Sweet Spuds: Cooking Challenge #4

[Trilt]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Week number four, a day belated. Oops.

To reiterate the challenge:
Each week will have a different food posted, and the challenge is to prepare a dish highlighting (or at least utilizing) that food. You then take a picture, chow down, and then post it on the thread, with comments and (hopefully!) a recipe. Easy peasy! Each week will also have an "additional challenge" for the food that you can choose to acknowledge or ignore - just for fun.

Additionally, the food for the next week will be posted along with the current week, so anybody who doesn't have the ingredient on hand can put it on their shopping list.

Current Week's Food: Sweet Potato
Current Week Dates: Sunday, 6/10 through Saturday, 6/16
Additional Challenge: Try to have at least three different colours in the dish!

Next Week's Food: Tomato (let's rhyme!)
Next Week's Dates: Sunday, 6/17 through Saturday, 6/23

Need Inspiration? Tastespotting, Foodgawker, Nibbledish, or Photograzing may help you out!

I love sweet potatoes. 😍

 

[PetPony]

Won't be making anything this week, but I'm excited for next week! Will definitely try to get something done then!

 

[Trilt]

Won't be making anything this week, but I'm excited for next week! Will definitely try to get something done then!

You should really try something with sweet potatoes hidden in it, they're such a good vitamin source! I'm personally probably going to make these, which probably taste nothing like sweet potatoes when they're done.

 

[PetPony]

You should really try something with sweet potatoes hidden in it, they're such a good vitamin source! I'm personally probably going to make these, which probably taste nothing like sweet potatoes when they're done.

Maybe I will once I'm all moved into my house. But I'm staying with my brother and it's probably gonna take a few days to just clean the kitchen. He cooks there as it is now, but I don't feel comfortable doing that!

 

[variegata]

Ahh I love sweet potatoes. Probs going to pass on this challenge though since I haven't seen any at the farmers market of late and I try to buy only what's in season.

 

[Trematode]

Omg, the boyfriend made me sweet potato pancakes a month back. They were AMAZING. I will see if I can get the recipe from him.

 

[shortnsweet]

Mmmm sweet potato fries, pie, casserole......want to eat now.

 

[kakurubird]

LOVE LOVE sweet potatoes.

My go-to preparation of them is just grilled and served with coarse salt. Think I'll have to try something new this week, though!

 

[wldlfstdnt]

The best! Going to make sweet potato fries.

Sent from my PC36100 using SDN Mobile

 

[katryn]

So freaking hard to pick just one recipe to make! I love sweet potatoes.

My favorites are:
1. Sweet potato cakes-http://everydaypaleo.com/2011/12/22/sweet-potato-latkes/. If you load a bunch of cheese in between two of these and nuke it for a few seconds it makes a good grilled cheese sandwich type meal, too.
2. Sweet potato hash-http://everydaypaleo.com/2010/09/25/baa-baa-breakfast/. I actually just made this but packed it into containers already, so I will post a pic next time I eat it.
3. Roasted sweet potatoes-No link, sorry, made this one up myself. Cube 3 sweet potatoes and 1-2 apples, coat well with coconut (or other) cooking oil and cinnamon (to taste). Spread evenly in a 9x13 pan, drizzle with honey and bake on 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Make sure every piece gets well coated with oil or they can come out kind of dry and not soft.

Enjoy!

 

[abbercadaver]

Finally on top of it!! 😀

View attachment photo-4.JPG

Just making it for me and hubs as I'm trying not to have any left overs (they just end up going to waste, because I love cooking so much, I HATE having one of us eat one leftover and the other eat a different leftover...)

Anyway:
Gnocci-
~200g cooked sweet potato (~400g raw)
~1ish cups of flour (plus some for the rolling space)**
1/2 tsp of cinnamon (more or less, if you want)
1/2 tsp of nutmeg (again, more or less)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup ricotta cheese
Pepper to taste, if you'd like

**(you may end up with more flour than 1 cup...just depends on how moist your potatoes are...NOTE: Yams and Sweet Potatoes have different moisture content!! I pressed my sweet potato innards between paper towels to try to lessen my moisture, just to be sure.)


