Cooking with Red99 pals

[Faerie]

Okay. This can be our food thread, if you guys want. I'm gonna share my potato soup recipe, and I'll try to keep the nutrition stuff to a minimum because I'm sure it's boring... feel compelled to speak to the potatoes a bit, at least, though.

As far as carbohydrates go, potatoes are one of the healthier options out there. Sweet potatoes are of course a better option, but unless you have a nightshade allergy/intolerance everything will be peachy. A lot of people have nightshade allergies without realizing it though, and in these cases potato consumption can cause inflammation, which can cause problems throughout the body. Potatoes must be cooked very thoroughly, as uncooked potatoes are really rough on the digestive system.

There are some foods that don't need to be of the "organic" variety when you purchase them, like broccoli, asparagus and kiwi. Potatoes are unfortunately not one of them. Commercial potatoes rank in the top four "vegetables" with the highest amount of pesticide residue. The skin is delicious and contains fiber and yummy nutrients, but if you're buying non-organic I highly recommend that you peel the skin off. Any non-organic potato is pretty much guaranteed to be genetically modified, and my research tells me that this usually means they contain DNA from bacillus thuringiensis, which is a bacterial toxin often referred to as Bt. The fed tells us it's 100% safe and I have no evidence stating otherwise, but the end result of the genetic modification is that beetles die when they munch on the leaves. So yeah, sorry I said a lot more than I meant to.

Here we go:
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Potatoes! You want over a pound, I find 3-4 is always about right. The very first thing you want to do is preheat your oven to 350º F. When that's done, you put the potatoes in the oven. I just set them in there, no need for a metal thingy or whatever. Oh, be sure to stab the potatoes all over so they don't explode as they heat up. Let that hot stuff escape. I forgot to do that this time and luckily they didn't explode, but I've had accidents in the past. Leave them in there for like 70-75 minutes to ensure that they're cooked all the way through. We spoke earlier about why this is important.

As that's going, let's look through our other ingredients:
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-Coconut oil
-Garlic
-1 large yellow onion
-Various bell peppers
-32oz Broth
-Herbs, spices and whatever. I think I used pepper, sea salt, a bit of cumin, thyme, and a couple different kinds of pepper flakes

For the broth, it's of course cheaper and better to make your own. I do that sometimes but other times I'm really lazy, and $3 is worth the time and energy saved because I cook seriously every day and it gets kind of old. If you're buying your broth, be very careful... most of what's out there is completely terrible. Here's what I buy, they have it in the organic section of the regular grocery store but sometimes it's slightly cheaper at Natural Grocers:
http://www.amazon.com/Pacifc-Natural...+organic+broth

I buy the low sodium just because I tend not to trust the quality of the salt in these foods, and later add more of the high quality salt that I use for everything. The list of ingredients:
Filtered Water, Organic Carrots, Organic Tomatoes, Organic Celery, Organic Onions, Organic Garlic, Organic Leeks, Sea Salt, Organic Bay Leaves, Organic Parsley, Organic Thyme.

Never buy broth (or anything) with chemically-sounding words unless you know what they mean and are sure they're safe. There's crazy added sugars and MSG in everything, it's pretty sad.

Okay! Get some coconut oil melting in a pot or big pan or whatever. I used a pot.
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When that's melted, turn the burner off. We're gonna be cutting the stuff up now and I like to cook it all together unless we're working with tomatoes or whatever. Starting with garlic:
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I don't know what this tool is, or what it's intended use is, but I crush/flatten out garlic with it, which gets all the juices out and makes it simpler to cut.
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Next we dice, or whatever the proper word is, the onion. Add the whole thing in there with the garlic:
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Bell peppers... I probably should have added a bit more than this, but it worked out alright:
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Whenever the potatoes finish baking, take them out and work with a fork until they're all like... the first step toward making mashed potatoes. There's really no reason you can't just dice and fry the potatoes if you want, but I bake them to ensure they're thoroughly cooked. Also dicing potatoes sucks. This is much easier.
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