Munchie Monday: Easy Homemade Tater Tots

 We are getting down on fun things to eat***.  Somewhere (It turns out it was Chuck Underwood!) I found a Homemade Tater Tots recipe.  I sort of followed it.

Scrub and remove eyes from 6 small to medium potatoes.

Shred in the food processor with the larger shredding disc then put in a large bowl of cold water to rinse.

Put 2-3 Tablespoons of dehydrated onions in a bowl then pour in 3 Tablespoons of hot water.  Set aside.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Stir the potatoes around in the water to release some of the starch, then drain through a strainer.  Pick up a large handful of the shredded potatoes and squeeze as dry as possible. Put into the large bowl.  When all the potatoes are in the bowl, sprinkle on 2 Tablespoons of corn starch and mix in well.  

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes on a rimmed baking sheet.  I put a Silpat on the pan.  Turns out, I should have put on a little grease, something I am trying to avoid.  Still, it would have been a good idea...

When the cooked potatoes are pretty much cooled, or as long as you can stand to wait for the next step, sprinkle in 1 Tablespoon dried chives, more if you have fresh ones, 1 teaspoon of granulated garlic and 1 teaspoon of salt.  Add the re-hydrated onions, including any juice in the bowl.

Mix well then use a portion scoop to make into tater tots which you will put in an air fryer basket and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.  Ours were pretty big.  Next batch I will use a smaller portion scoop so they will get crispier.  Even so, these were pretty good!

***The story on "getting low on fun things to eat" is that ten days ago I was reminded how much I had always wanted a WooLee Winder for my spinning wheel so the yarn wool wind onto the bobbin evenly and beautifully.  I found that the price had gone up terribly, BUT, when I looked for my specific spinning wheel (an Ashford Traveller) the WooLee Winder was way less that I thought it would be.  I was mentioning to Dear One that when I got the money together I was going to get it.

WELL!!!  He said, "If you won't spend another penny this month, you can get it."  WHAT?!!!  I checked to be sure he was willing, then I pushed the button!!!  Now the trick is to not spend another penny.  It has been ten days and I have not spent a bit.  It is very hard and there is another whole week to go.  I have had to unsubscribe from several places so I won't get tempting emailed ads...

The good thing is that the refrigerator and the freezer are becoming skinnier.  And so am I!  At the same time as this no-spending thing, I decided to seriously remove all fat from my diet.  This is particularly good because from Thanksgiving to the beginning of February I had gone haywire, eating up a storm of not very good food.  Well, good to the tongue and brain and maybe even heart (as in comfort food...) but NOT AT ALL GOOD for the body.  So, I am now taking off those ungodly pounds.  Yet again.  I am going to try to keep this up until my lab work gets done in April.  The money, though, I cannot commit to stay off spending that long...Not by a long shot!  Though it really is rather empowering to have had ten successful days! 

In fact, I am thinking of subscribing to Misfits Market the first of March, so the spending ban will be broken.  Has anyone done that?  How has it gone?  Thanks.