Sweet Potato Torta with Dijon Creme

Here is a tease for the recipe to be found later in the post.  It was a pure comfort food dish and we both liked it . :-)

Tuesday afternoon:

For some reason when the humidity is high and it is cold the damp chill seems to go right through me. Just like yesterday there doesn’t seem to enough hot green tea in the house to keep me warm today.

Mid afternoon snack:

After I made another batch of fat free hummus this afternoon I was craving it. I grabbed a good amount of hummus and sliced half a cucumber for my afternoon snack.

Dinner:

This idea started out as lasagna and ended up as a torta. Since we had flour the last two weeks when going out to eat I wasn’t too keen on the idea of using it tonight in lasagna. I decided to thinly slice sweet potatoes on the mandoline and use those to separate the layers instead. Here is what I made for dinner:

Sweet Potato Torta with a light Dijon Creme  (pictured above)
Serves 4

Ingredients:

½ cup raw cashews (soak for two hours and drain if not using a high powered blender)
¼ cup oats (pregrind into flour first if not using a high powered blender)
1 ½ cup water
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed (allow to stand 10 minutes so allicin can develop)
1 ½ tablespoons Dijon (or to taste, I added it ½ tablespoon at a time)
2 small or 1 large sweet potato, thinly sliced on a mandoline
14 ounces extra firm tofu, drained and squeezed dry
1 clove garlic, peeled
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons brown rice flour (any flour will work)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the creme sauce combine the cashews, oats, water and garlic in your blender and process until smooth. Pour this into a sauce pan and cook on low whisking until it begins to thicken. Add Dijon to taste and then keep the sauce warm until it is time to assemble the lasagna.

Combine the drained tofu, garlic, dry mustard and flour in your food processor and process until smooth.

Slice the sweet potato very thinly on your mandoline.
 
Place a little of the creme sauce into the bottom of a loaf pan. Top with sliced sweet potatoes, tofu and then more cream sauce. Continue layering ending with cream sauce. Cover the top with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour. Test to see if the sweet potatoes are tender by piercing the lasagna with a paring knife. If you get not resistance the sweet potatoes are tender.

I baked the dish uncovered for 15 minutes to help the dish set. Ideally you will wait 20 minutes before slicing this and plating (so that it has a chance to firm up a bit).

I served this with walnut parmesan on top.

Nutritional Information (without the walnut parmesan):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 227.6
Calories From Fat (42%) - 96.57

Total Fat - 11.56g
Saturated Fat - 1.54g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 101.39mg
Potassium - 374.81mg
Total Carbohydrates - 20.93g
Fiber - 2.81g
Sugar - 2.66g
Protein - 13.89g

Comments:

This dish has a subtle flavor, which was intentional. I wanted to make something that was pure comfort food. It needed the walnut parmesan to bump up the flavor but I think this was quite good. We both enjoyed it and could have eaten double this amount but decided to show a bit of restraint.

You could also make this with whole wheat pasta in addition to the sweet potatoes but you will need a larger pan as any more in my loaf pan would have gone over the side while baking since tofu expands when it cooks.

To accompany the torta I made a simple salad of romaine, Roma tomato, avocado and red wine vinegar.

Breakfast this morning:

We woke up this morning to a 48 degree day. Brrrr. Needless to say Dan wanted oatmeal this morning rather than a smoothie and I can’t say I blamed him.

While Dan got ready to leave for work I packed his lunch of leftover chili topped quinoa, a simple salad of shaved cucumber, shaved carrot, diced tomato, and minced parsley topped with the Dijon, red wine vinegar and stevia, frozen grapes and trail mix. No I didn’t make fresh veggie and fruit juice this morning. *rolls eyes*. I really need to get back to doing that everyday. *shakes head*

After exercising I decided to make myself a small bowl of quinoa topped with the end of the chili. I wanted something warm this morning and not oatmeal. This was accompanied with a double green tea with ascorbate C.

I am feeling the urge to cook returning.  Hopefully I will have time to post a new recipe later today.  I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday.

Happy Friday and a Stuffed Sweet Potato

Happy Friday! I am so glad today is Friday, woo hoo. It has been a long week and I have not been as productive as I should have been. Spending two days relaxing with my hubby is just what the doctor ordered. Now if I just need to convince Dan to relax and we will be all set.

In spite of getting almost 8 hours of sleep last night today started slowly for me, it must have been the weather. Getting up to a weather forecast of 95 degrees is no way to start a fall day. *shakes head* Since it was almost 80 with 80% humidity early today the AC went back on line. I will be so happy when I can turn that off for the winter.

