There are occasional days when you feel like a genius. This was one of those days for me. In our local town we don’t have any of the “cool” grocery stores, Whole Foods, Central Market, Trader Joes. We have Shoprite and I will say how thankful I am for Shoprite and there excellent selection of gluten free foods, but a few times we drove an hour to go to Whole Foods.
At Whole Foods I found this brand in the “kids organic freezer section” yes they have a kids organic freezer section there, (ha) called Peas of Mind. They had these broccoli potato fries, that seemed to truly be made of broccoli and potatoes and they were certified gluten free, and so I bought them. Keaton loved them, and I made that one bag last like a month, by just giving him a few at a time.
I wanted more, and thought I could get them at another local grocery store, but upon checking I couldn’t find them. The Peas of Mind website tells you every grocery that has them, and even some Super Targets do, but nothing close here.

So, I started searching on google how to make them or something similar. I went 10 pages in on my google search clicking on every link, nothing. So, on my genius day- I decided to make them, I thought how hard could it be.

I knew they were fries, but I also could tell from the original item that they had been blended together. Both broccoli and potatoes are not easily blendable unless cooked, so I steamed the broccoli and boiled the potatoes and threw them in the food processor. I pulsed until combined, and the smell seemed similar to the original, but the texture was SOOO sticky. I really wanted to shape them like fries, but they were sticky. Normally you’d get flour and get to shaping. But since these had to be gluten free, I got out the gf oats, blended them up and then used them as a coating. This worked great to help shape them like fries.

But then I realized I wasn’t selling these babies, who said they needed to be look like fries, so then I just started plopping them down as is on a sprayed cookie sheet. I put them in the oven at 400 and let them cook probably 15 minutes, flipping once. They came out of the oven, and I have to say tasted almost EXACTLY like the Peas of Mind brand. Which is cool for two reasons, 1.) I made my own recipe, woohoo! and 2.) the original brand was genuinely made from potatoes and broccoli.

Of course there’s a catch though….. After I fed them to Keaton, I felt like he was breaking out a bit, how could that be? He’d eaten the other brand before. So, the next day we went to Boston Market and I gave him cooked broccoli and within minutes his chin had little red welts confirming he can’t eat broccoli anymore. I don’t know how he could before, maybe a smaller amount of broccoli in the fries or he just started showing an allergy. So, after all that. I had to throw the rest away. Ha! That’s my life. But maybe someone else will enjoy!