Tag Archives: sweet potatoes

Where Did I Put My Farro Salad Knick Knacks?: A Blue Apron Experiment

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chilaquilesIf you’ve never heard of Blue Apron, you have either been living under a rock or you like cooking so much that it has never occurred to you to outsource your grocery shopping and meal planning to someone else. I was one (or possibly the other) until very recently, when my friend Monisha (note: she is infinitely hipper than me) hooked me up with a free trial. Here’s the way it works: subscribers get a weekly box of ingredients that they use to follow three prescribed recipes for two-person dinners. (There’s also a family plan that is for four people, two or four times per week.) And when I say they send you the ingredients, I mean ALL the ingredients, right down to itty-bitty bags of pre-measured spices and toppings that they label “knick knacks.”

knick knacksThe week of my free test run I chose the vegetarian box (obvs), which happened to be farro and sumac-roasted sweet potato salad, poblano chilaquiles topped with avocado and an egg, and roasted butternut squash with stewed white beans and gremolata. (I know, right? If you don’t have to look any of those words up, hats off to you.) I will admit that, in advance of the box’s arrival, I was a wee bit skeptical, mostly because it is in my nature to be skeptical.

But I am here to inform you that it was actually kind of awesome. First, there’s the oooh-and-ahhh Christmas present feel of opening a big box of interesting stuff. Second, it made me consider cooking recipes that were outside my typical repertoire. Third, there is a mindless pleasure in following a set of beautifully written directions, and Blue Apron must know this, because the recipe cards are like the supermodels of the recipe card population. Continue reading →

How to Pretend to be Tamar Adler (Part II)

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cauliflower pastaAnd so the saga continued. And this time, I was determined to step it up a notch.

Attempt 3: A Cabbage with a College Education
What’s not to love about a vegetable that looks like a brain? So I decided to cook up some cauliflower, Tamar-style. She’s an advocate for boiling vegetables rather than steaming them (crisper is not always better), so I sawed up about half a head and dropped it in a pot of salty boiling water. And since I hadn’t done so well at thinking ahead up to this point, I also put the rest of the cauliflower (with some whole cloves of garlic) and some sweet potatoes in a 425 degree oven to roast.

When the boiling cauliflower was nice and tender, I ladled it out with a slotted spoon, and then used the same pot of water to cook some penne pasta. Then I mashed up the cauliflower with a generous handful of Parmesan cheese, some freshly ground pepper and the roasted garlic from the oven.  I added some of the starchy pasta water to turn to all into a sauce right before I drained the pasta. I don’t like to brag, but I think I got some extra points for tapping into Tamar’s fresh herb enthusiasm and topping it all with a bunch of fresh dill before serving.

The results were pretty good, simple but tasty. The components of the sauce did not combine quite as smoothly as I wanted them to, but no one can really complain about a big clump of melted cheese.
Tamar Score: 7

Attempt 4: It’s Not Over ‘Til the Skinny Yam Sings Continue reading →

What Was On Hand No. 982: Sweet and Shredded Mexican Sausage

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Grocery shopping in NYC can be a mixed bag.  On one hand, I’ve got a 24-7 Korean grocer two blocks away who has lots of produce (even if it is of anonymous origin) and high-end staples (even if they are kind of expensive).  On the other hand, I can’t get in a car and drive to Trader Joe’s or Wholefoods, instead having to do my best to squeeze into the average day sizable blocks of time to get to stores that aren’t really convenient.  The result, particularly as the work hours and the number of jobs increase, is too often an 8:00 p.m. choice between a motley mix of past-their-prime leftovers and takeout.

So  I’ve decided to focus, whenever possible, on whipping together dinners from assorted odds and ends in the fridge: the quarter gourd of a butternut squash, the apple that by tomorrow will be too soft, the spicy pickles hiding in a tub in the back corner.

The other evening, I came up with the following.

Jay’s Sweet and Shredded Mexican Sausage

Ingredients:

  • 1 small sweet potato (sitting on the counter for a week and a half)
  • 7 ounces of real or fake sausage (half a package left over from brunch a few days prior)
  • half a package of frozen broccoli florets (living in the freezer for however long)
  • two handfuls of salad greens (bought on sale around the corner)
  • cheddar cheese (a staple, duh) Continue reading →

Indian Curry Sweet Potato Fries & Purple Carrot Fries

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One of my cooking joys is turning someone who claims to not like a particular food.  Shannon is probably the most frequent victim/beneficiary of this pleasure.  I won out against her resistance to dark greens like kale and mustards, and I have recently joined the campaign for the honor of the sweet potato.

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a member of the botanical family Convolvulaceae that is, I was kinda surprised to learn, commonly known as the Morning Glory Family.  Yep, sweet potatoes are close cousins of Morning Glory flowers.  They’re the only commonly eaten plant of the 1,000 Convolvulaceae species.

And they’re worth eating.  The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a D.C. non-prof that advocates for nutritional awareness, found in its ’92 study of vegetables that the sweet potato is the most nutritious vegetable.  Ever.  I know, that seems crazy, it reminds us of a pumpkin or the third substitution option after curly fries, but it’s true.  Given its fiber, complex carbs, beta-carotene, protein, vitamins C and A, potassium, iron, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, et al, it scored in the Center’s test a numeric value of 184.  The second most healthy vegetable, the humble regular potato, scored only 100 points.

So we’re going to be eating some sweet potatoes in the Leahey home.

And you know I had to come up with some novel ways to prepare them.

First Move: The Peel & The Cut  –  Keep the skins.  A lot of the nutritional value is stored Continue reading →