I finally realized why I was feeling so sluggish and not myself yesterday. In addition to a general lack of sleep my GI system was not itself due to the rich food which we don’t normally eat. I decided to do something that I have avoided for the last two years. Yes, I made myself a double shot of espresso this morning to get everything moving. My first sip was not what I expected it tasted burnt and not particularly enjoyable. However by sip two and three I was back into the espresso groove. Somehow I managed to not make myself a second double shot, though I have no idea where that will power came from. ;-) For those of you that don’t know I am a recovering espresso addict (who owns an Italian semi-auto espresso machine) and have been known to drink 8 double shots in a day. That was when I knew I had a serious problem and gave it up. My body is no longer accustomed to the caffeine hit so I was wired not long after I had the espresso. Funny I used to drink 2 double shots each morning and felt nothing. I guess it is a good sign that my body isn’t used to it any more.

Oh the positive news front the mysterious 2.4 vanished this morning just as it arrived. All is right with the universe now, LOL. Thank goodness it was just water retention. ;-)

After my caffeine jolt I was ready to exercise. Gee I wonder why? LOL! Once that was knocked out it was time for breakfast.

Breakfast:

Today’s smoothie consisted of: 1 frozen banana, 2 kale leaves/stems, 1 collard leaf/stem, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, 1 ½ cups cold processed green tea, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger, 1 small chunk (about ½ tablespoon) fresh ginger root, stevia to taste if necessary. Process the smoothie until everything is smooth.

Why Frozen Bananas in the smoothies:

I get a lot of questions about why I use frozen bananas in my smoothies so I wanted to address that question here for everyone. I take overripe bananas, like those pictured above, peel them and freeze them in a zip top freezer bag. By having the bananas a little overripe the natural sugars develop more so that maybe you can go without any added sweetener. I try to limit our use of all of them, even stevia. Also because the bananas are frozen they will chill the smoothie without needing to add ice which dilutes the overall flavor of the drink. I hope that makes sense as to why I always use frozen bananas. There is an added benefit for my hubby; they are always around when he wants a quick dessert. ;-)

Since today is Friday it was errand day for me. :-p Like usual I checked in my aging parents and did a little light housekeeping while I was there, vacuuming, dusting and straightening. I suppose when I reach 80 I won’t really feel like dragging out the vacuum or cleaning either. ;-) But since I didn’t have kids I guess a maid service will need to be in my future.

I also had a few stops to make on foot and got those out of the way early since it was getting warmer by the minute. What happened to fall again?

Before Dan left for work this morning I asked what he wanted for dinner tonight and got the usual reply, “I don’t know”. Like always we went down the same path, “How about a cuisine, or even a continent, any particular protein sound good to you?” Each question got the same reply, “Anything you want to make would be wonderful.” I adore my husband but it would be nice if he could help with dinner ideas occasionally. Now I know why my chef friend Ian says coming up with daily specials is hard work. I have the same problem and it is just one dinner. *rolls eyes* Needless to say as I am typing this I have no idea what is for dinner tonight. *sigh*

I had to share this picture with you of our baby (Nicco, aka Binky). Could he look any lazier? My felines never seem to have a care in the world. I just love our three little fur babies. They bring so much life and love to our home. Okay the life is only when they are awake but you get the idea.

Email responses:

I want to apologize to everyone that I owe an email response to. My blog email is starting to overwhelm me a little. Being off line for a day and half this week buried me in email. I am trying to resist putting an auto reply on my email but now I know why other bloggers do it. Please know I will get to your email it may just take me a while. I am very sorry for the delay in my responses.

The colors on your plate:

Do you ever look at your plate and think wow everything is white, beige or brown? Mine used to look like that. Unless the white is cauliflower and the brown mushrooms odds are you need more veggies and less white, beige and brown food. Antioxidants are found in much larger quantities in veggies and fruit than in grains or mock meat products. Additionally different colored items seem to have similar antioxidant profiles. Think of tomatoes, pink grapefruit and watermelon all containing lycopene or carrots and sweet potatoes with their beta carotene. Instead of trying to memorize what antioxidant is in what food I simply make sure that we eat the rainbow every day. The only tough color to eat daily is the blue/purple group. For this I use frozen wild blueberries, beets or red cabbage. I find it much easier to concentrate various colors rather than the individual antioxidants. We add different colored produce into smoothies, soup and salad. Also I take every opportunity to add veggies to our meal anyplace that it makes sense. Hard to believe I was ever a veggie hater isn’t it? But it is true I didn’t always like veggies let alone love them. ;-)

Lunch:

My smoothie was so filling (though I don’t know why) it took me a while to get hungry for lunch. I opted for a simple salad. Don’t I always? LOL! Salads are great because you can get in a lot of veggie servings without many calories or fat.

