Sweet Potatoes all Winter Long – February 21, 2013

I only recently learned how much I love sweet potatoes.  They are healthier and have more flavor than Russets plus they are great for baking and freezing for when you need then later.  This means I almost always have cooked sweet potatoes in my freezer (especially in the Winter).  Check out my earlier blog about the Great White Sweet Potato which extols the virtues of this great tuber.

 

Recently I also had bags of shredded Cheddar in a bag left over from making soup.  I admit, I don’t think of these two items going together, but then I found and adapted a recipe from Penzey’s magazine shared by Dane Kuttler.  You can make these fabulous enchiladas with meat or without and they are equally delicious.  I served them with guacamole and sour cream.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas

5-6 large tortillas (I used flour)

2 large sweet potatoes baked and mashed (without the skins)

1/8 c. soy sauce

1/3 c. apple cider vinegar

2 cloves chopped garlic

2 tsp. ground cumin

½ tsp. crushed pepper

1 15 oz. can black beans

3 cups shredded Cheddar

Up to ½ lb. cooked and shredded chicken, beef or Chorizo (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place potatoes, soy sauce, and vinegar in a heavy pot and cook to incorporate all ingredients.  Add more soy sauce and vinegar if not moist enough.  Add garlic, cumin and pepper.  Cook a few minutes until all is incorporated and bubbly.  Fold in beans and one cup Cheddar.  Fill tortillas with mixture and place all side by side in a 9 x 13 baking pan.  Cover with remaining Cheddar.

If that isn’t your cup of tea, here’s another great recipe for mashed sweet potatoes:

Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Cookies

¾ c. mashed, cooked sweet potatoes

1 c. softened butter

2 eggs

¾ c. sugar

¾ c. brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

½ tsp. lemon extract

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

dash salt

¼ tsp. cinnamon

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  In large bowl, cream potatoes, butter, eggs, sugars and extracts.  In another bowl, combine flour, soda, powder, salt and cinnamon.  Gradually mix the two bowls together.  Fold in chips and nuts.  Drop by teaspoon on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 25 minutes.

One year ago – Oatmeal Muffins and Emergency Biscuits

The Fruits of Our Harvest – February 17, 2013

It was August 24^th of 2012 when I blogged about our visit to the orchard to purchase two huge bags of grade out apples and pears.  We canned pears as jam and aigre deux, but there was so much left over I ran out of ideas.  That led to freezing which is almost always the easiest way to put things up for later.  We peeled, cored and sliced the pears with our apple corer/peeler/slicer.  Then, I boiled the pears about five minutes in water before putting 2 cups each into zip lock bags in the freezer.  This may sound like a small think, but when doing this, it is worth the trouble to put your bags on a plate or cookie sheet in the freezer until they freeze.  Some times I forget and the pears fall down between the shelving rungs and freeze there and I cannot remove the bag without breaking up the whole thing.

Any way, I was happy to remember that we had these pears on a cold February day when pear pie sounded like the perfect dessert when friends came for dinner.  I made the pie in a tall sided baking pan so there were piles of pear.  I also did not have a pie crust so I uncharacteristically made my own.  The pie was fabulous, but made even better because we topped it with vanilla ice cream and salted butterscotch topping our friend Mary shared from her homemade holiday gifts. 

 Pear Honey Pie

4 c. peeled, sliced pears (fresh or defrosted from your freezer)

1/3 c. honey

2 T. cornstarch

4 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. lemon zest

¼ tsp. ground ginger

2 pie pastries

2 T. butter

Toss pears with honey, cornstarch, lemon juice and zest and ginger.  Pour into pie crust and dot with butter.  Cover with second crust and seal.  Cut vents in top crust.  Bake at 400 degrees for 35-45 minutes until golden brown.

As I said, I did not make the butterscotch sauce, but it was so good, I started looking up recipes and many sites had this same basic recipe:

Salted Butterscotch Topping

4 T. unsalted butter

1 c. packed dark brown sugar

¾ c. heavy whipping cream (not ultra pasteurized)

1 T. Vanilla

1 tsp. salt

In a heavy bottomed pan, melt butter over medium low.  Just as melted toss in sugar and stir to wet uniformly.  Continue cooking stirring regularly 3-5 minutes until it is no longer grainy and looks almost liquid.  Pour in the cream and whisk until uniform.  Increase heat to medium and cook 10 minutes whisking regularly.  Turn off and let sit a couple minutes before transferring to a bowl and cool.  Add half the salt and vanilla and taste.  Keep adding to taste you like up to full amount. This will last in the refrigerator for up to a month.

One year ago in 2012 – Croutons and bagel crisps