Sweet Potato Hash

The comfort food menu continues, I really need it... sometimes the New Years season causes me stress, especially the last couple of them. This year I have seriously considered going on a good old fashioned bender. Couple of bottles of vodka and avoid the stressors altogether, however as responsible grown ups we have to stop that and deal with stuff and I like to use a lot of comfort food to compensate. My beautiful wife Kris often says that I am the only person that could take someone that struggled with anorexia her whole life and make her fat. I don't agree with the "fat" part, but you see my point I compensate for bad feelings with food. What else works so well?

Sweet Potato Hash was on the menu that I served my friend on Christmas. Similar to the Ham and Gravy, even if you have never tried this it has a comfort food quality to it that is hard to describe... it just makes you feel warm all over.

I have made this dish two ways both were wonderful, but you will soon see why I made it the second way.

This serves about 4 people, Ingredients:
4 Sweet Potatoes peeled and diced
1 Onion finely diced
1/2 pound Bacon diced
Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder.

The first time that I made this dish I fried the diced Potatoes in vegetable oil. I heated enough oil in a small saucepan to cover the diced sweet potatoes (the oil was 375 degrees). I did it in two batches and cooked them for about 8-10 minutes. Here is where it gets good, while the second batch is frying saute bacon and onion together over pretty high heat, when the second batch of potatoes is done frying pull it out of the oil and into the saute pan. Saute until all ingredients are cooked through, maybe another 5-7 minutes. This is the way I made it for the pictures, it is wonderful the Sweet Potatoes are caramelized on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

In the spirit of New Years however; really how often should we pull something out of frying oil and immediately put it in rendered bacon fat? Whats next coating it in heavy cream and butter? Ok, that sounds kind of good but stop... When I made this for my friend Rochelle on Christmas I did everything exactly the same except I boiled the diced sweet potatoes. The Hash looked like a more traditional hash the sweet potatoes looked like they had been beaten up a bit, they needed a little more seasoning but they were good and I made up for any loss by serving it with ham gravy. Still on a kick from the gravy, maybe I should sell that in jars. Anyway it is your kitchen and your family/friends you decide which works best for you, both are delicious.

Thanksgiving at our house pt 2

The rest of our completely non-traditional Thanksgiving holiday involved me getting up and going to work while My Mom, Kris, Miss Lu and Mr. Man went to IHOP for brunch then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon in the Hotel Pool. After work Mom took us out to dinner (very nice Italian) and like the Godless heathens that have become this holiday none of us ordered the turkey and stuffing.

After dinner we went back to the pool, that is the way to spend a holiday, it only would have been better with a pool side bar. We live near Schaumburg IL, a Chicago suburb and maybe the shopping capitol of the Midwest. Schaumburg's website boasts 92,000,000 square feet of shopping space. I was surprised by how many people we met at the hotel that were traveling the area to start their Christmas Shopping. There were a couple of families here from Indiana to "get the door buster deals" and another family that was going to the American Girl Place down town. More power to them, I just want to avoid the malls and shopping centers today.

Anyway this mindless rambling isn't what this post is about I wanted to brag about the Cranberries I made for Wednesday's non Thanksgiving dinner. I will post or link this around Christmas too since no one will eat the sour little fruit between now and then.

Brown Sugar Bourbon Cranberry Sauce:

1 12 oz Package of Fresh Cranberries

1 tsp grated Orange Peel

1 Cup lightly packed Brown Sugar

Juice from one Orange

3/4 cup Bourbon

Splash of Triple Sec

Cook all ingredients together at a very light simmer for about 15 minutes stirring often until cranberries have popped and sugars break down. Put in the refrigerator uncovered for at least a couple of hours or overnight. The slow simmering does remove some of the alcohol but by no means does it come even close to evaporating so this is not the dish for your kids (though you may want to give some to your cousin's brats) or recovering alcoholics. However once you taste it you won't want to share anyway. The leftovers are all that I am planning to have for dinner tonight. By the way we were still haveing fun with the flowers.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

Kris' Parents are coming down to visit us a few days after Halloween. Kris' dad has always been happy to help us out with household projects, he put in laminate flooring throughout our entire house, he helped me put in a tub surround; by helped me I mean that he told me to stand in the corner of our bathroom until he told me what to do next. When they are here there are four subjects of conversation outside of what to fix next.