This salad contained: ½ head of romaine, a couple of diced Roma tomatoes, ¼ thinly sliced cucumber, ¼ thinly sliced carrots, marinated mushrooms and roasted red peppers. I added a dollop of cheezy white bean dip and a few raw pumpkin seeds and I had one very tasty salad for lunch.

Mid day meal/snack:

Later in the afternoon I had leftover the tempeh and veggies in tomato cashew curry over brown rice from last night. This held my hunger at bay until Dan came home from work around 8pm. Being on the road for work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday meant he had a long day today which will turn into a long weekend I just found out. *sigh*

Dinner:

For some reason I was in the mood for a baked sweet potato today. Or rather I should say a microwaved sweet potato because I was not turning on the oven with the AC running. Since it was an enormous spud (about a pound) we split it. I topped it with: cooked white beans (no salt), marinated mushrooms, roasted red peppers, cashew crème fraiche, avocado slices and fresh diced tomatoes. The entire meal took less than 10 minutes and it was delicious. The benefit of keeping things like marinated mushrooms and beans on hand is the rest of the meal is a snap. This would have been equally good with sauerkraut in place of the marinated mushrooms and sriracha added to the crème fraiche.

Signing out:

It is time for me to some time with my sweetie. I will talk to you again tomorrow. I hope you are having a great Friday evening.

Review: This Crazy Vegan Life by Christina Pirello and the food

I decided to start this post with my review of this book because I enjoyed it so much. The book was not what I was expected but in a good way.

I have been a fan of Christina Pirello since I first saw her show “Christina Cooks” on PBS years ago. She was the first person I saw prepare vegan food. I learned a lot watching that show and really miss it now that it isn’t on our local PBS station.

Christina’s story of being diagnosed with terminal leukemia and healing herself with macrobiotic food over 25 years ago gives anyone facing a health challenge a reason to be optimistic. I had expected this book to focus on her life story with has to be fascinating. She does discuss her situation thorough out the book but the focus is more on eating for general health and wellbeing. She discusses her struggles with weight and how she conquered that problem as well as leukemia. It is a fascinating read that I highly recommend. Christina focuses on whole natural food which you all know I love as well. She does use oil when she cooks but that is easy to modify. The book is categorized as follows:

1. How Did We Get into This Mess, Anyway?
2. Veganomics: Rethinking Everything
3. The Path to Rethinking Your Life
4. Food for Thought
5. Eat Well for Life
6. The Eating Plan: Menus and Recipes
7. Get Moving
8. This Crazy Vegan Lifestyle

The book discusses the health benefits of a vegan diet as well as a the detrimental effects of meat and dairy. Christina does have Master’s in Food Nutrition from Drexel so some of her descriptions are fairly detailed (which I like) but they are still easy to understand.   She also touts the benefit of consuming mushroooms for cancer patients and cancer prevention.  Since this is the third or fourth time I have read this in a couple of months I feel like the universe is sending me a distinct message. Guess what we are having for dinner, LOL?

There is a 21 day menu plan outlined in the book which focuses on weight loss and getting rid of processed and refined foods. Christina is not a fan or sugar which I love. She also advocates vegetables, specifically green leafies. Additionally she advocates starting meals with soup which I think is a great plan and serves to fill you up without many calories if you chose the right soups.

Also included is a sizable recipe section as well as exercises you can do at home with resistance bands. I would say the exercise section is the weakest portion of the book. However to be fair it targeted to people starting to exercise and for that it is fine.

Overall it is a good book and one that I am adding to my Amazon list. Her recipes alone make the book something that I want to be able to refer to. I always find her flavor and textural combinations to be quite nice.

Today:

Early today I was off and running again. Fridays tend to be hectic at our place and this one was more busy than most. After we went through our morning ritual of making fresh vegetable and fruit juice, having breakfast and packing Dan’s lunch I made myself breakfast. I wanted something quick and had leftover oven roasted vegetables and chickpea mash topped with pomegranate molasses and diced cucumbers for coolness and crunch. I intentionally omitted nuts or seeds since I was taking a high fat snack with me to munch on in the car which I don’t normally eat that.

