Properly Storing Potatoes

When I’m in my kitchen cleaning or cooking, my mind usually wanders to think about how I can improve my kitchen or what would help me be more efficient or organized. Last time this happened you got a post about grease, so buckle up, this one is about potatoes!

Because of our obsession with the Baked Potato Rounds I shared earlier, there is constantly a bag of potatoes sitting on the floor of my kitchen by my pantry. Yesterday while I was cleaning, I started thinking that I needed to google how to properly care for those precious potatoes because I do NOT want them rotting, especially on my kitchen floor! Here are the things I learned about how I should be storing my potatoes.

From eHow I learned that I need to

• Store my potatoes in a brown paper, burlap or plastic bag with holes (ummm… don’t the potatoes already come in a bag like that? YES they do!) so I can put a big CHECK mark next to this one!
• They need to be stored in a cool, dark, dry place (a.k.a. NOT my kitchen floor!) This ideal place will have a temperature around 50 degrees (good luck finding a place like that, especially in the summer! BUT you should NOT store them in the refrigerator as it will make them too sweet)
• Avoid storing potatoes near onions as they are major nemesis’!
• Potatoes also should not be washed until you are ready to eat them.
• Check them regularly and throw out any that are soft, shriveled or sprouting.

I guess this all means I will be moving my potatoes into the garage so that I can extend their life expectancy. The only problem with having them in the garage is that popular saying “out of sight, out of mind.” I hope I can remember we have them to continue cooking them instead of just forgetting and letting them go bad!!

So now that you know, who has to go move their potatoes??