These topics are:

Topic 1 Your house is messy, I keep tripping over clutter when I had kids the house was always neat as a pin.

Topic 2 Your kids are loud! I can't even here myself think! Kids didn't act like that when mine were little.

Topic 3 Bryan is a bad Carpenter, I have to tell him every step of the way what to do.

Topic 4 Bryan is a really good cook and he makes enough food for all of us.

Sure the subject can stray for a few minutes but usually we are back to one of the four several times an hour. I will bet you can guess which topic is my favorite. I try to keep the focus on topic 4 as much as I can, to that end once they pick a date to visit I start the menus in my head. I wanted something with a fall theme (you probably notice that) and something different, Kris' parents are not shy about eating or trying new things. I found a recipe for Pumpkin Dumplings in an old cookbook I tried but they weren't quite what I wanted. Then I started to think of Gnocchi (very dense Italian dumplings) these could hold up to sauteing and with a good sauce would go well with the Duck Breast and Pork Tenderloin that I plan to make for them.

You can start several days ahead by cooking a "pie pumpkin" (farmer's market lingo that I am picking up) or any small pumpkin would work. Cook it like you would a squash cut it in half, remove the seeds and put on a baking sheet with about half an inch of water... bake in a 350 oven for about an hour until tender. Once it is cool keep in in a covered container in the fridge. The pumpkin I made lasted a week and was enough for 3 batches like this (I said that I experimented a bit) plus a little left in the end. Before you mix these ingredients set a pan of water on the stove to boil.

Pumpkin Gnocchi:

1/2 cup Pumpkin Meat

1 Egg

1/2 tsp Salt

1/8 tsp Ground Nutmeg

1/8 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 cup + 2 TBS All Purpose Flour

1/8 tsp Baking Soda

I mixed all of the ingredients with a fork until well blended then pulled the dough mixture out out of the bowl to make dumplings. I made them about a teaspoon at a time and dropped them into the boiling water to cook. They took about 10 minutes before they were done then I took them out with a slotted spoon and put then into a colander to rest. Once they were all out I started the sauce it was:

1/4 cup bourbon

1/4 cup brown Sugar

1 TBS Butter

This is the best sauce ever by the way, I set that all on the back burner to cook over low heat stirring occasionally while I cooked the dumplings in butter on high heat sauteing for about 5 minutes. Then I pored the sauce over the dumplings for and cooked for a few minutes more. When the in laws are here I think I am going to make them a little smaller (maybe half teaspoon) but I think I got it right the third time.

Brussels Sprouts

So I know that I have some readers (thank you by the way) but recently someone decided to admit it. I have a follower! someone who not only reads this blog but is brave enough to let others find out. She made a comment about one of my posts where I offered (translate that to threatened) to buy the kids Brussels Sprouts when we were at the local farmers market. Her comment was something like, "I made a pact with my boys to NEVER bring those awful things into our house." Of course that was shortly after I bought a whole mess of them to cook for an Autumn themed post.

My earliest memory of Brussels Sprouts dates back 35 years or so, my brother was sitting across the table from me in the dining room of our trailer home. My mom was saying something along the lines of, "you boys need to eat you vegetables, they make you strong."

As I was quietly forcing them down one miserable bite at a time my younger brother said, "I can't eat them, they make my throw up."

"Honey, they won't make you throw up, try them."

"I can't, they make me throw up."

This was one of my first parenting lessons (at the age of 7 no less) If your kid thinks that something will make them throw up, guess what, IT WILL! I watched my 5 year old brother pick up half of a Brussels Sprout on he end of his fork slowly lift it to his mouth and then the inevitable happened.

I of course jumped up on my chair, over the back and ran down the hall screaming and waving my hands in the air as if angry bees were coming out of him.

I didn't even look at Brussels Sprouts for about 14 years when I was in college and the topic of discussion was do they look more like turtle heads or Barbie cabbages, fine arts majors have too much time on their hands.

Anyway this post falls under the theme of "everything tastes good if it is cooked with Bacon."

Harvest style Brussels Sprouts:

2 slices of Bacon cut up

1 small Onion diced

1 Carrot peeled and sliced

10-12 Brussels Sprouts cut in half

Salt and Pepper

Cook the Bacon in a small Saute pan when it is close to done add the Onion and Saute until tender. Then add the Carrot and Brussels Sprouts and cook for 2-3 minutes then add just a little water, cover and cook for about 10 minutes. Once they have steamed until tender they are ready to serve. I hope that I didn't alienate my only follower with this post.

