space age cheese fries.

potatoes always seem like they get a bad rap. they're the eviliest of the white carbs, they have little nutrional value and they're most commonly turned into delectable french fries. a triple threat. the brilliant mfk fisher explains her disdain for the treatment of potatoes in this quotation, "i almost resented them [potatoes], in fact . . . or rather, the monotonous disinterest with which they were always treated." she's right, potatoes are essentially never the leading lady of the film. they play the best fried to meatloaf, a shoulder to cry on to the burger or the voice of reason to whatever mystery meat is spooned onto your dinner plate with little notice or respect.

on wednesday night, with my bags packed for miami, 8pm approaching and a vacation mind setting in, i decided potatoes were going to be the star of my dinner. i wanted cheese fries, but space age cheese fries, ie. semi-healthy cheese fries. i started out with these teeny tiny white potatoes i used in a frittatta about a month agao. to give you an idea of the teeny tininess:
yep, that's a quarter. and the size is obviously pretty similar. along with the potatoes, i procured some minced garlic and onion from the fridge.
warm up a medium skillet to medium heat of course. add in some cooking spray and a teaspoon of garlic oil. once warmed add 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic and 1/2 of this small onion chopped as small as you can get it. warm the onion and garlic together for about 5 minutes. then add in about 10 of these baby potatoes, quarted.
then you need the ingredient that is quintessential in cheese fries. that's bacon of course.
cook up three slices right in the same pan, remove, chop into small pieces and add back to your potatoes.

this should all cook together for a good 25-30 minutes. you may need to add a a little more cooking spray or oil along the way to prevent sticking. but you want the onions to carmelize slightly and the potatoes to brown.

remove and add to your favorite bowl before grating a very generous amount of extra sharp chedda
keep grating, more cheese. more cheese. pour the trashiest beer you have in the house and serve.
it felt sinful to eat this, but in actuality it really wasn't. it wasn't the healthiest meal either, but definitely better than going to your local bew pub for their version of cheese fries. also, potatoes were the star. all on their own. move over lucy here comes ethel, and damn it, she's one funny lady all by herself.