Sauce-
1 stick unsalted butter
rubbed sage (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 tsp?...I'm really terrible about measuring....I always just estimate)
another 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

• Mix all ingredients but flour, then mix flour in by 1/3 cups until a dough is formed that's not making your fingers all goopy. It may always be a little sticky, so don't keep adding flour, and adding flour, your gnocchi will be unpleasantly hard. It may still be sticky, but as long as it's not coming off the main ball in huge sticky chunks on your fingers...you're good.
  
• Cut your ball in half, then cut those halves in thirds. Roll each one into a little snakelike roll, slightly thicker than a finger (unless you have huge fingers!...maybe....3/4 inch diameter? I suck with math/geometry/estimates). Cut these into about 1 inch strips or so.
  
• If you feel like it, move a fork across the surface making them into little u-shaped thingys. Just for aesthetics.

• Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add gnocchi bits in in batches, when they're done, they'll float to the top. 🙂 Roughly 5-6 minutes.
  
• Take them out with a slotted spoon, let them dry on parchment paper (DON'T use paper towels...they tend to get a little sticky and bits of the paper towel will come off with it!).
  
  Browned Butter Sage Sauce:
  
• So onto the sauce. Best to make this riiiiight at the end.
  
• Melt the butter over medium heat in a skillet. Add the sage, let butter brown some. When the milk solids are pleasantly brown (don't burn them though!), take off heat, add cinnamon.
  
• Pour over gnocchi, serve immediately.

Side note: I found my gnocchi needed a little more....so I put a generous amount of finely grated parmesan cheese in the dish. ....And then a little on top of that for aesthetics, again. 🙂

FYI, this is what I saw when I looked down from rolling my gnocchi out.

View attachment finoofle.jpg

 

[Trilt]

I most definitely saw that sweet potato gnocchi recipe and was really considering making it - I looovvveeee gnocchi but the roomie and bf are less enthusiastic, so I went with muffins, which I'll post sometime soon. I've make ricotta gnocchi with that same sage brown butter before, though, and it's so delicious. 😍

Mmm now I'm really hungry again.

Edit: Omg puppy was not there before. So cuuttteee.

 

[Emiloo4]

Finally on top of it!! 😀

View attachment 19918

Just making it for me and hubs as I'm trying not to have any left overs (they just end up going to waste, because I love cooking so much, I HATE having one of us eat one leftover and the other eat a different leftover...)

Anyway:
Gnocci-
~200g cooked sweet potato (~400g raw)
~1ish cups of flour (plus some for the rolling space)**
1/2 tsp of cinnamon (more or less, if you want)
1/2 tsp of nutmeg (again, more or less)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup ricotta cheese
Pepper to taste, if you'd like

**(you may end up with more flour than 1 cup...just depends on how moist your potatoes are...NOTE: Yams and Sweet Potatoes have different moisture content!! I pressed my sweet potato innards between paper towels to try to lessen my moisture, just to be sure.)


Sauce-
1 stick unsalted butter
rubbed sage (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 tsp?...I'm really terrible about measuring....I always just estimate)
another 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

• Mix all ingredients but flour, then mix flour in by 1/3 cups until a dough is formed that's not making your fingers all goopy. It may always be a little sticky, so don't keep adding flour, and adding flour, your gnocchi will be unpleasantly hard. It may still be sticky, but as long as it's not coming off the main ball in huge sticky chunks on your fingers...you're good.
  
• Cut your ball in half, then cut those halves in thirds. Roll each one into a little snakelike roll, slightly thicker than a finger (unless you have huge fingers!...maybe....3/4 inch diameter? I suck with math/geometry/estimates). Cut these into about 1 inch strips or so.
  
• If you feel like it, move a fork across the surface making them into little u-shaped thingys. Just for aesthetics.

Browned Butter Sage Sauce:

• Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Add gnocchi bits in in batches, when they're done, they'll float to the top. 🙂 Roughly 5-6 minutes.
  
