Sweet Potato and Sage Orzotto

I didn't share a single Thanksgiving recipe with you guys. As a matter of fact, for nearly the entire month of November I was MIA. I could make a bunch of excuses about how busy I've been at work, or that my parents were in town, or that I was responsible for a lot of the Thanksgiving meal we all had together.

Or, I could just share a post-Thanksgiving, we-need-to-use-these-sweet-potatoes-soon dish in this "orzotto." My heart was set on sweet potato risotto, but guess who's out of risotto rice? Orzo works as a great risotto substitute in a pinch; since it's a pasta it's just about as starchy as Arborio rice (risotto rice). The trick is in the very slow cooking with very hot broth, allowing the orzo to fully absorb the last addition of broth before adding more. A touch of sage and a touch of Parmesan, and maybe you will want to serve this on Thanksgiving next year, and not just to use up whatever raw ingredients you have left over from the big day.

You will need:

2 tablespoons butter
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped into small cubes
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups dried orzo
3 cups hot chicken broth
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large saute pan over medium heat, melt butter. Add sweet potatoes, onions and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until all have softened. Add orzo and toast for 2-3 minutes.

Gradually add the hot chicken broth one cup at a time, waiting after each addition until the orzo has fully absorbed the broth and stirring constantly.

Once all broth has been added and orzo is tender, season with salt and pepper, add cream, parmesan and sage. Serve immediately.

Tortilla Española

I make a lot of lists. Recipes to blog, things to buy at CVS, songs to download, movies to add to Netflix, decorating ideas. Problem is, I lose them and nothing gets accomplished. They get stuffed into my purse, I change my purse frequently, and I don’t find a list from December until March. This morning I was reminded that I was supposed to buy Q-Tips on December 18th.

Fortunately, my never-ending list of recipes to conquer remains an internal one, and when external events align so that one of them actually has a chance to materialize, I scratch it off my mental list and move its physical recipe into my stuffed-to-the-gills recipe book. This past week my mom was kind enough to send me a supply of chorizo, a spicy and smoky Spanish sausage she can sniff out a quality link of no matter where in the country she may be. I do not possess this skill and need to hone it pronto – because the one recipe I dared to try with perfect chorizo in my possession needs to be made over and over again.

Tortilla Española, often referred to as a Spanish omelet in tapas restaurants, brings to mind fond memories of helping my mom in the kitchen as a kid. As it requires thinly sliced peeled potatoes and paper-thin onions, Spanish pimentos and the elusive chorizo sausage, it is a bit of a labor of love. It also requires a midway flip, which I won’t deny intimidated me. My dad was always my mom's flipper. Josh is my flipper.

You will need:

4 small to medium potatoes, peeled and sliced with a mandolin (1/8 inch thickness)
1 medium Spanish (white) onion, sliced with a mandolin (1/8 inch thickness)
5 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons diced pimentos
4 ounces hard Spanish chorizo, diced
Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
Olive oil

Soak potato slices in cool water to prevent discoloration. When ready to cook, remove potatoes from water and press dry with a cloth, removing as much water as you can. Heat a 10 inch cast iron skillet filled with 1/2 inch olive oil over medium-high heat. Rub some of the olive oil into the sides of the skillet as well. Once oil begins to shimmer, add dry potatoes and cook until potatoes soften, but do not allow them to brown. Remove cooked potatoes to a plate and season with salt and pepper. Add onions to oil and cook until translucent but not brown. Remove and cook chorizo until hot but again, do not allow to brown. Remove chorizo to the plate with potatoes and onions.

Add diced pimentos to beaten eggs and season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Once potatoes, onion and chorizo have cooled a bit, add to egg mixture. If needed, add a bit more olive oil to the skillet and pour in egg mixture. Do not disturb until eggs begin to set, then run a knife along the outer edge, and with the edge lifted, tilt and swirl the pan to distribute some of the uncooked egg on top toward the bottom and sides. Do this a few times until the top of the mixture is no longer runny. Loosen the bottom of the mixture with a spatula, being careful not to break or tear the omelet. Place a well fitting plate on top of the skillet and quickly flip the tortilla onto the plate, then quickly slide the tortilla back into the hot pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then remove from heat and slide back onto your serving plate.

Serves 4.

Bacon-Green Chile Mashed Sweet Potatoes

I love sweet potatoes. Josh loves sweet potatoes. But the last two bags of sweet potatoes we bought completely went to waste because we didn't eat them in time. There was abosolutely no excuse, unless the fact that I'm sick of sweet potato fries counts. I needed something new to entice me into cooking and eating the current bag - which, given our recent pattern with sweet potatoes, may be our last for a while.

What a great sendoff! Green chiles are surprisingly well matched with the sweet potatoes, and the bacon is a no-brainer. Served with a few dashes of hot sauce, these were the best sweet potatoes I've had in ages.

You will need:

4-5 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sour cream (or light sour cream)
1 can green chiles
3 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
Dash chili powder
Salt and pepper

Add potatoes to a large pot of salted boiling water. Cook until potatoes are fork-tender and drain. Rinse the potatoes well under cool water and return to pot over very low heat. Add sour cream, butter, chiles, salt and pepper and chili powder and mash until smooth. Add bacon, stir and adjust seasonings if necessary. Serve warm with a dash of hot sauce.

Roasted Potato Salad

As fall approached (and soon returned from whence it came, but that’s neither here nor there) this year, in the midst of stockpiling canned pumpkin, planting potted mums and dreaming up Halloween costumes, Josh and I attempted to wax nostalgic about the autumnal orange-hued pleasures of last fall.

