Random Tater Pics of the Day #174 and 175

Homemade Vegan Sweet Potato Pies, a special pair of random holiday tater pics from my good friend and French Fry Diary contributor Robin Renee. Mmmmm...

Random Tater Pic of the Day #169

This one comes from friend, musician, and writer Robin Renee (check out her new website and let her know what you think!) just in time for Halloween.

French Fry Diary 615: Tommy's! Roasted Cajun Potatoes

I saw this at the Shop-Rite and had to grab it for later inspection. This bag of steam able potatoes (usually not a good sign) just emanated fun with its packaging. Tommy's! (complete with exclamation mark) Roasted Cajun Potatoes just looked like it would be worth the price of admission, good or bad. I was sold.

Now Tommy's! is not the southern California burger chain nor the famous Los Angeles burger joint, it's apparently its own thing, connected to the healthy freezer food retailer Tommy's Superfoods. This packaging depicting the cowboy with the gator is slightly different than what I could find online. Keeping with the Superfoods line these are vegan, non-GMO, BPA free, POFA free, with no transfats.

They are however microwave steamable, and for French fries, even healthy ones, that's often not good. They can be nuked in the bag, in a microwave safe plate, or even just fried on the stovetop in a skillet. That last one is probably how I should have done these, maybe next time. In the nuke, the blew inflated like microwave popcorn and it filled the space with damp steam.

These potato wedges besides being 'blended' with roasted corn, and onions, are also seasoned with Tommy's! Cajun Style Baby spices. Okay, truth, once these potatoes are on the plate, they smell good, but they are not pretty. The mess reminded me a bit of ill-prepared breakfast potatoes at an abandoned buffet. It's a good thing they taste so good.

The potato wedges don't have crisp or crunch because of the cooking method, but they're also not wet it soggy. This is a solid cook, and they have a baked potato quality, soft and hot. The corn and onions are a surprising addition and the spices pack quite a hot kick.

I liked these quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the next time so I can try the stovetop method, or maybe reheating them in the oven to get a bit of a crisp. Recommended.

French Fry Diary 564: 365 Organic Sea Salt Potato Chips

Another last minute impulse buy from Whole Foods, 365 is their store brand snack size potato chips, and comes in a number of varieties, in this case Organic Sea Salt.

The ingredients indicate organic potatoes, sea salt, and a few possibilities of what oil used. According to the bag, these chips are vegan, USDA organic, transfat free, sugar free, but not a low calorie food. Just saying.

These are good solid flat chips, not greasy at all, just could use a little bit more seasoning is all. Maybe I'll try the Sea Salt and Black Pepper flavor next time. Despite it being "not a low calorie food," I think this would be a reasonable choice for looking for a healthier chip, good stuff.

French Fry Diary 455: Smashburger 2013

Here it is, the report from the annual trip to Smashburger on New Year's Day. I had anticipated this year getting together a whole expedition to go from folks at the NYE party the night before, but it didn't work out. Hangovers do that. And the couple we had wanted to come with us passed because of vegan issues.

I countered with the argument that Smashburger had a wide variety of vegan and/or vegetarian offerings, including a veggie burger and several flash-fried veggies as sides. I was told that just going to Smashburger, and giving them their business, would be like saying what they do is okay, and for them - it's not.

I understand completely. No harm, no foul. We're cool. But it did get me thinking. I suppose there are a lot of folks who feel that way, and it made me wonder. Are the fast food burger outlets just wasting their time by making vegan/vegetarian offerings available, when those folks won't be coming in any way? I would love to hear the thoughts of folks out there in the foodie blogosphere.

Now, on to the regularly scheduled annual Smashburger visit. Unlike the last two years we had been here to the Riverside Square Mall location, the place was packed, and hopping for New Year's Day lunch. After placing our order and sitting down, The Bride and I busied ourselves on our iPhones playing the BurgerSmasher game. You can test your skills here making burgers the Smashburger way.

Our shakes came to the table first. I got a big thick chocolate shake, as thick as McDonald's used to have, and Sonic still does. The Bride thought her Oreo shake was very good. They come in a glass, with more in the mixing cup so you know they did it right. In hindsight, this was the best part of the meal right there.

After the last two trips here, I elected to skip the Smashfries this time, in favor of the delicious Haystack Onions. These thinly sliced and deep-fried onions are a bit greasy, but very good. I ordered my Smashburger plain, as usual, but piled some of those onions on top of the patty. Both the burger and the onions were awesome. The burgers are always good.

Of course, the burger and onions only brought to mind the lunch of the previous day, and I have to say, Smashburger paled in comparison to Little Shanty in nearby Warren NJ. Now I hope to get there sooner, but I think next year we'll have a new tradition, lunch at Little Shanty both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Sorry, Smashburger.

French Fry Diary 432: Peas of Mind Veggie Wedgies Baked Apple Fries

I'm usually love or hate when it comes to non-potato French fries, especially when they are touted as healthy or 'good for you.' These apple fries are a good example.

Peas of Mind, by their own admission, and advertising, makes all natural eats for growing kids. These baked apple fries are part of the Veggie Wedgies branding. These fries also come in broccoli, carrot and cauliflower. All of them are vegan, fat free, gluten free, dairy free, and soy free. One could also surmise they're also fun free, but that would just be mean. There is also no artificial flavor, no added sugars, and low in sodium content.