• Take them out with a slotted spoon, let them dry on parchment paper (DON'T use paper towels...they tend to get a little sticky and bits of the paper towel will come off with it!).
  
• So onto the sauce. Best to make this riiiiight at the end.
  
• Melt the butter over medium heat in a skillet. Add the sage, let butter brown some. When the milk solids are pleasantly brown (don't burn them though!), take off heat, add cinnamon.
  
• Pour over gnocchi, serve immediately.

Side note: I found my gnocchi needed a little more....so I put a generous amount of finely grated parmesan cheese in the dish. ....And then a little on top of that for aesthetics, again. 🙂

FYI, this is what I saw when I looked down from rolling my gnocchi out.

View attachment 19919

This entire post is

 

[Psorophoraferox]

I have always wondered how gnocchi is made. Fascinating! That looks delicious.

 

[shortnsweet]

I realllyyy want to try this recipe. My roomie is celiac though so I would have to use corn flour...think it would still work??

Also you puppy is the cutest thing ever.

 

[katryn]

I realllyyy want to try this recipe. My roomie is celiac though so I would have to use corn flour...think it would still work??

Also you puppy is the cutest thing ever.

You could also try coconut flour, but if you do, add it in even smaller quantities until the dough forms. You tend to use A LOT less coconut flour than regular flour. And it will make the final product a little drier than normal bread, so you may also want to make sure you have plenty of sauce on hand.

I'm very tempted to try this myself because the picture is making me drool..... *grumbles and mutters about not being able to eat flour*

 

[abbercadaver]

Edit: Omg puppy was not there before. So cuuttteee.

This entire post is

I realllyyy want to try this recipe. My roomie is celiac though so I would have to use corn flour...think it would still work??

Also you puppy is the cutest thing ever.

Haha, yeah I added Phineas after I posted because I figured you guys would probably appreciate him. 😎

Funny thing is, I didnt even know I HAD a dapple until I made my gnocchi. And this morning....all his dapples have disappeared! Hmm..... 😛😉

And I'm not sure how the corn flour would work...but these guys have celiac gnocchi recipes: 🙂 Here: http://www.celiac.com/articles/605/1/Gnocchi-Gluten-Free/Page1.html aaaaannnnd here: http://italianfood.about.com/od/gnocchi/r/blr0165.htm

Read the comments, too...someone suggested xantham (?) gum to keep 'em from falling apart.

Thanks for the comments, you guys! These even got the husband stamp of approval!!! And of course, my Phin is adorable, so thanks for those, too!! 😀

 

[shortnsweet]

Fair play guys. Thanks. I'm a huge fan of the gluten, but when I cook here, i've had to alter a lot of recipes, and tend to just avoid anything pasta for the sake of her intestines...and gluten free pasta is bizarre 🙂

 

[katryn]

Fair play guys. Thanks. I'm a huge fan of the gluten, but when I cook here, i've had to alter a lot of recipes, and tend to just avoid anything pasta for the sake of her intestines...and gluten free pasta is bizarre 🙂

Couldn't help doing some digging. Here's the best thing I was able to find. The blog I found it on mentioned using coconut flour the first time and having the flavor come out not very good. I could see it; coconut flour is definitely an acquired taste. I also found several recipes for gnocchi that used rice flour as the sub for regular, if you're roomie is able to handle that.

Ingredients:

1 lb. sweet potato, baked and mashed

1 extra large egg + 1 extra large egg yolk

12oz (~2 cups) organic quinoa flour

4 tbl. tapioca flour

1/2 tsp. salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake sweet potato at 400°F until fork tender, approximately 60 minutes. Scoop from skin, mash, and cool sweet potato. Mix cooled sweet potato with egg, egg yolk, salt, tapioca flour, and quinoa flour. Roll dough into approximately 3/4 inch thick ropes. Cut the ropes into 1 inch pieces and roll each piece down the back side of a fork to form ridges. Drop gnocchi into boiling salted water, they will float when done, approximately 5 minutes. Mix with desired sauce and enjoy!