To tide my over while I was gone I put ½ cup of trail mix (equal parts almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, dried blueberries, roasted soy nuts, and chocolate chips) in a small snack bag and ran out the door to run my errands with my iced green tea in hand to wash down the trail mix. When I was making my bag of trail mix for the car I decided to make an extra bag for Heather at the doctor’s front office since she is always so pleasant and helpful. This was going to be one of my good deeds today. However she wasn’t there when I stopped by to pick some paperwork, darn it. Oh well, now I need to come up with another good deed today but that shouldn’t be too hard though. ;-) Did you do something to make the world a nicer place today?

I had a number of errands to run today which meant more driving. *sigh* I finally figured out what I don’t like about driving. Why do people feel the need to be so rude, actually downright nasty, when they drive? Not only do they not let you in when you signal your intention to change lanes but they speed up to cut you off. *shakes head* Where does that behavior come from? I decided to be uber courteous on the road today to offset this ridiculous behavior. People seemed to be very wary of courteous behavior behind the wheel. I actually had a few people that seemed to be worried about changing changes when I slowed down and flashed them to go ahead. This is a very sad commentary on society that went someone is courteous it is looked at with disbelief.

Lunch today was the remainder of the oven roasted veggies (I used it like dressing to moisten the salad) on lettuce topped with Roma tomatoes and diced cucumber and 4 baked falafel from the freezer. Again I left off the added fat since I had the trail mix earlier. I needed to wait a while for this to digest before I could work out. I find I get my best workouts on a reasonably empty stomach. Does the same thing happen for you or am I the only one that needs to work out on an empty stomach?

Since I left early this morning I didn’t exercise before heading out. I was not looking forward to exercising late in the day, but I wanted to get my errands knocked out and that was at the top of my list today.  I really dislike exercising later in the day

My afternoon snack today was a cup of edamame from the freezer.

Dinner tonight is a simple meal of adzuki beans and shitake mushrooms over sweet potatoes with lemon. I had the adzuki beans soaking while I was running my errands so they would be ready to cook when I got home. Here is what I made tonight:

Adzuki Beans with Shitakes and Lemon
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup of dried adzuki beans, soaked for 8 hours
8 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in 2 cups hot water until softened
1 yellow onion, peeled and thinly sliced (allow to stand 10 minutes before heating)
6 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced (allow to stand 10 minutes before heating)
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely minced or grated
2 tablespoons mirin
6 tablespoons water
1 lemon, zested and juiced
5 spice powder, to taste (I used about ¼ teaspoon but the amount you need will depend on the freshness of your spice mix)
1 sweet potato, cooked and cut into bite sized chunks
2 green onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup fresh cilantro, finely minced
¼ cup walnuts, chopped

Directions:

Cook the adzuki beans until they are soft. The exact time this will take depends on the age of your dried beans and how long you soaked them.

Remove the stems from the shitakes. Add the mushroom stems to the bag in your freezer so you have them on hand when you make mushroom stock.

Water sauté the onions, garlic and ginger in the water and mirin until the onions are tender. Now add the cooked beans, sliced mushrooms, lemon zest, lemon juice and 5 spice powder.

I served this with microwaved baked potatoes and topped it with a few roughly chopped walnuts and sliced green onions and cilantro which I added without measuring.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 288.09
Calories From Fat (15%) - 42.1

Total Fat - 5.28g
Saturated Fat-  0.6g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 35.4mg
Potassium - 1066.1mg
Total Carbohydrates - 55.13g
Fiber - 10.72g
Sugar - 3.24g
Protein - 13.26g

Comments:

This recipe has a lot of flavor but the flavor is very clean because it is so low in fat. I think it would be helped by a little dollop or drizzle of cashew crème fraiche to give it a more fatty mouth feel. Alternately the walnuts could be used to make a sauce and that could be drizzled over the dish. Overall we enjoyed it but I may need to tweak it just a bit.

After the main dish we had a simple fresh dessert of peach, pineapple, and blackberry topped with a sprinkle of reduced fat flaked coconut and a few sliced almonds. It was the perfect ending to the meal a little sweet, soft, and crunchy. I enjoy ending meals with fresh fruit.

The big news at our house is that all the projects went out yesterday and today and Dan is not only going to be home all weekend but Monday and Tuesday as well, four whole days off of work. Woo hoo! Tomorrow is going to be a relaxing one for us starting with no alarm clock. I am looking forward to a little down town with my sweetie.

I hope you all have a great holiday weekend. Talk to you again soon.

