THE FREEMAN BLOG: Week in Pictures & The Best Oven Fries

This is my favorite picture from the week. One morning as we were getting ready for work, we heard a loud rustling coming from the bedroom. When we came back to check it out, we found that Oscar had managed to wedge himself in the closet and push all of my shoes out in the floor. Then he just sat down. This has to be the weirdest pug in the universe. He absolutely loves to get in a closet and sit down underneath the clothes.

I think Milly was instigating. At any rate, she was entertained by the whole thing – she was just sitting there watching.

I have really stepped it up in the kitchen lately. Stop laughing. I’m serious. I have been reading all kinds of cookbooks and recipes on the internet and trying them out at home. I really just love to make a meal that tastes good – and I get so much satisfaction if I can make something that Brent likes! We are still using E-Meals but I am making quite a few modifications to the recipes and especially the side dishes.

So, today I made all three meals for us at home in the kitchen. I can’t remember the last time we ate at home all day on a weekend (sad, I know, but we usually eat out at least once on Saturday & once on Sunday). For tonight, I made BBQ pork chops in the crockpot, green beans, and oven fries.

Awesome Oven Fries

These fries are one of the best things I have ever made. Brent even said: “Why in the world would we ever buy fries when you can make these? These are better than McDonalds!”

The secret, I believe, is that I used coconut oil (we’ve had a jar forever & just never use it) instead of olive oil or another kind of oil. The result was a crispy, flavorful potato.

To make them, I chopped ~ 4 medium red potatoes into slices and coated them with the following mixture (all approximate as as I really didn’t measure):

~1/4 c coconut oil*
~1 tsp minced garlic
couple of sprinkles of dried thyme
sprinkles of generic seasoning salt
sprinkles of dried basil
garlic powder

I coated the potatoes in that mixture, then spread out on a baking sheet. Then I dusted with Kosher salt, a bit of cayenne pepper, and snips of rosemary from my plant. I baked at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes (can’t remember exactly), then flipped and baked another 25 minutes. (*I really used probably actually double this, but of course didn’t use the whole mixture. Then a bunch of the excess pooled on the baking sheet and I had to pour it off, etc.) So good. We will definitely be making these again.

This morning, I also tried a new biscuit recipe.

It was just okay. Actually, it was not bad, but it wasn’t what I was shooting for.

Last September, when I was at home recovering from surgery, Brent brought me some sweet potato biscuits from Chloe’s Cup, a coffee shop here in town. I took a picture of them for the blog in this post: Weekending: Fall Breakfast.

Anyway, this past Thursday we went to the UA Homegrown Farmer’s Market after work. And Chloe’s Cup was there selling those fantastic sweet potato biscuits. We promptly bought four – presumably for breakfast on Friday morning, but half of them were eaten on the way home. Ooops. Anyway, this morning I decided to try to make them myself using Paula Dean’s recipe + canned sweet potatoes I had left over from last fall.

They were fine! Really – if I had never had them before I would probably have loved them. But they were nowhere near Chloe’s Cup! Not as sweet and way more biscuit-y than I hoped. I will continue to try! We ate plenty of them, though! With another farmer’s market find:

These jams are out of this world! Tropical dreams is especially fantastic.

A few other pictures from this weekend:

Headed to a wedding, which was held at the Oaks in Centreville, AL. It was so beautiful! We are so happy for the bride & groom but disappointed that we are losing the most awesome house/dog-sitter ever!