Parmesan potatoes

Back when we had more money, we used to frequent fast food restaurants a little more often than I'd like to admit.  When we moved into our new home, we did some miscalculations and ended up having to cut $800 out of our spending.   We paid off our car so we didn't have two car payments...that took up $200, but we still had to cut out $600.  We had never really paid attention to what we were spending.  We just tried to not spend too much, but it was always everything we had.   So, the first step was to obviously keep track of what we were spending.  It was really eye opening.  We were spending a ridiculous amount of money on food.   I was working and my husband was going through graduate school, so we did go out to eat much more frequently than we should have.  We purchased a lot of convenience foods at the store because we didn't have a lot of time to prepare meals.  Now that I'm not working anymore, I have more time to think through my meals and spend more time planning my shopping trips.

First issue with my children was to wean them from french fries.  Seeing as potatoes are just $3.50 for a ten pound bag, it seemed to just make sense to make my own.  While I was thinking it through, I decided to look for a more healthy version and find something baked instead of fried.  This is a recipe that my mom gave us:

Parmesan potatoes:

5-6 potatoes
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt

Peel potatoes and cut them into french fries.  I usually do this by cutting the potatoes in thirds length-wise and then cutting each third into strips.  You could actually even leave the skins on to add more nutritional value.  Rinse the potatoes and pat dry with a paper towel. 

Put the Parmesan cheese, flour and salt in a brown lunch bag and give it a shake or two.  Add the potatoes a handful or two at a time and shake until they are coated with the Parmesan mixture.

Arrange the potatoes on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  We serve this with ketchup.  We never intended these to be a full meal, but my kids devour them  and are often too full for anything else.  My husband and I don't eat as many, so we add a frozen vegetable with it or sometimes make smoothies to make it more filling. 

This recipe takes so few potatoes that in a couple of days, you can use the rest of the ones in the bag for potato soup and then in a few more days have baked potatoes.