Cooking Techniques: Starches, Potatoes & Rice or Cold Preparation of Fruits & Vegetables
Potatoes

Potatoes can be used for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Potatoes need to be cleaned. Potatoes are inexpensive. However, you should not have too much starchy food. In college, we got by on potatoes and noodles. As a breakfast food, you can prepare potatoes as hash browns or fried potatoes. The key to preparing potatoes is preparation. If you prepare hash browns you should peal the potatoes and shred then fry them in pan with butter. The key to preparing fried potatoes wedges is the clean the potato first. You can keep the skins on or peal the potato. Then you need to boil the potato. You then fry the potato in pan with some butter until it is golden brown.

For lunch, potatoes are best as a French fries or baked cheesy potatoes. In order to make French fries or baked French fries with cheese the key is in the preparation. First preheat your oven. Next, clean the potatoes. Then, peel the potatoes. Next cut the potatoes in strips. Then get a cooking sheet. Grease the sheet or put some butter on the sheet. Next put the potatoes on the cooking sheet. You can season with pepper or seasoning salt. Cook for about 30 minutes at about 400 degrees. Make sure you check around 20 minutes. About 5 minutes before you take the pan out put some cheese on the potatoes.

For dinner, the baked potato is a staple. You can cook a potato in the oven or in a microwave. If you bake in the microwave, then you need to make sure that you pock the potatoes several times with a fork or it will explode in the microwave. Rice is always a good idea too for dinner. Uncle Ben’s rice or Rice-A-Roni is the best for dinner. There is not much prep. You can just follow the instructions on the box. Spaghetti is also a starchy meal that is good to have for dinner.
As indicated by the following website it is a good idea to always eat a balanced meal:

http://www.ricearoni.com/Nutrition/Eating_a_Balanced_Diet/

Here is a website with numerous recipes for potatoes:

http://www.potatogoodness.com/

Fruits and vegetables:

Everyone should eat more fruits or vegetables. There is really not much cooking technique or
preparation with fruits and vegetables. You need to make sure they are cleaned with water. Our family has been eating more strawberries. You can buy a crate at Costco. They must get their strawberries from a different place than most grocery stores because they taste so good. They are great to have as a snack. Yesterday, I had a breakfast meal of strawberries and pineapple. You need to wash and cut the tops off the strawberries and prepare the pineapple. We used a tool the cut the pineapple. It is good breakfast meal. This meal can be prepared for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It is also a good idea to try and replace snacking or junk food with fruits. I have tried to eat bananas or strawberries instead of chips or other junk food.
The CDC has a website that list how many fruits and veggies you should have each day based on your age and activity. It indicates that I should have 2.5 cups. I need to work on that with more veggies. You can also start growing your own veggies. I have planted some peas this year. We will see how it works. Here is the CDC web site:

http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/

The website also provides at fruit or vegetable of the month:

http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/month/index.html

There are some vegetables listed that I have never heard of like a Tubers. You should work to add more veggies to your diet.