Page 1 of 3

Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:26 pm
by ruupyet
These are so good. My kids love them.

http://fifteenspatulas.com/2011/01/10/n ... -potatoes/

I've adjusted the recipe to suit our tastes. I use oatmeal flour in place of the flour and I season the potatoes with a ton of ground up rosemary, paprika, pepper, garlic powder, a dash of chipotle and salt.

Ignore her insistence on excess salt. Obviously, we all know it isn't necessary. I do like salt on my potatoes but no need to go overboard.

I also lower the temp to 500 and they are done in 45 minutes in my oven. Even my very SAD eating mom absolutely loves these.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:37 pm
by Gramma Jackie
Thanks for the link.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:43 pm
by greentea
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! :D

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 2:29 pm
by surrealchereal
Looks great! Thank you :)

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 7:11 am
by greentea
Oh wow! I can't believe how crispy they turned out!!! Fantastic. I followed your instructions. I'm glad I did because I think if I left them any longer than 45 min, they might have burned.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:28 am
by toadfood
This looks tasty! For the oatmeal flour, do you grind up rolled oats in your food processor?

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:32 am
by ruupyet
I put the rolled oats in my coffee grinder along with all the other spices and grind them up together.

I'm thinking the person that came up with these fabulous potatoes has an oven that isn't keeping its temperature because there is no way I could let these go 15 minutes longer at 25 degrees hotter. Sometimes even 500 for 45 minutes burns a few of the ones I make.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:50 am
by toadfood
ruupyet wrote:I put the rolled oats in my coffee grinder along with all the other spices and grind them up together.


That sounds great! I have a coffee grinder I use for spices and flaxseed. I would rather not buy flour, since I won't use it for anything else.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:27 am
by Summer
I'm assuming these would work even without any salt at all? I'm tempted to try these but I haven't bought salt in more than a decade. I think it's been almost as long since I have made tater tots. For a larger family it was too labor intensive and subject to failure with my method, which was to shred the potatoes, rinse, microwave, then semi mash together forming into tots and then bake. This method sounds so much easier! ...and potentially more delectable with the seasoned flour.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:06 pm
by ruupyet
They'd work great without any salt! I've done really good with curtailing my salt addiction but I hate any kind of potato without salt so I add some. Like I stated, if you do use it, no need to go crazy like she suggestions in her recipe with putting it in the water and adding tons of it as a seasoning. I've never made these using only salt and pepper like she suggests in the recipe. That seems too bland for my liking. I've always used a blend of multiple seasonings to suit our tastes but you can use whatever appeals to you.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 8:38 pm
by stoumi
I will say "AWESOME!" as well. Maybe them tonight in hopes of complementing them with my son's burger. Unfortunately 525 degrees in our oven was too hot and some of the bottoms burned just a bit. I don't think I even had them in the oven for 35 minutes. Maybe 35 minutes. All in all the outside had a great crunch and the inside was soft. Altogether they were tasty! My wife loved them, so that means I will be making more of these real soon. I am sure my son will eat them up, as long as I don't burn them.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:06 pm
by healthyvegan
ugh, I got them all ready and turned my oven up to 500 and it crapped out! I used white flour and had them all perfectly muddled into tater tots, I was skeptical at first if the cubes would round out, but they did perfectly. Now just have to wait for the oven repairman (I ended up just turning them into mashed potatoes...)

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:27 am
by ETeSelle
I wish these didn't sound like such a long, drawn out process, LOL. I'm INCREDIBLY lazy in the kitchen and Jeff's Fast Food DVD is my idea of cooking. I miss tater tots (one of my vegan-but-horrible-for-you guilty pleasures in the vegan SAD days), but just reading about this wears me out, LOL.

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:28 am
by ETeSelle
Do you guys put them on parchment paper or what? I've never used parchment paper (the idea of paper in the oven just kinda freaks me out) but otherwise won't they stick?

Re: Awesome Crispy "Tator Tots"

PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 11:40 am
by stoumi
No, I probably should have put some parchment paper down, but the non-stick cookie sheet I used worked well. None of the tots stuck, but I probably could have decreased the burn...still I will try these again.