Savor those leftover spuds for spring

Thank goodness today is the first day of spring. This has been a busy week. Daylight Saving gifted us with more light at the end of our day. We needed this to prepare enough Irish food for properly honoring St Patrick's Day. Now that spring has officially arrived we can start burning off all that soda bread and beer. What I really need, however, are some ideas on what to do with too many potatoes.

I stocked up on spuds for the mid-week holiday but now I am dismayed that they are, in keeping with the color of the week, turning green.

Green is good when you are honoring the Irish. It is my preferred lawn color. Even my favorite pair of socks is green. It is not attractive, however, when it is in a potato.

The green color, often thought of as toxic is merely a sign that a potato has been exposed to light, prompting it to produce more chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is not toxic to humans. What creates the problem with green potatoes is that exposure to light also produces a substance called solanine, a glycoalkaloid, which has been shown to be toxic when consumed in great quantities.

Scientists have sought to determine exactly what quantity of green potatoes it would take to cause human toxicity.

Research suggests that an adult would need to eat about 4.5 pounds of light-exposed potatoes to reach blood levels of solanine that are unhealthy.

Of course, eating 4.5 pounds of anything, including green potatoes, is not a sound principle for health and well-being.

So I need to cook them up while they are a respectable brown and white. Potatoes can be frozen after being cooked but sometimes lean toward being mealy and crumbly. Better to prepare a dish that can be frozen. To use up extra potatoes try some of the following ideas:

Make a large batch of mashed potatoes and freeze in smaller containers. Mashed potatoes can be used later for thickening cream-based soups, making potato pancakes, or as a nicely browned topping for casseroles such as chicken pot pie. Mashed potatoes can be piped from a cake decorating bag to make fancy, attractive designs on appetizers or fillings for cavities like baked squash. Pipe mashed potatoes mixed with parmesan cheese onto a well greased cookie sheet and brown in a hot oven to create homemade tater tots. Mashed potatoes can also be added to bread dough to make potato bread.

Roast potatoes and freeze them for a quick, delicious addition to dinner later.

Twice baked potatoes are also great to freeze and whip out and microwave at a later date when you want a quick meal but something hot and substantial.

Of course, if you do not get around to any of the above you can just wait. Eventually, the green with grow deeper and the eyes will sprout looking for dirt to grow in.

As soon as the garden is tillable you can throw chunks of potato with the eyes in a hole and cover up for new potatoes this summer. You can also grow potatoes in a large container on your porch. Little kids will love it.