Thanksgiving Dinner: Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Alright folks, it’s been a whirlwind of a week, so I apologize for the announcement and then no follow-up recipes right away.  However, despite the delay, today we’re going to talk about sweet potatoes.

These are not your traditional marshmallow sweet potatoes.  I don’t really care for them, so if you want those I would suggest you turn to this Bon Apetit recipe for your inspiration.  However, if you want an awesome way to prepare sweet potatoes, keep reading!

A few years ago I got my bi-monthly issue of Cook’s Illustrated and it had a recipe for roasted sweet potatoes.  I love Cook’s Illustrated mostly because I know the recipes will work, and it tells me why they do.  That is so important!  I don’t like it for other reasons, mostly because it can be a bit pretentious.  Anyway, I digress.

The article said that sweet potatoes get sweeter if they stay in the oven at a lower temperature for longer, but that they require higher temperatures to finish cooking (something to do with the developing starches, i.e. sugars).  And folks, this is where things get awesome for the busy, forgetful, or lazy cook (like me!): these potatoes go into a cold oven!!!  How awesome.  No preheating needed.  I kid you not, they come out tasting as if they had sugar on them and you spent forever heating up the oven to bake them – but that is a deception!  Awesome.

You can pretty much spice these any which way you like – if you’re a purist, toss them with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper and you’re good to go.  If you like a hint of the holidays, throw on some cinnamon and cloves (not too much!) or even some cayenne (go easy, this isn’t a dish designed to blow your taste buds out of the water, at least not with Thanksgiving).  Have fun with it, and know that pretty much anything you do, as long as you follow the mantra of putting those spuds in a cold oven, will produce a deliciously sweet and savory side!

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
serves about 6 as a side dish

4 medium sweet potatoes, diced into 1/4-inch pieces
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt (or 3/4 tsp table salt)
additional salt and pepper (to taste – potatoes may take a lot of salt)
Optional flavor combinations:
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
pinch of cayenne (may want to mix this in with the oil so it doesn’t clump all on one chunk of potato)

1. Dice the potatoes and in a large bowl, toss them with the oil and spices.

2. Put the potatoes in an oiled 9×17 casserole dish (they do not have to be in one layer, in fact they’ll be a couple chunks deep).  Place in a cold oven and turn the oven on to 400F.

3. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are soft with a slightly browned exterior.  Stir them once after about 20 minutes to allow potatoes to cook evenly and browned on all sides.

On Community Gardens, Meat, and the Power of Knowledge

A few years ago I read a book called My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki.  The novel follows a documentary filmmaker, Jane Takagi-Little, who is hired by the American beef industry to create a show for Japanese housewives called “My American Wife.”  She travels the United States and films women cooking with meat (the producers tell her to keep in mind while choosing material that “Pork is Possible, but Beef is Best!”).  However, as Jane gets more involved in the project, she gets more concerned about the product she’s selling to Japan, and starts investigating.  She researches how the animals are raised, the antibiotics used, the slaughtering process.  Needless to say, it is not a pretty picture.  And although this is a novel, the research Ozeki did was based on current practices in the US meat industry.

Growing up, I always thought veal was the only animal that wasn’t humanely raised.  As it turns out, in some cases veal can actually be raised humanely and that chicken, beef, and pork are just as inhumanely raised as traditional veal.  Basically, there is no winning.  Other than knowing where your food comes from.

Bread and Hen of the Woods

I’ve been working on a big project over here at Beyond Burgers and Bratwurst.  You may have noticed on the right-hand navigation that I’ve added a twitter account (I have entered into the world of twitter, it is no longer safe!).  If you’re on twitter, you can follow me @beyondburgers.  I’ll see you there!

But even more exciting (I know, what can be more exciting than twitter??) is what I’ve been up to in my kitchen this weekend.  I really want to share with you.  But I can’t.  Not yet.

Tomorrow, I promise!

In the meantime, I will leave you with some delicious photographs I took this week.  My sister flew in from Germany on Wednesday.  She brought along a surprise:

Brezeln!  But that’s not all.  My sister knows I love German bread.  So she also brought my favorite bread from one of my family’s favorite German bakeries: Fünf Korn Quark Brot from Gauker!

This bread is a whole wheat bread, with a moist crumb thanks to a fresh cheese called quark, and a delicious crust covered in seeds (sunflower, poppy, and sesame seeds mostly).  It is so flavorful and delicious.  I can eat it with just cheese and be happy as a clam.

Also, yesterday I went to the farmers market to pick up my monthly meat CSA.  I saw these mushrooms and couldn’t resist!  Hen of the Woods are native to North America (and Japan, where it is known as Maitake).

It also goes by the name of Signorina mushroom in Italian-American communities.  It is delicious.  The farmer said that it grew on their farm, and although it was pricey ($20 a pound!) I decided it was okay to splurge.  And besides, my local coop sells shiitake mushrooms for $17 a pound.  This isn’t much more, and certainly a lot fresher!

Hen of the Woods are incredibly hard to wash, and I’m afraid it was still a bit gritty when I was finished cooking with it.  But who can blame me?  It even came with a bit of moss!  It was still excellent.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Sundays too.  I promise to share more details tomorrow!