Reuben Inspired Stuffed Potatoes

Both Dan and I used to love Reuben sandwiches. I liked the traditional version with sauerkraut and he liked the cole slaw version. A Reuben sandwich has never been the least bit healthy, but they were a tasty occasional treat. Since bread is in the severely limit category for us I decided to use potatoes to hold the ingredients instead. I also opted for sweet potatoes for nutrition, but think that russet potatoes would be a more familiar flavor in this dish. Since corned beef is out I decided to use mushrooms, spinach and onions and the “meaty” filling. I added a little Worcestershire sauce to the filling to make it taste more like meat, and that seemed to work for me. I made a quick white sauce using raw cashews and oat flour like the base of my queso dip. I added a small amount of nutritional yeast to make the sauce “buttery”. In place of standard dressing I made something similar but used capers instead of pickles and sriracha in place of ketchup. Here is the recipe.

Reuben Inspired Stuffed Potatoes
Serves 6 as an entree

Ingredients:

6 Sweet or Russet Potatoes
½ onion, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
¼ cup water to sauté onion and garlic
3 cups crimini mushrooms, quartered
10 ounce box frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 cups sauerkraut, drained
¼ cup oatmeal, dry (finely ground in your blender)
¼ cup raw cashews
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 pinch dry mustard
1 cup water, plus about ¾ cup additional (to make faux cheese sauce)
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper to taste
4 tablespoons vegan mayo (I used tofu and pine nut)
1 teaspoon drained brined capers, or to taste
1 teaspoon sriracha

Directions:

Clean and prep the potatoes for the microwave and set aside.

Water sauté the onion and garlic until soft. Add the crimini mushrooms, spinach and Worcestershire sauce and cook until the mushrooms are cooked the water has mostly evaporated.

Place the oatmeal in the blender and process into flour. Add the raw cashews and process until obliterated. Add 1 cup of water to the blender, the garlic clove, mustard, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper and process until smooth and combined. Pour this into a saucepan and cook over low heat. It will get very thick and you will need more water. Add ¾ to 1 cup of water to blender, to clean out some of the remaining ingredients, and use that to add to the pot in increments until the texture is right. Cook until the sauce is thick and the garlic taste has mellowed. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as desired.

Combine the vegan mayo, capers and sriracha. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.

Microwave the potatoes until done. Microwave the sauerkraut until hot.

To serve cut the potatoes in half. Top with sauerkraut, mushroom and spinach, cashew sauce and finish with flavored mayo.

Store all the leftover components in separate containers in the refrigerator.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 215.05
Calories From Fat (16%) - 35.21

Total Fat - 4.09g
Saturated Fat - 0.5g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 441.43mg
Potassium - 927.14mg
Total Carbohydrates - 38.22g
Fiber - 7.91g
Sugar - 8.4g
Protein - 7.43g

Comments:

I intentionally made more of the components to this dish last night so that I could make a quick lunch from the leftovers. Dishes like this that just require a quick trip to the microwave are always my favorites. This is another dish that I could eat for a few weeks before I got tired of it. I particularly like all the flavors and textures it has. My husband described it as reminiscent of a Rueben and I think that is a good description. It isn’t the same but the flavors are similar and it is infinitely healthier. If you like salty foods I think you will like this. Between the sauerkraut and capers this has more salt than most of my recipes, and I love that. It was definitely a treat for me.

The nutrition on this dish is also great. Each serving contains approximately 24,000IU of vitamin A, 150mg of calcium, 90mcg of folate, 260mcg of vitamin K, 200mg of phosphorus, 105mg of magnesium and 16mcg of magnesium. Not too shabby for a little over 200 calories.

Unrelated Note:

Last night I tossed and turned all night so I do not expect today to be super productive. It doesn’t help that the weather has changed from 74 and sunny yesterday to 46 and rainy today. You gotta love the unpredictability of spring weather.

On my agenda today is checking on my parents and seeing what I can do there to help them out. This usually involves a little housework and possibly a trip to the grocery store. Nothing exciting, just my usual wellness check to make certain everything is under control before the weekend starts.

After I check on my parents I need to get back to the items on our to-do list. This would have been a little easier had I slept better last night. Oh well, no complaints. Things could always be worse.

For now I need to get moving so that I can kick back a little this afternoon. I will talk to you all later today. I hope you are having a great Friday. The weekend is almost here! Yay!  I don't know about you but I can use the unwind time.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi - Method

Back in my pre-vegan days I used to make a sweet potato and ricotta gnocchi. My original recipe tasted great but had far too much fat and calories to be considered healthy. Last night I wanted sweet potato gnocchi but also wanted to make a healthy version of the recipe. My husband and I talked about whether I was going to try to substitute tofu for the ricotta or change the recipe completely. We decided to change completely.

