All the comments I've gotten on the Autumnal Casserole post have led me to believe that there are a lot of you out there looking for alternatives to the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. So I thought I'd post another one of my favorites. This one originally came to me via 101 Cookbooks. Heidi found it in Artisanal Cooking by Terrance Brennan. It is a sweet potato puree that is flecked with vanilla and orange zest and it so good that you might think it belongs in a pie instead of along side your turkey.
I first made it two years ago to take along to my family's Thanksgiving buffet. I put the bowl down on the table and got hijacked into a conversation with my aunt. When I finally got back to the table half an hour later, the bowl was nearly empty. Last year I made it for Christmas dinner. While we were waiting for my dad to carve the turkey, my mom and I stood in the kitchen together and scraped the bowl of the food processor clean with our fingers, just so as not to let any of this puree go to waste.
Give up your sweet potato casseroles and try this puree. It will convert even the most devoted of the mini-marshmallow fans.
I must have sweet potatoes on the brain, because is the second post I'm writing this week that involves them. This time I haven't actually done the cooking, I'm simply salivating over the Sweet Potato Gnocchi that Brys made over at Cookthink this weekend.
I've never made gnocchi on my own. I've thought about it more than once, but always talked myself out of the idea because I'd heard from so many folks that it's really hard to get it right. This is why I'm doubly intrigued by this post, because Brys didn't even use a recipe, he just headed out and did it by feel (documenting each step as he went with some really lovely pictures). There are lots of things that I can cook by feel, but homemade pasta is not one of them. However, he makes it look so easy that I think I'm going to have to give it a go sometime soon.
I often clip recipes out of the newspaper, but frequently they just get heaped onto the big pile that represents my To-Do list and forgotten. However, a couple of days ago I found myself standing in my kitchen, looking a three-pound bag of sweet potatoes and lemongrass that I had bought on a whim and realized that I had clipped the perfect recipe for those items not two weeks before.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran an article about Ellen Yin, the owner of Fork, a restaurant that helped revitalize the Old City neighborhood of Philly. She's publishing a cookbook/memoir in honor of the restaurant's 10th anniversary. They ran several of her recipes along side the article, including one for Sweet-Potato Lemongrass Soup, perfect for my random ingredients. It turned out a really silky soup (although I think I would reduce the amount of water just slightly, as I like my pureed veggie soups a little thicker) that starts out tasty and gets better over time. It's a terrific recipe for fall, when you want something warm and soft, colored with the hues of fall (the recipe is after the jump).
The quesadilla is perhaps the sturdiest of staples in my roster of go-to meals. Lately, my favorite combination is the one you see here: flour tortillas with Monterrey Jack cheese, spinach, black beans, chicken and sweet potatoes. Really, all you need for a satisfying quesadilla is tortillas and cheese, but taking the time to get a few quality components together yields something far more satisfying. As a bonus, the following recipes for black beans, sauteed spinach and mashed sweet potatoes are all great side dishes on their own. I usually wind up using leftover roasted chicken, but grilled or sauteed shrimp are also a great substitution. The assembly is pretty simple, regardless of the fillings you choose, but we'll get back to that later. The following proportions should be enough for two large quesadillas. All of the ingredients can easily be multiplied.
For a foodie, especially a Slashfoodie, one of the best things about winter is that it signifies a changing of the guard, so to speak, when it comes to produce. Apples, pears and citrus replace the berries and melons of summer, opening up a whole new season of possibilities. Capogiro Gelato expresses all these possibilities with their seasonally changing menu, now geared up for winter. I was fortunate enough to sample some of the flavors from their summer line earlier this year and, this week, had the opportunity to indulge in a few of their winter offerings, as well.
While they still have their classic Italian and chocolate flavors available, Capogiro's holiday table menu is extensive, including Apple Cider with Clove Sorbetto, Castagne (Chestnut) Gelato, Cannella di Saigon (Cinnamon) and Melograno (Pomegranate). The flavors I tried were Zucca (Lancaster County Neck Pumpkin), Apple Cider with Clove, Sweet Potato with Pecan Praline, Meyer Lemon with Vodka, Moro (Blood Orange) and Pure King Leo Stracciatella.
