasons for the potato’s tremendous popularity is that in most places they’re available all year round. Unfortunately, according to the Environmental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide To Pesticides In Produce, potatoes are also the 12th most contaminated variety of fruit and vegetable, so your best bet is to seek out potatoes that have been organically grown. You can often find interesting varieties of freshly dug potatoes at farmers’ markets beginning in early spring, and even earlier in warmer areas of the country. Not only will the environment and your tastebuds thank you for going organic, but you’ll be supporting small farmers as well.

These days I don’t plant quite as many potatoes as I did that first year, but I always make room for at least a few rows in my organic kitchen garden. I have to admit that homegrown potatoes are so flavorful that I often just scrub them clean (no need to peel), cut them into chunks, boil them up, and serve them with nothing more than a pat of organic butter and a sprinkling of nice salt and pepper. But with just a little more effort, there are wonderful things you can do with this amazingly versatile vegetable.

The most basic way to cook a potato is bake it, but I’ve learned that there are baked potatoes, and then there are slow baked potatoes. Over at A Veggie Venture, Alanna explains why she now bakes her potatoes for three whole hours. Her Sloooow-Baked Potatoes are soft and nutty and well worth the wait.

Amanda at Figs, Bay, & Wine offers up an interesting bit of Greek history along with her scrumptiously simple recipe for Aegean Baked Potatoes with Lemon, Olive Oil, & Sea Salt.

Life without mashed potatoes? Unthinkable. Too bad there are so many mediocre mashed potatoes out there. Elise at Simply Recipes claims that the real secret to making Perfect Mashed Potatoes is to use Yukon Golds instead of Russets, and I wholeheartedly agree. Even plain, this beautiful yellow variety tastes buttery.

There are numerous things you can add to your mashed potatoes, and I’ve seen recipes that call for enormous quantities of butter, sour cream, and cheese. Heidi at 101 Cookbooks decided to take a more healthful, yet no less delicious, approach. She calls them Kale and Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes, but her sophisticated version of this ubiquitous dish also includes garlic, scallions, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Another perennial favorite is potato salad, and while I’ve been making the classic version with mayonnaise (has to be Hellman’s), dashes of mustard and vinegar, chopped celery and scallions, hard-boiled eggs, and a sprinkle of paprika for years, Catherine at Albion Cooks and Anne at Anne’s Food have convinced me to be more adventurous. When making Catherine’s French Potato Salad, you “infuse the warm potatoes in white wine then bathe them in a tangy Dijon vinaigrette.” Toss in some fresh parsley and scallions, and it’s no wonder this is her family’s favorite potato salad of all time.

Anne stays with the creamy variety, but she replaces most of the mayonnaise in her Herbed Potato Salad with yogurt and tosses it with a refreshingly different mix of yellow onion, capers, parsley, coriander, mint, and basil.

No potato recipe roundup would be complete without a mention of fries, and Cate at Sweetnicks claims that after making these oven-baked Parmesan Steak Fries, “You just might not want to eat fries another way again.” She then goes on to say, “I realize that’s a rather bold statement to make, but how can you not when the end result is a healthy, full-flavor, thick steak fry that’s easy to make and uses ingredients you likely have on hand?”

If you’re feeling indulgent after enjoying your healthy fries, a big platter of Potato Skins piled high with bacon, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and a sprinkling of scallions are just the thing you need. Pass the beer and watch them disappear.

Wondering what to do with the insides of the potatoes once you’ve made your skins? You could toss them into a batch of kitchenMage’s Potato Bread, but this simple sandwich bread is so tasty it’s worth boiling up a few potatoes specifically to make it.

Of course there are hundreds of other scrumptious ways to prepare potatoes, and you can dig up all sorts of great potato recipes on FoodieView.

Susan Thomas writes about her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres on her award-winning blog, Farmgirl Fare, where you’ll find plenty of Less Fuss, More Flavor recipes tucked between the pictures of cute farm animals.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under Recipe Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.