I knew that sweet potatoes alone might not work well in gnocchi do to the softness and moisture content. I imagined I would need to add so much flour that the end result would be touch little orange hockey pucks. In the end I used equal parts sweet potato and white potato and it worked well. The sweet potato gnocchi came out light and soft.

Most recipes for potato gnocchi call for boiling the potatoes and then drying them out. Years ago I tried baking the potatoes and since I worked I started microwaving the potatoes instead and that worked but was much faster. I have been microwaving my potatoes since then. When I make gnocchi I don’t measure I add things by feel. I am going to outline the method not specific amounts of the ingredients. Here is the method.

Method:

Microwave your sweet potatoes until soft.

Microwave a similar quantity of white potatoes.

Peel the potatoes (or just cut them in half) and rice them. The majority of the skin will stay in the ricer.

Using a fork mix the potato mixture together so the sweet and white potato is evenly distributed.

Add a little salt and pepper to the potatoes to taste.

Now begin adding flour (a few tablespoons at a time) to the potato mixture and mix thoroughly. You continue to add flour until the potatoes and flour form dough. If you add too much flour you will make tough gnocchi. Only add as much flour as is necessary for the dough to form. At the beginning I add flour a ¼ cup at a time a time and them add in smaller increments, probably 2 tablespoons at a time. I used whole-wheat flour but have also used sprouted whole-wheat flour in the past.

Once the dough has formed you need to get a shallow pan of water heating. I use a 14-inch skillet to heat the water. You want the water to be simmering so the gnocchi don’t fall about.

While the water is heating it is time to form the gnocchi. The easiest way to make gnocchi is to form what I call pillows. You make a snake with the gnocchi and then cut the snake that is approximately ½ thick and then cut into ½ inch pieces. Continue to form the snakes and make pillows and place them on a half sheet pan until all the pillows are formed.

Add gnocchi to the water, allowing room for them to move around. When you first put the gnocchi in the water they will sink to the bottom of the pan. After they begin to float I cook them another minute and then remove them from the water with a wire spider. You want to drain all the water from the gnocchi.

You can place the drained gnocchi in a pan of sauce or a lightly greased pan in a 200-degree oven to hold until you have all the gnocchi cooked.

Serve with the sauce of your choice. I made a simple white sauce with soymilk that I put on the bottom of the plate, topped with gnocchi and a few dried cranberries.

Gnocchi are a very quick side dish when you microwave the potatoes.

Middle Eastern Slow Cooked Vegetables

This morning I was looking in the refrigerator and thinking about what to make for dinner and ratatouille came to mind. Then I saw Rose’s blog where she had posted Pisto (the Spanish version of ratatouille) yesterday so I decided to do something a little different.

Since I have been on a Middle Eastern food kick recently I decided to stay in that part of the world and make a zucchini, sweet potato and tomato stew in the slow cooker served over millet and topped with a garlic, tahini and tofu mixture.

This recipe is a vegan version of something I have had before that included lamb. I considered adding lentils as a meat substitute but decided not to since I had them for lunch. This vegetable “bake” has a lot of flavor and not many calories or fat.

I prepped the entire meal hours before dinner so all I had to do was reheat it when my sweetie got home. Allowing the food to mellow in the refrigerator results in a more well rounded flavor (at least that is what I think).

The weather on the east coast is brutal today. When the temperature is above 90 I don’t usually want to heat the house up with a stove for long. My slow cooker and microwave came to the rescue today. I par cooked the sweet potatoes in the microwave until I could cut them easily (3 minutes). The stove was used to cook the onions and get the tomato sauce hot but that took less than 10 minutes. Sweet potato slices went into the slow cooker first, followed by the zucchini and then topped with the tomato sauce and golden raisins. I turned the slow cooker on high and set it for 2 hours. Middle Eastern food has the most intoxicating aroma when it is cooking the house smells wonderful. This is my kind of aroma therapy, and we get to eat it for dinner.

Middle Eastern Slow Cooked Vegetables
Serves 6

Ingredients:

5 sweet potatoes, scrubbed and pierced with a paring knife
½ tablespoon of canola oil
1 red onion, finely minced
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of coriander
½ teaspoon of fennel
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of powdered ginger
4 cloves of garlic, minced (allow to sit 10 minutes so that allicin can develop)
14 ounce can of diced tomatoes
¼ cup of water
½ cup of golden raisins

juice of 1 lemon, to finish the dish when plating - optional but recommended

Directions:

Microwave the potatoes until they are soft enough to easily slice (my microwave took 3 minutes).