The 18th (I think) round of Sugar
High Friday is being hosted by Chandra of Lick The Spoon. The
theme is one not unfamiliar to us here at Slashfood: cooking with booze. The official title is "Candy is
Dandy...But Liquor is Quicker." My contribution is a sweet potato pie with bourbon, topped with pecans and maple
syrup. The recipe comes from Alton Brown and his episode of Good Eats dedicated to sweet potatoes. A transcript of the
episode, including the pie recipe, is available through the Good Eats Fan Page. That recipe doesn't
include bourbon, but I happened to have a bottle of Baker's on the shelf, and,
well, you know, it seemed like a good idea. Since this was the first time I made this recipe (or sweet potato pie, for
that matter), I didn't want to tinker with it too much, so I only used two tablespoons of bourbon, around half a shot.
It could probably have used a little more, as the bourbon flavor is rather faint. Still, it's one of the best sweet
potato pies I've tasted. I'm not ashamed to say that the crust was store-bought. I'm still an amateur in the baking
department, and, since I always manage to make a huge mess anyway, I figured I'd make it easier on myself. Truth be
told, I still managed to scorch a pot and dirty an extra pie pan. But that's all in the past now. What I'm left with is
my favorite type of pie, and a killer version at that.
Can the lowly Sweet Potato answer the world's ever growing needs for food and energy
supplys and remain environmentally balanced? Japanese scientists seem to think so.
"With people
scrambling for food and energy, environmental destruction will get increasingly serious," said Toyoki Kozai,
president of Chiba University and an expert on sweet potatoes. "Sweet potatoes can solve these three major
problems all at once."
The sweet potato can grow with little use of fertilizers (boosting its green
credentials) and also using the same area of land yields five times more than rice in terms of
weight. The food can also be used to make alcohol for fuel and biodegradable plastic. Unlike petroleum-based
plastic, that made from sweet potatoes decomposes naturally through bacterial action in the earth. You can even buy
hydroponics equipment to grow sweet potatoes designed for rooftop greening as a way to absorb heat. All in all it
sounds a most benefical group on so many levels - I can't stand the taste though!
The
Food Network editors put together a list of their favorite comfort foods of the past
year and if anyone needed any confirmation that Paula Deen is the darling of the network, this is
it. 7 out of the top 10 recipes are hers and the Sweet Potato Casserole credited to the "Food Network
Kitchens" has a distinctly Paula feel, albeit with less butter than she would use. Their top picks are:
It's hard to believe that they didn't pick any macaroni and cheese for their list, particularly since a search of
their site turned up 64
hits, two of which are Paula Deen recipes. It is also a surprise that no Rachael Ray recipes made the list, since
her specialty is quick and easy comfort food. Instead of going with a list comprised mainly of casseroles, it would
have been nice to diversify the list with some chocolate chip cookies, soups or other non-pasta dishes, too.
I just tried the Vanilla Sweet Potato Puree
recipe from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks as a side to my holiday meal. After
cooking the sweet potatoes until soft and tender, I placed them in a large bowl with cream, vanilla extract, a bit of
orange zest and a bit of butter and whipped them with a hand mixer until they were smooth and fluffy. You can see
Heidi's batch in the photo above because her styling of this side is far more appealing than any of my attempts.
Somehow, it seems that purees look much less glamorous than they taste. No matter, because this tasted fantastic. The
vanilla flavor, though I used extract rather than infuse my cream with real vanilla beans, as Heidi did, came through
very well. Its delicate flavor brought out the sweetness of the potatoes without having to add a lot of sugar. Whipping
the whole mixture, combined with the cream, no doubt, makes it incredibly light and fluffy. This is a standout dish and
is definitely worth a repeat. Or two.
Can the lowly 
The
DIY Foods: Making homemade sausage
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