 

[DilliaP]

Sweet Potatoe Hash

2 Sweet Potatoes, peeled and cut into dices
Kosher salt
Extra virgin olive oil
4 to 6 slices thick cut bacon or turkey bacon (but the good kind, not the crappy oscar myer prepackaged kind. I get my thick slices of turkey bacon from my local Amish friends.) cut into dices
1 large onion, cut in dice
2 Granny Smith apples or another not too sweet apple, cored and cut into 1/2-inch dice

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a large bowl, add the sweet potatoes, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, to taste. Toss to coat and arrange them on a baking sheet. Roast the sweet potatoes until they are soft but not mushy, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.


Coat a large saute pan with olive oil. Add the bacon and put the pan over medium heat. When the bacon has started to get crispy and brown, add the onions, season with salt and stir. Add the apples and saute for 3 to 4 minutes or until onions are very soft. Add sweet potatoes and cook until sweet potatoes are cooked through and starting to become crispy, about 7 to 8 minutes.

 

[Trilt]

My mom eats gluten free, so I've made basic ricotta gnocchi (using this recipe) and subbed rice flour before. I just didn't really pay attention to quantities and just added flour into the consistency felt right, then boiled and pan fried with butter. Turned out perfectly fine tasting to me! Unfortunately that's not using sweet potatoes, but one of the comments in the posts mentions using sweet potato paste and potato flour, so it'd probably work if you just subbed in sweet potatoes for some of the ricotta.

 

[shortnsweet]

Thanks guys! I'll give it a try!

 

[Trilt]

Made my muffins! Recipe from here.

Muffins
1 medium sweet potato (should yield approx. 1 C)
1 T Earth Balance Just used butter.
1 T brown sugar
1 ¼ c whole wheat flour
¾ c light brown sugar, packed
½ t ground cinnamon
½ t ground nutmeg
1 t baking powder
½ t salt
¾ c cooked quinoa
2 eggs
4 T Earth Balance, melted Butter
½ c almond milk Used real milk.
2 t vanilla extract

Almond Streusel
1/3 c chopped or slivered almonds
1/4 c granulated sugar
2 T whole wheat flour
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground nutmeg
2 T Earth Balance, melted Buttah!

Peel and cube sweet potato. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and add peeled, cut sweet potatos. Boil until soft, or about 10-12 minutes. When finished, drain the cooked sweet potato and mash on a plate with a fork. Add Earth Balance and brown sugar. Set aside, and preheat the oven to 400°.

Prepare the streusel by combining all the ingredients in a bowl and mixing together until crumbly. Set aside.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg, and stir until well combined. In a larger bowl, beat together the sweet potato puree, eggs, vanilla, melted Earth Balance and almond milk until smooth. Gradually add the flour mixture to the potato mixture in small batches, stirring until smooth between batches. Finally, fold in the cooked quinoa until completely combined.

Spoon the batter into a muffin tin that’s either been greased or lined with paper muffin liners. Top each muffin with a small amount of streusel then bake for 25 minutes, or until the streusel is golden and the center of the muffin is no longer moist when tested with a toothpick. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the pan.​

They turned out... okay. I don't think I dried the quinoa enough after cooking it before putting it in the muffins, so they ended up with too much moisture. They're definitely edible, but not awesome.

 

[dyachei]

Maple roasted sweet potato
cut 1-2 sweet potatos into chunks
1/3 c maple syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice (I was out and used key lime juice instead)
Salt to taste
2 tbsp butter melted

Mix wet ingredients in a bowl. Pre-heat oven to 400. Coat sweet potato in juice/marinade and cover. Place in oven for 15 mins

Remove from oven, mix and place back in uncovered. Check ever 10-15 minutes and stir until potato is tender and starts to brown.