Sauté the onion in the canola oil until it is soft and beginning to brown. Add the spices and garlic and cook them until you can smell the aromas (about 2 minutes). Add the tomatoes and water and cook until you have the sweet potatoes and zucchini in the slow cooker.

Slice the sweet potatoes into approximately ½ inch slices and place in the bottom of your slow cooker. Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and then into half moons. I did this to vary the shape of the vegetables so feel free to use any shape you like. Place the zucchini pieces on top the sweet potatoes. Pour the Middle Eastern spiced tomato sauce on top the vegetables in the slow cooker. Top with golden raisins and put the lid on the cooker. Set your cooker to high and cook for 2 hours.

Traditionally a dish like this would be served over couscous but I used millet instead for added nutrition. I also used tofu, garlic and tahini sauce to top the dish. A little fresh lemon juice was also squeezed over the dish to finish

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 176.66
Calories From Fat (9%) - 15.12

Total Fat - 1.74g
Saturated Fat - 0.19g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 73.01mg
Potassium - 816.05mg
Total Carbohydrates - 39.23g
Fiber - 6.01g
Sugar - 14.65g
Protein - 4.01g

Comments:

This is dish is flavorful and comforting on what ended up being a stormy hot and humid day. It was nice to have a comforting dish to eat so we didn’t need to brave the weather with the severe thunderstorm warning. The flavors of this dish are definitely Middle Eastern yet the dish is still familiar. I love it with the tofu, tahini and garlic topping.

Next time I will cut the vegetables into bite size pieces to make the meal easier to eat. I also think I will add a few sliced almonds to the meal when serving the leftovers. Overall this was very good and flavorful but not spicy or sweet.

Sweet Potato Chips flavored with Lime and Chipotle Chili Powder

After my success with the crunchy salad topping I thought chips should be the next thing to try. These are my first attempt at both baking and dehydrating chips. Back in my unhealthy days I thought nothing of frying chips. Those days are long behind us now.

I decided to prepare the chips two ways (baked in a low oven and dehydrated) since I don’t think many people have a dehydrator. I bought a cheap Salton dehydrator years ago when I wanted to try to make my own salmon jerky. I have been pleasantly surprised at how well this $25 item works. The only down side is that it is large and therefore takes up a lot of room when it is being stored (which is most of the time). If you are interesting in picking up an inexpensive dehydrator, I bought mine at Target.

These chips don’t use any oil because I wanted to see what happened without the fat. I have baked chips before but always used a little olive oil spray because I thought it was necessary for flavor. With the inclusion of lime juice and chipotle chili powder I can safely say these chips have plenty of flavor and I don’t miss the oil.

These chips have exceeded my expectations. At the moment this is my favorite snack recipe. I will be making many different flavors of these going forward.

Sweet Potato Chips flavored with Lime and Chipotle Chili Powder
Makes 4 smallish servings

Ingredients:

1 sweet potato, sliced as thinly as possible on a mandolin
juice of one lime
½ teaspoon of kosher salt
¼ teaspoon of chipotle chili powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees or get out your dehydrator. If baking line three or four half sheet pans with silpat or parchment and set aside until needed.

Slice the sweet potato on the narrowest setting of your mandolin. Place sweet potato slices in a bowl and cover with the lime juice, kosher salt and chili powder.

If baking: place the chips in a single layer on the baking sheets and bake for 30 minutes. Then turn the over the chips and bake for an additional 20 minutes. Test the chips to see if they are uniformly crunchy. If yes, remove and cool on a rack. If no, bake for an addition 15 minutes and test again. Continue baking until the chips are crunchy.

If dehydrating: place the chips on the dehydrator rack in a single layer and allow to dry for 2 hours before checking. The amount of time required would depend on how thin you sliced the potato. Continue to dry until the chips are crisp, this will happen eventually.

Store in an airtight container until ready to serve. Make plenty of these chips; they will disappear quickly once your family has tasted them.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 28.91
Calories From Fat (1%) - 0.16

Total Fat - 0.02g
Saturated Fat - 0.01g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 252.95mg
Potassium - 114.02mg
Total Carbohydrates - 6.86g
Fiber - 0.99g
Sugar - 1.42g
Protein - 0.53g

Comments:

To say that are pleased with this recipe is an understatement. I am thrilled with the taste and crunch of these very healthy chips. The chip texture is very light, almost like a crunchy flavored sweet potato air. It reminds me very much of air popped corn, but with lime and chipotle flavor. Hmmmm, I think I am feeling a popcorn experiment on the horizon. Okay, back to the baked chips.

