Unique Ideas for Cooking Potatoes Your Family Will Love

Potatoes are an important part of a meal in many homes. Here area few tips to not only make your potatoes a little better, but add a little fun to them as well.

Get Creative

If you are a parent who has a hard time getting your child to eat potatoes, try making the potatoes a little more fun. If making mashed potatoes, try adding a little food coloring to the potatoes to make them more interesting. Mix your milk and butter or margarine in a separate bowl before adding them to your mashed potatoes. Add your food coloring to the milk/butter mixture, until you get the color that you desire. If you prefer natural color alternatives, you can mix colored veggies such as carrots, peas or beets into your mashed potatoes to not only add color, but get your children to eat their vegetables as well.

If mashed potatoes aren't the potato style for you, try cutting your potatoes into unique shapes. One easy way to make shaped potatoes, is to by a curly fry maker. This machine turns a plain potato into a squiggle of fun that kids seem to love to eat. For those with a little more time and creativity on their hands, try cutting your potatoes into shapes such as stars or hearts before frying or baking.

Better Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes don't have to be boring and plain. There are plenty of things that you can do to spice up your mashed potatoes. If you are very health aware, and do not want to use ingredients such as heavy cream or butter which are loaded in calories and fat, try using skim milk, soy milk or even a little bit of plain yoghurt to make your potatoes nice and creamy.

You can also experiment with your mashed potatoes to give them a different flavor. For baked potato mashed potato flavor, use sour cream in place of milk and butter. Then stir in some chives and bacon pits. If you are a mushroom lover, use cream of mushroom soup in place of milk and butter, and throw in a few fresh or canned mushrooms. The choices are endless as to what you can add to your mashed potatoes, and can really help to give your dinner a nice change of pace.

Easy Baked Potatoes

The best way to cook baked potatoes by far, is in the oven. Oven baked potatoes seem to always come out better than those cooked in the microwave, which often end up with hard spots and rubbery skin. If you hate cooking your baked potatoes in the oven because it takes longer, try placing your potato on a metal kabob skewer before baking. The holes created by the skewer allow the heat into the potato better, making it cook faster. Additionally, the metal conducts heat into the potato, which speeds up the cooking process by helping the potato cook not just from the outside-in, but from the inside-out as well.

You can also add a little flavor to your baked potato before putting it in the oven. Melt a little butter or margarine into a bowl, and add your desired flavoring. This can be anything from plain salt and pepper, to more flavorful spices like thyme, oregano or sage. Rub the butter onto the skin before placing them in the oven. This not only helps to add flavor to your baked potato, but helps make the skin crispy as well.

If you are a potato lover, any of these options will help to make your potatoes taste better, and add a little more zing to your dinner. From now on instead of hearing "Oh. Potatoes." from your family at dinner time, you'll be hearing "OH!! Potatoes!"