PIC:

 

[Psorophoraferox]

The hardest part of making these is getting the jar of mole open and mixing it with water until smooth. Start working on that first, especially if it's your first time cooking with it! Otherwise, these are super easy. 🙂

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas with Mole Poblano

3-4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large cubes
2 16oz. cans black beans (or 4 cups cooked), drained
1 small onion (about 1 cup), diced
1-2 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp minced garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
-
6-8 burrito-size tortillas
1 jar of mole poblano, reconstituted according to the jar's directions (I like the Dona Maria brand)

Boil sweet potatoes. Cook till they’re fork tender, and drain. Heat oven to 350 F. In a separate bowl, mash beans to a chunky consistency (you want about 1/2 the beans unsmashed). Add beans to sweet potatoes, and add the remaining ingredients (onion, lime juice, cumin, garlic, salt & pepper). I like my onions a little crunchy, so if you like yours soft, sautee them until slightly translucent before adding them to the pot. Mix gently to preserve the shape of the sweet potatoes, or whip it, whip it good (daaanananana) if you want a smooth consistency. I like mine somewhere in between.

Assemble your enchiladas by placing a few large spoonfuls of the filling lengthwise into the center of each of your tortillas, rolling up the sides to cover the middle, and laying them side by side in a small rectangular baking dish. Cover them with all of the mole. They will be swimming in mole. Drown those suckers in deliciousness! Place uncovered baking pan in the center of the oven, and cook 20-35 minutes. If you overcook them and the tortillas get crunchy around the edges, spoon some of the mole over the crunchy bits and let sit -- they'll soften back up.

Modified from: http://www.choosingraw.com/vegan-sweet-potato-and-black-bean-enchiladas-and-a-spotlight-on-iron/

View attachment IMG_1272_web.jpg

I had mine with a baby spinach salad and cold sake (not pictured). Multicultural!

Bonus sweet potato pic:
View attachment IMG_1312_web.jpg

A friend gave me three sweet potato slips! They'll be growing in a container until I move.

 

[T_Rose]

Sweet Potato Sampler!!! 😀 (Because I couldn't pick just one recipe.)

-Sweet Potato Pierogies
-Sweet Potato Chips
-Sweet Potato Cookies!

Original recipes can be found here:
http://www.sprinklebakes.com/2010/08/sweet-potato-whoopie-pies-with-maple.html
http://www.marthastewart.com/317420/baked-sweet-potato-chips
http://emilylevenson.com/recipe-sweet-potato-pierogies

For the chips, you basically cut thin pieces of sweet potato, drizzle oil on them, and bake them at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes while flipping them over once. Add some salt and enjoy! They were a bit too sweet for me. :/

I love pierogies, so i couldn't pass up the one recipe! Basically you boil pieces of a large sweet potato until they become soft enough to make mash. Add 1/4 cup of milk (the recipe called for rice milk, so that's what I used), 1 tablespoon of butter, and salt and pepper. Mix that up, and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine 2 eggs, 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/3 cup water. Mix and then knead the dough. Roll it out and use a glass to cut out circles. Put a little filling in the circle and fold. Drop in boiling water and cook until they float to the top. Then, fry them in a skillet. I had a horrible time filling the pierogies! It was really easy to put too much filling in them, and the filling part made much more than needed. The pierogies also got stuck on the bottom of the pan and didn't float to the top. I didn't like the filling very much at all. The rice milk gave it a weird taste, too. I will try the recipe again using a different filling, though.

The cookies were my favorite! They are sooooo good! Very moist and taste more like cake. Basically, I baked a sweet potato until it was soft then mashed it. In a large bowl, I mixed together 6 tablespoons of butter, 3/4 cup each of brown sugar and sugar, and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil. The I added the mashed sweet potato and mixed that in. Then I mixed in 3/4 teaspoon of salt, 1 and a half teaspoons each of baking powder and baking soda, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and a little bit of vanilla. Last, I slowly mixed in 3 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of milk. I set the mixture in the refridgerator for about an hour, then used a plastic bag with a corner cut off to squeeze 3-tablespoon size portions 2 inches apart onto a greased cookie sheet. I let those sit for 10 minutes and then baked them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees (or until the edges were brown).

That was WAY too much sweet potato for me in one day!