Made these twice in two weeks for having people over, both times they were amazing and loved by all. Ree and her classic recipes can do no wrong… well not to anywhere but your hips…

Easy, I didn’t even peel’em. Get the recipe here: Perfect Potatoes Au Gratin

Skinny fries aren't really that skinny, but hey it's all that fry goodness and craving you love in a slightly better for you package.

The key in this being easy is having a slicer.

I have the William's Sonoma one, which I love, I seriously use it twice a day. Love it for my breakfast of sliced apples!

I got mine for $20 at the outlet, so if you have an outlet near you, that's the way to go. Sadly the closest outlet to Nashville is Memphis. The one downside is that the Williams Sonoma one makes really skinny fries.

This one has decent reviews on Amazon for the price, and makes wider fries. 

So you chop your taters.

Then you soak them in ice water for at least 10 minutes.

Scoop off the ice, strain the potatoes, dry out your bowl.

 

Put the potatoes back in the bowl and drizzle with EVOO and salt and pepper, and anything else. I've done Lawry's seasoning salt, Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, Loveless Cafe Seasoning Salt, garlic powder, etc.Stir in the seasonings and oil really well.

Spray your pan with olive oil so you can flip them.

Bake in the oven at 400 for 30-45 min. Flipping/stirring once, and keeping an eye on them at the end.

Yeah there's the rub while frozen fries take about 20-30 to cook (ALWAYS longer than the bag says) these take a while longer.

It's not so bad if you knock it out first before you start the rest of dinner, cause then you're not working on the fries while working on dinner.

What I like is it's helping portions, ie eating just 1 potatoes worth of fries each, one potato is A LOT of fries!

Overall I'm loving making my own and it's worth the little bit of effort it takes, plus they are better for you, and WAAY cheaper than frozen fries.

I can't wait to try them with sweet potatoes!

Andrew loved this, I thought it was really good but had some tweaks to make for next time, which I'll share here.

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Found on Tasty Kitchen - Added by quincyskeeper

Ingredients

• 2 pounds Sweet Potatoes (This is where all your time is gonna be) 
• 4 strips Bacon (I used Turkey)
• 1 whole Onion, Chopped
•  2-½ Tablespoons All-purpose Flour (For thickening the sauce)
•  ½ teaspoons Salt
• ¼ teaspoons Black Pepper
• 2 cups Reduced-fat Milk
• 1-¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese (I might try sprinkling this throughout next time)

Preparation Instructions

Chop

Boil

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Peel potatoes; cut into 1/4 inch slices. Place potatoes in a large pot of boiling water. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until just tender. Drain well and set aside. (I would cut my potatoes thinner next time, thinner than my photos and Tasty Kitchen's photos, to make it more tender and less chunky, this will be a lot easier with my new W-S chopper.)

Since turkey bacon doesn't crumble well, cut it with nice kitchen shears. (I have these and love them and use them on everything from herbs to cooked chicken for salads)

The sauce cooking and reducing.

2. Meanwhile, fry bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Drain on a paper towel, crumble and set aside.
3. Add chopped onion to bacon drippings and cook until tender. Stir in flour over low heat and cook to a paste. Add salt and pepper. Add milk and cook until mixture thickens slightly. (This sounds weird and hard, but just go with it.)

4. Arrange half of the sweet potatoes in the bottom of an 11×7 inch baking dish. Sprinkle on half of the crumbled bacon. Pour on half of the milk mixture. Arrange remaining potatoes, sprinkle with remaining bacon and pour the rest of the milk mixture over the top. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. If desired, brown cheese for 1-2 minutes under the broiler.  (I cooked mine closer to 30 and that part went well, might have gone longer)

As part of my menu for my dinner party for Ethan and Family I made Pioneer Woman Garlic Roasted potatoes, here's my take and review.

Three stores later I finally found some baby red potatoes AKA New potatoes

I gave them a rinse and scrub and they were lined up to board the baking sheet.

I chopped them into quarters and laid them out.
Chopped the heads off the garlic bulbs, which was harder than I thought it would be, the key is getting the top of each clove, so I went back with a paring knife to get the side ones.

Then the newbie’s got a shower of olive oil and white wine.

Be sure to get the oil over the garlic really well or it might get too toasty.

Followed by a sprinkle of pepper and kosher salt.

A little toss.

Then they got wrapped up snug as a bug and roasted for 45 min.

Over this 45 min your house will smell amazing.

Then they get their cover’s stolen to crisp for another 20 minutes.

Then all done. This was about 24 little potatoes which served 6 generously.

Mmmmm this recipe is certainly a keeper.

Here's Pioneer Woman's Recipe which I followed:

Ingredients

• 20 whole Small To Medium New Potatoes
• 5 whole Heads Of Garlic, Or More To Taste (up To 7 Heads)
• ⅓ cups (to 1/2 Cup) Olive Oil
• ⅓ cups (to 1/2 Cup) Dry White Wine
• Kosher Salt To Taste
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste

Preparation Instructions

Quarter new potatoes and set on a large rimmed baking sheet. Lop off the very top of each garlic head and arrange throughout the potatoes. Drizzle olive oil over the tops of the garlic and all over potatoes; do the same with the wine.

Generously season the potatoes and garlic with salt and pepper. Toss potatoes to coat. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for 20 to 30 minutes until nice and golden.