It made no different in terms of texture whether the chips were baked or dehydrated. If I were in a hurry I would definitely bake these since it is so much faster. If someone in your family likes snack food give these chips a try. The hardest part was slicing the sweet potato on the mandolin.

We will be eating these with the spicy tofu dip when we have our green tea. Being healthy really can be much tastier than most people realize.

Crunchy Sweet Potato Salad Topping

(pictured: baked sweet potato threads cooling on a silpat lined baking sheet)

Salads are a staple in our house and we eat even more of them in the summer when the farmers' market is full of yummy local produce. I love recipes that have a mix of textures, cold, crisp, soft and crunchy. Croutons are wonderful, but they don’t add much nutrition even if they are whole wheat and baked. I was thinking of what I could add to our salad that would be crunchy and good for us, and this idea popped into my head. It worked better than I expected and will become a regular technique in my kitchen.

I used sweet potatoes today because they are so nutritious. Sweet potatoes are loaded with antioxidants which we all need more of in our diet. Since this experiment was so successful I will be using different vegetables with similar techniques to see what else works. I will add additional posts as I make different versions.

Crunchy Sweet Potato Salad Topping
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

¾ of a large sweet potato
1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Line a half sheet pan with parchment or a silpat.

Cut the sweet potato thinly on your mandolin fitted with the crinkle blade. Toss the sweet potato strips with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and a little salt and pepper for flavor.

Bake at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, toss the potatoes and bake for another 15 minutes. Allow to cool on the baking sheet and store in an airtight container at room temperature until you need them. I used them at room temperature on my salad as a crunchy topping. Please note the sweet potatoes will become crunchier as they cool.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 62.84
Calories From Fat (32%) - 20.21

Total Fat - 2.29g
Saturated Fat - 0.32g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 172.38mg
Potassium - 169.38mg
Total Carbohydrates - 10.07g
Fiber - 1.57g
Sugar - 2.04g
Protein - 0.81g

Comments:

These little crispy and crunchy sweet potato threads exceeded my expectations. I love the flavor and especially the texture they add to a salad. I can’t wait to try more versions of this technique with different vegetables and flavors. It is so nice to have a crunchy topping for a salad that isn’t a crouton, or nuts.

My husband refers to my kitchen as area 51, due to all my experiments. All I can say is area 51 is gearing up for many more crunchy veggie experiments. Hmmmmm, I wonder how turnip or beets would be as baked chips………. I see another experiment or two on the horizon.

Sweet Potato Fries - Roasted

(pictured: Sweet fries on baking sheet, cooling)

Sweet potatoes make a much healthier fry than white potatoes. However, if you aren’t careful you can make them unhealthy by pouring oil without measuring. Each tablespoon of oil you add to the potatoes increases the fat by 14 grams and 120 calories unnecessarily. If you are trying to watch your fat and calories always measure your oil. You are probably using a lot more than you think.

Why would I choose sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes? Sweet potatoes are a wonderful source of vitamin C, with one potato containing twice the amount that you need in a day. Sweet potatoes are also packed with antioxidants and reduce inflammation. They are also a reasonably good source of fiber. Once you start using sweet potatoes they become something that sneaks into many recipes where they aren't traditionally used.

The idea for the fries came from cooking class this week. I reduced the fat dramatically and added the chili powder for a little subtle heat. If you liked smoked paprika that could be a interesting substitute for the chili powder.

Sweet Potato Oven Fries
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes
1 tablespoon of canola oil
½ teaspoon of chili powder
½ teaspoon of kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper.

Slice the potato into ¼ inch slabs. Cut those ¼ inch slabs into ¼ inch potato sticks. Coat the sweet potato with canola oil evenly. Sprinkle the potatoes evenly with chili powder and kosher salt and place in a single layer on the sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes. The fries will be soft in the center but crunchy on the outside when cooked. If they are not browning sufficiently place them under the broiler for a few minutes.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 175.72
Calories From Fat (36%)- 63.35

Total Fat - 7.17g
Saturated Fat - 0.56g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 548.07mg
Potassium - 450.55mg
Total Carbohydrates - 26.51g
Fiber - 4.12g
Sugar - 5.48g
Protein - 2.12g

Comments:

These fries are best when they are hot out of the oven. The ancho chili powder adds subtle heat to these fries that I really enjoy. They are good served with a lime wedge so that you can add little lime juice to the hot fries. You can also serve them with a flavored mayo if you can have a few fat grams.