So these baked apple fries rack up high points in the healthy area, but how do they taste? Soon, young Fry Jedi, soon. Well, first, while they are baking, they smell great thanks to cinnamon being one of the ingredients. The others are apples, dehydrated potatoes (a surprise), water, baking powder, and sea salt.

Those dehydrated potatoes are a problem because that's the bad bland taste in these otherwise okay apple fries. They definitely need something, maybe to dip - honey or organic ketchup is suggested by Peas of Mind. Maybe whipped cream also.

The baked apple fries were good for a change of pace, but I don't think I'd try them again, I'd prefer natural apple strips.

French Fry Diary 404: McDonald's Around the World

While it started in the United States many decades ago, McDonald's has conquered the world, and their French fries supremacy follows them through most of the planet. In some places the McFries are known by other names, like McFritas in Portugeuse, but they are still the same great fries. It's true, the fries remain the same in much of the world, but there are exceptions, and there are some intriguing and downright bizarre serving differences.

In Mexico, you can order McPatatas (that's "McPotatoes" in Spanish), which are seasoned potato wedges served up in a cup. In Hong Kong, during New Year season, you can get twisted curly fries. Costa Rica has steak fries, and Canada of course has poutine.

In India, you can get the McAloo Tikki. This is McDonald's take on that spiced potato croquette dish featuring a breaded deep-fried patty of potatoes and peas served on a hamburger bun along with tomatoes, onions, a special vegetable sauce, and ketchup. A perfect vegetarian burger for a land where you really can't have burgers… and it's made from potatoes.

In Germany, Hong Kong, Turkey, and several other Eastern European countries, Mickey D's has, wait for it, onion rings. They are standard-sized and use whole rings of onion rather than chopped onions like the competition at Burger King.

In the Netherlands you can get a special condiment for your fries called American Sauce. It's a yellow mayo we don't have in the States. Go figure. In the UK and in India you can get curry as a dipping sauce. In Poland they have the Ruffian Sandwich which is basically a burger with a second patty that is a Hash Brown rather than beef.  In the Philippines, McDonald's seasonally offers standard curly fries, known as Twister Fries there.  Man, I wish they'd have them here - Americans are quite fond of curly fries too, ya know? 

Also in Hong Kong, you can get Shake Shake Fries, where you put your fries in a bag a la Shake N Bake with whatever you want on your fries. Think cheddar, garlic, or regional favorites - chargrill, French onion, salt and pepper, and seaweed. Yeah, seaweed. To each their own. These shaker fries are very popular throughout the Indian Ocean and South Pacific region.



For additional side orders, around the world you can also get McRice, shrimp scampi, cheese empanadas, corn, and even gazpacho.

French Fry Diary 343: Burger.Org

For various reasons, four games in, and The Bride has yet to make it to a Philadelphia Wings home game. She also hasn't gotten to see our friends Judy and Marc who are also season ticket holders. Actually Judy is an old friend, went to high school with The Bride, and some college with me. Her husband Marc and I have become quick new friends. Although I think he was puzzled the first time he saw me taking photos of fries.

The Bride's first attend-able game was a day game so Judy and Marc planned a lunch get together beforehand. Knowing of my peculiar food fetish and catastrophic pickiness, they chose a burger place in Philly that also had, you guessed it, the favorite fried food. And that's how we got to Burger.Org.

Burger.Org has a healthy edge, serving all organic meats and offering a heavily vegan and gluten free menu. The meat had no artificial ingredients, antibiotics, or preservatives. 100% organic they claim, and that even includes stuff like the shakes and the fries. So basically everything you, ahem, I could possibly want, only healthier.

So what do you think I ordered? I got the burger, a Coke (yeah, I know, I was surprised too) and fries what else? The Bride was a bit disappointed that she couldn't get a cheeseburger, and we both were as they didn't offer shakes until summer. Notably the fries are considered Basary, which basically means meat. In other words, it's like the McDonald's beef tallow oil secret - fries cooked in the same oil as the meat.

I got the plain fries but they also had spicy, which I wish I'd gotten, and sweet potato. Marc got the sweet, and let me try one or two. Well, one, he didn't actually see me take the others. They were spiced with cinnamon, which was to die for. We have a new sweet potato fry champion.

The regular fries are fresh cut natural cuts and quite tasty but needed a little something something - a dipping sauce, some spices. And get them while they're hot, do much tastier hot, and excellent with malt vinegar.

The burger was awesome, one of the best I've had in a while. And the bun was homemade and terrific. The Bride enjoyed her sausages, and Judy and Marc enjoyed their wings. Really, there's not much that wasn't recommended, and the portions were huge. Cheese and shakes aside, this place rocked.

And the Wings? Yeah, they finally won. I guess The Bride is a good luck charm, and she'd better stop missing games...

World Vegetarian Day 2009

Today, October 1st, is World Vegetarian Day.

What better time to remind everyone that potatoes, the magical food from which French fries are made, is, in fact, a vegetable.

Mmmm... fries...

Nellie McKay’s Okay

We don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, especially politically, but I like Nellie McKay’s music, and even though she’s a vegan, I like her cuz she’s also a junkatarian, meaning she likes French fries. She’s okay in my book.