Just in case you missed these articles on making crinkly fries and using leftover pasta the first time we shared them a couple of years ago, we are republishing it. After Marne wrote these blogs originally, we got an awesome response. These are two of the PYP Best Blogs!

Making crinkly fries!

My kids like making snacks every now and then. These crinkly fries are easy and fun to make, and much better than potato chips from the store!

Crinkly Fries
3 baking potatoes
3 Tbl butter
any type of seasoning salt, for example: Mrs. Dash, lemon pepper seasoning, herb seasoning, etc.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. After scrubbing potatoes with a vegetable brush, cut with a crinkle cutter or a sharp knife leaving the peel on. Put the potato slices into a large Ziploc bag. Melt the butter and add seasoning to it, mix together. Pour into the bag and mix with the potatoes to coat. Add as much or as little seasoning as you want. Shake well.

Layer the potatoes on a shallow pan or cookie sheet in a single layer. Put in oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until lightly brown and tender. Longer if you want them crispy. Turn the potatoes halfway through the baking process. End result = yummy crinkly fries.

Nutrition Facts per serving: 144 calories, 7 g total fat (1 g sat. fat), 0 mg col., 153 mg sodium, 19 g carbs, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein

Use up that leftover uncooked pasta!

If you you like me, then periodically you find yourself with several boxes of pasta with only about 2/3 or less in the box. Lots of different varieties. None is enough to make for a meal. Here is what I do to make sure I still use up what I have and not waste anything.

On Tuesday night I had these 3 boxes of pasta in my cupboard needing to be used:

We were having Garlic Chicken Farfalle for dinner (SO GOOD!) so I decided to use all 3 kinds of pasta. But I didn’t want to be cooking them in different pots. So read the back of the boxes and start cooking the pasta that takes the longest.

Then I set the timer and added the next pasta four minutes later, then the last pasta 1 minute later. Each pasta cooked for the right amount of time, and I was able to cook them all at once. I ended up with a nice batch of pasta for dinner!

What do you do with your small amounts of pasta?