Roasted Beets

I picked up some beets at the farmer's market a few days ago, I wanted to do something a little different with them. I like fresh Beets roasted on a salad or cooked in an orange reduction until they are tender and full of that earthy autumn flavor that they carry. This time I made them in a salt dome. Working with a salt dome is kind of fun, like building a sandcastle around your food.

To make this you will need:

3 medium Beets

1 1/2 cup of Kosher Salt

2 TBLS Horseradish

1 TBLS Grated Orange Peel

1 TBLS Chopped Fresh Thyme

a little fresh orange juice I squeezed 1/2 the orange into the mixture

1 Egg White

Pre heat your oven to 425 f, then wash and trim the beets really well (leaving the skin on) and set them aside while you mix the rest of the ingredients together on a bowl, it should be about the consistency of wet sand. using about a Tablespoon of salt for each pile put 3 piles of salt on a baking sheet. To make the salt dome grab a handful of the salt mixture and pack it around your first beet like a snowball it should be about 1/4 of an inch thick and cover the entire vegetable. when it is done set it on one if your salt piles then repeat the process two more times. Put the pan in the oven and let it cook for about an hour and 15 minutes. The salt dome quickly dries out and becomes a mini oven around the Beets locking in moisture while gently infusing them with the flavors of Orange, Thyme, and Horseradish.

While these are baking make you can make the sauce to drizzle over them for this I used

1/4 cup Low Fat Yogurt

2 tsp horseradish

A splash of red wine (to make a pinkish color)

The juice from the other half of the orange I used earlier

Mix it all until smooth and set aside until you are ready

After the Beets have cooked for their allotted time take them out of the oven and let them cool for about 15-20 minutes (depending on how calloused your hands are) until they are cool enough to handle. At this point they look like a cross between the eggs from "Alien" and the pods from "Cocoon." Once they are cool enough to handle crack open the salt dome and there they are! Peel the Beets and slice them up, drizzle them with a little yogurt sauce and serve them hot or a room temperature.

Gravlax

I am not sure exactly why, but as fall comes around I get the urge to make Gravlax, Cured Salmon. If you haven't had it, Gravlax is a salt cured salmon, the flavor is bold, but simple. The word is actually Scandinavian word "Grav" literally "Grave" in this case really "hole in the ground" and "Lax" which is "Salmon." So translated it is "Salmon in a hole in the ground" originally Gravlax would be prepared by digging a hole on the beach and putting a salted fillet of Salmon in and burying it for a few days.

That being said to make this beautiful dish at home I won't ask you to look for a shovel or sand. To start with you want to get a salmon fillet that has been commercially frozen, at least -10 f for at least 7 days, this kills any potential parasites without cooking. The ingredients that I used are:

1 skin on Salmon fillet about 10 oz

2 TBLS Kosher Salt

2 TBLS Sugar

2 tsp fresh cracked Black Pepper

A whole mess of fresh Dill

Mix the Salt, Sugar and Pepper together in a small bowl and set aside. Take the Salmon fillet and poke a few holes in the skin then sprinkle it lightly with the salt sugar mixture then set it skin side down on a piece of plastic wrap. Put the rest of the salt sugar mixture on the salmon flesh then top with the fresh dill. I can't say exactly say how much dill to put on top (I have never measured) when the amount that you have piled on the fish seems absurd you are probably about there.

Wrap the Salmon tightly then wrap the wrapped Salmon again. After it is wrapped tightly twice set it in a pan so you catch the liquid that leaks out (yes it will, I don't care how well you wrap it). There is some discussion here as to how to cure it. I put the Salmon in the refrigerator for at least 48 hours (I can't wait much longer than that) I turn the package over when I get up in the morning and before bed at night. Some traditional cooks say to put a brick on top of the fish, I have tried that but don't get much of a difference in the end product. When it is done slice it thin on the bias and serve it up. Here it is pictured above on a whole wheat bagel chip with cream cheese.

