Fill up with potatoes without piling on the pounds! (Cooking on a Budget!)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Cooking on a Budget!
Date:	11/03/09 (399 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Taste great, cheap to buy, fill you up

Disadvantages: None for me

Since Dave and I have been following the Slimming World healthy eating plan we have eaten a lot more potatoes than we ever used to. The way the plan works is that certain foods are 'free' and you can eat as much of them as you like - these foods include almost all fruit and vegetables so we can fill up with potatoes.

The reason that we can eat so many potatoes whilst trying to lose weight is the fact that potatoes themselves aren't really that fattening - the problems start if you cover the potatoes with butter, oil or fatty gravy - then they are very fattening! Ooops!

The two big advantages with potatoes are that they are cheap to buy and that they contain a lot of Vitamin C which as we all know is essential for good health. I also find that being complex carbohydrates they keep me feeling fuller for longer which stops me being tempted to snack on things that I shouldn't be eating.

We buy our potatoes from a local farm so we know that they are fresh and not covered with additives or preservatives. We are also supporting our local producers too which is good.

I use potatoes in cooking in a variety of ways.

Chips

I scrub and chop the potatoes and then par boil them for five to ten minutes. Then I spread them out on a baking tray which has been sprayed with Frylight, spray the potatoes and then cook them in a hot oven until they are golden brown. Yummy!

Roast Potatoes

I prepare these in the same way as I prepare chips - I just cut them into roast potato shapes nit chip shapes! LOL!

Jacket Potatoes

I scrub the potatoes, par boil them to start off the cooking process and then wrap them in aluminium foil and bake in the oven until they feel soft when I put a knife into them. I serve the jackets with low fat cottage cheese or baked beans as these are also both free foods on our eating plan.

Mashed Potatoes

For mash I peel the potatoes before I boil them. When soft I mash with my potato masher until soft and fluffy. I always used to pile on the butter and milk but actually if you have decent potatoes you just don't need the added fat.

Sauté Potatoes

I scrub the potatoes and then cut them into fairly thin slices - not too thin or they break up - I then par boil them for about five minutes. They can be cooked either in a heavy based frying pan or in a wok. All I do is to spray the base of the pan with Frylight and then fry the potatoes until golden. I do keep turning and moving them round whilst they are cooking so that they don't burn. These are ideal to serve with a mixed grill or with a cooked breakfast.

I also found a recipe here on Dooyoo for frittata which I often make and I use small cubes of potato in this dish.

Yesterday I made enough Quorn mince with carrots, peas, celery and sweetcorn to make two individual cottage pies for me. I put mash on the top of one of them and I put thinly sliced, parboiled potatoes on the other. Both of them turned out to be very tasty.

So there you are I am enjoying potatoes and reducing both my weight and my blood sugar levels so that can't be bad can it?

Summary: A great way to fill up on a budget