We got nothin’. Not a single memory apart from making a mad dash to a Halloween superstore on Halloween to rummage through the wreckage of picked-over eleventh-hour bits and bobs left over from Halloweeners with better organizational skills (and far more free time). Somehow we managed to find cohesive costumes in a pair, even though our “costumes” consisted only of devil horns. But I digress.

Our memories of last fall are inclusive of little aside from turning Lowe’s into our second home, my griping about that blasted second coat of paint, packing up my apartment and covering ourselves in sawdust. Hearty homemade meals, mums, weekend baking and pumpkins? Not so much when deep in the throes of an all-consuming home remodel. We didn't even have an operational oven.

Needless to say, this fall I have been nothing short of the happy homemaker, with my 18 cans of pumpkin on reserve and purple (what else?) fall mums coddled occasionally tended to by the front door. I’ve baked sticky, sugary, cinnamony treats every weekend, have fed my family their fill of slow-cooked meats and ensured their bellies are full of hot, chunky soups.

So when Alyssa of all people requested salad for dinner last Friday night, and Josh requested grilled burgers, I resolved to find a side dish that would throw a little fall into our suddenly-summery early November evening meal. There’s nothing I love more than potatoes with burgers, but sweet potato fries seemed too easy, too obvious. Cold, boiled potato salad would be all wrong.

Enter: roasted potato salad. Served warm or cold, roasting the potato chunks prior to tossing them in mayonnaise brings out amazing caramelized flavor, and a depth you would never find in a boiled potato. I’m not sure I’ll ever serve potato salad another way; since potato salad is so versatile as it is, it can be easily customized to suit your favorite potato salad recipe. Just roast the potato pieces instead of boiling them. Who knew?

For my variation, you will need:

6-8 medium potatoes, skin intact, cut into medium-sized cubes and/or wedges
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and black pepper

2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sour cream
4 green onions, white and light green parts only
3 chives, diced
1 teaspoon smoked (or regular) paprika
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Toss potato pieces in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast on a sheet pan or pizza stone for 20 minutes, until easily pierced with a fork. Remove potatoes to a plate and let cool to nearly room temperature if serving warm, or cool in the refrigerator if serving cold.

In another bowl, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, onions, chives, paprika, salt and pepper. Stir to blend thoroughly. Add potatoes and toss to coat in mayonnaise mixture. Serve immediately.

Sweet Potato Fries

First of all, I have to get this out: OH MY GOD we have an oven.


You're thinking, ok - so do I, overly-emphatic oven lover, stater of the obvious and sharer of nonessential news. Well, try living without one for almost 6 months and then re-read this post. Maybe you'll get it then.

Back when we were putting the kitchen together, I have to say with complete dorky honesty that I was most anticipating sliding the stove in its little nook. That seemed so final. It meant my kitchen was functional and finished, and that meant I could get to cooking. But something went wrong. Josh is a whiz when it comes to household stuff - he can do plumbing, lighting, electrical work, construction and carpentry. There's not much that falls beyond his grasp, which I am continuously amazed and confused by.

Talent notwithstanding, he accidentally crossed some wires when hooking up the stove (appropriate electrical technology description fails me) and we watched in brief horror as the clock display zapped off the screen and the top of the stove began to smoke. There was no going back - the computer controlling the clock and oven settings was fried, and the oven was rendered useless. Palpable disappointment aside, we consoled our loss with the realization that the stovetop still worked, the oven control computer could (eventually, as it was a $170 part) be replaced, and we could use the toaster oven and outdoor grill in the meantime.

I'll tell you what - in the last 6 months or so I've become a toaster oven whiz. I can cook just about anything in that thing, and I have - successfully. That may be another post in the future - how to get more mileage out of your oft-neglected toaster oven.

More about sweet potato fries now. Last night I had to use the oven. I just had to. Because it was there, and because I could - finally. So I roasted some julienned sweet potatoes. The trick here is to let the potatoes soften in the oven for a significant amount of time - soft enough that you could technically call them "done" and eat them, but you could never call them "fries." Once they're softened in the oven, you have to throw them in some hot oil. You just do.

When they're fried in oil after baking in the oven for the majority of their cook time, all the sugars and starches have softened and will very easily caramelize when dunked in hot oil. The outside of the fry becomes crispy like the top of creme brulee, but the inside stays mushy like any french fry should be.

You will need:

2-3 sweet potatoes, sliced julienne
Olive oil for coating
Sea salt
Garlic powder
2 cups vegetable oil
Table salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the sweet potatoes julienne, then dunk in a bowl of cool water to soak for 5-10 minutes.

Pat dry, and toss sweet potato fries in olive oil, add sea salt and garlic powder, and toss around in a bowl to coat. Dump onto a cookie sheet or baking pan in one layer; make sure they don't overlap one another. Bake for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, heat vegetable oil in a large pot. When the fries come out of the oven, drop a tester fry in the oil (350 degrees). It should float on the surface of the oil and brown relatively slowly - you don't want the oil to get too hot. When you're at the right temperature, drop them all in there at once. If they get tangled up, I don't care, but maybe you're a french fry purist. In that case, take your time and drop them in small batches. Actually, if you were a french fry purist, would you even consider sweet potato fries?

Let them fry away for 2-3 minutes, watching them fervently as they crisp and bubble away without burning, if you've been careful enough with your oil. When crispy, remove to a paper towel to drain, and sprinkle table salt over them immediately.

I like to serve these with a mix of ketchup and Sriracha - the spicy chili sauce really balances out the sweetness of the potato. I also like a mixture of wasabi powder, onion powder and mayonnaise.