Apple Cider Chicken

It is the first full day of fall as I start this, I always get excited when this time of year comes around. Food seems to be more in touch with the earth, Carrots, Apples, Beets, Brussels Sprouts, Parsnips, the fruits and vegetables all seem warm and inviting. Since the weather took such a turn this week as fall came around I started to think of an inviting fall dinner meal. Before I went to bed last night I started a marinate for some chicken, it was:

3 TBS cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 Cup Olive Oil

some salt and pepper

1/2 Granny Smith Apple cut up (I ate the other half)

2 tsp Honey

some water, maybe 1/2 cup or so

I put two small Chicken Breasts in a covered dish to Marinate overnight. I know this sounds odd, but I spent quite a lot of time thinking about the marinate for this dish; is the cider vinegar too much? will this be too sour when I get home? On the way home from work the next day I picked up the rest of the ingredients, Parsnips, Carrots, Fresh Thyme and Apple Cider. As soon as I got home I pored off the marinate that I had the chicken in and pored about 1 cup of sweet apple cider on it while I started the rest of the meal. The Apple Cider sweetened it up a little and rounded out the flavors well.

I started to get the rest of the ingredients ready I diced one Parsnip, one large Carrot and one Granny Smith Apple; in a saute pan I heated up a little Olive Oil then put the parsnip and carrot in for about 5 minutes stirring often. When they were soft I added the diced up apple and cooked for a couple of minutes more. To add the Thyme to that I simply held the end of the branches one at a time and pulled my fingers down them pull the leaves off and into the pan. Once everything in the pan was tender I put it all aside under a foil tent while I cooked the chicken breasts. To do that I put a little olive oil into the same saute pan on medium-high heat for about three minutes on each side. While that was cooking I put 3 oz of Bourbon into a cup of Apple Cider. Bourbon and Apple Cider are so good together, I considered stopping there and making that my dinner, but I didn't; when the Chicken was done I put it on the same plate as the sauteed vegetables and used the mixture to deglaze the pan.

Deglazing a pan is simply the process of poring some liquid into the pan and using it to remove any of the brown bits of things that may be stuck to it while heating it up. This adds a depth of flavor to your meal that you can't get otherwise. To the deglazing liquid I added my sauteed Apples and Vegetables and cooked it all over high heat until the sauce was reduced by half. That is it, once the pan sauce is ready serve the Chicken then top it with vegetables and pan sauce. I garnished it with a couple more twigs of Thyme.

The ingredients for this are:

1 large Parsnip peeled and diced

1 Large carrot Peeled and diced

1 Granny Smith Apple diced

the leaves from about 5 Thyme branches

2 Chicken Breasts

1 cup Apple Cider mixed with 3 oz Bourbon.

Spaghetti Squash

A few days ago one of my regular customers told me that she planted some spaghetti squash in her home garden, she expected about 9 0r 10 of them when the harvest came... buy the time they were done it turns out she had a harvest of about 50 of them which had, her husband and their 7 year old son threatining to move out if they had to eat spaghetti squash for one more meal. She brought some for me to share with my staff at work, which I did, after I got one for myself.

Spaghetti Squash is great for a side dish or center of a plate, in and of its self it doesn't have a lot of flavor which means that you can mix it with just about anything and it picks up very subtle flavors. We were actually pretty lucky when I cooked this time, I was making dinner for just the four of us, a couple pieces of chicken, some potatoes and the spaghetti squash. There was no way we were going to be able to eat it all, but some friends dropped by for a "few minutes" Which turned into a few hours (and a few drinks). Kris asked if they could stay for dinner which I was not only happy to do but excited by! Dinner went from a couple of pieces of chicken, potatoes and squash to a couple of pieces of chicken, potatoes, spaghetti squash, asparagus, hot dogs, hamburger and a ribeye steak that I had in the freezer door. My friend's kids surprised me because the 7 and 8 year old girls were fighting over the steak and the squash. It was funny to see.

Anyway the Spaghetti Squash is that I am talking about today, it was easy and tastes really good:

The squash has to cook for about an hour I cut it in half and cooked put it in a roasting pan with an inch of water and put that into a 350 degree oven for an hour. When that was done I set it aside to cool for a while until I could hold it again, then scraped out the meat into a sauce pan with melted clarified butter, well lets do the ingredients first:

1 TBS melted clarified butter

1 Clove fresh Garlic minced

1/2 spaghetti squash steamed in oven

1 1/2 TBS fresh Basil chopped

1/4 cup Shredded Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

first saute the garlic for a couple of minutes then toss the rest of the ingredients in a saute pan over high neat until the squash starts to caramelize bit then put it into a serving dish.