Spiced Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

Well, as 2011 rapidly draws to a close I figure I better post once more this year. And just to show how on top of things I am I'll admit that I made these sweet potatoes about three weeks ago. You may remember me telling you about my awesome thanksgiving this year and how much I loved the sweet potatoes that my roommate served. So a couple of weeks ago when I got invited to a "Post-Thanksgiving, Pre-Christmas Turkey Dinner" I couldn't resist trying out these potatoes myself.

The very first time I had these it was with the chicken in the recipe--it's very good. But it's also good if you leave out the chicken (and who can afford to buy meat anyways?).  The spicy sweet potatoes seemed to go over well at the dinner (though they had a bit more kick than I had intended). And I really like them so I made them again for my family while I was home over Christmas--actually the real reason I made them while I was home was because my mom had chipotle chilis in the freezer. They didn't like them as much but in all fairness, my family doesn't really like sweet potatoes at all (don't ask me).

Cinnamon Banana Bread

Last time I made banana bread I forgot to add the baking soda (or maybe the baking powder, or maybe both, I can't remember) and the result as you can imagine was a loaf of bread that was extremely dense and about 3/4 of an inch tall (you wish I was exaggerating). Recently I found a recipe for Cinnamon Banana Bread on this blog and I decided that it sounded quite delicious. At length this week I found myself with two rather blackened bananas and really there are only a small handful of things to be done with blackened bananas--hence the time to try this recipe.

I made sure to add all of the leavening agents.

And you know. It turned out great. Light, and spongy, and moist, and banana-y.

Brie en Croute

Ok, since I live in DC it's a little far to fly home for Thanksgiving (read: too expensive). And since I'm not living near any relatives I had the pleasure of celebrating Thanksgiving with my roommates this year (and a few other awesome people). My roommate who planned this event did a fabulous job. (I brought the stuffing and a cherry pie.) But she started out our meal with a delicious Brie en Croute with Apple Compote for an Hors d'oeuvre. You may want to note just how awesome her Brie turned out. Mine doesn't look so pretty.

So anyways, yesterday was our Christmas party at work and I had planned on making this pie but after having eaten pie with almost every meal for the last week I just wasn't feeling it. (I'm realizing now that I don't think I've blogged about pie much. I will make every attempt to remedy that in the future.) And then I remembered the brie. My roommate readily shared the recipe with me and away I went. It turned out great. It tasted just like it should have, though my puff pastry did unfold rather a lot during baking and so it didn't look particularly pretty.

Now, someone who was thinking ahead would have taken pictures when the brie was fresh from the oven and gooey and delicious. As we all know I'm not that person. Me remember to take pictures? never. But I did remember enough to throw my camera in my bag to take with me to work. Unfortunately the lighting in my office is about a fluorescent as it gets and is pretty awful. I know I apologize for my photography more often than not, but bear with me. One of these days I'll cook during the day and actually snap a well lit photo. Just remember, it tasted delicious.

Garlic Knots

I made these Garlic Knots a week or two ago (I can't remember now.) They are pretty delicious. And went very nicely with these meatballs. The meatballs are so easy. Just three ingredients. Meatballs, plum jam, and chili sauce. Throw it all in the crockpot and let it cook till the meatballs are all heated through. 

Green Smoothies

A number of months ago one of my roommates introduced me to the wonder that is the green smoothie. They're pretty amazing. Essentially you add fresh spinach to whatever smoothie you happen to be making and it turns your smoothie green without changing the flavor. So instead of having a healthy fruit smoothie with half your servings of fruit for the day, add some spinach and then you've got half your fruit and vegetables. A painless way to eat veggies, what could be better? I will warn you though, depending on what fruit you put in your smoothie the color of green can vary dramatically. If you're looking for a lovely light green I'd suggest more yellow fruits (like pineapple and mango).

BLT Wraps

So I was looking for a recipe for a simple, light, savory hors d' oeuvre that I can take for a work potluck and I ran across this recipe for BLT pitas. While I'm not sure they're quite what I'm looking for for my potluck they did sound quite delicious. So on my way home for work I stopped at the store and bought bacon, lettuce, tomato and completely managed to forget pitas. whoops. Luckily, I had thought that a nice wrap would be good sometime so I did have tortillas. And you know, a BLT makes a pretty awesome wrap. This recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe used avocado as well, which was delicious, and I think that it will become a regular guest in future BLTs. 

Cookbooks

Cooking aside, books are my big passion. So when I can find books that embody cooking it just doesn't get much better than that. Consequently I own a number of cookbooks in a variety of degrees of usefulness. I am a firm believer in pictures being worth a thousand words and think that no where is that more true than in a cookbook. In fact I think a cookbook is worthless if it doesn't have full-color, professionally shot photos. 

Now that I've given that absolute statement, let me back-pedal and clarify (generally I try to steer clear of absolute statements because I nearly always have to recant). What I mean is that since that advent of full-color, professional photography there is no reason why it shouldn't be present in a cookbook. I hate buying a new, modern cookbook and having it be picture-less. What makes me look at a recipe and want to try it is the visual appeal, not the list of ingredients, usually. Of course, one has to make exceptions for books where it is impossible for there to be photos (black and white or otherwise). In fact, that brings me to the whole point of the post. 

I have started my collection of antiquarian cookbooks. It's still small (this recent grad just doesn't have tons of money to spend on antique cookbooks just yet) but pretty awesome. The dream is to one day own a first edition of Mrs. Beeton's Guide to Household Management, but it will be many years before that dream is realized. Last summer I ran into an 1861 edition (I don't think it was a true first edition though.) and was thrilled to find that it was in pretty good condition, but the man wanted 200 GBP for it and I just didn't have that kind of money. So, I've had to start smaller. As you may recall, I am very much interested in Victorian cookery and so I hope to have my collection ultimately be mostly Victorian in nature; though right now it is more 1st half of the twentieth century. In some ways that's almost better because the cooking instructions are quite a bit easier to follow. 

Monday Roast

Apple Galette

You'll remember that last week I went apple picking in Damascus. So this week I cooked with apples (imagine that.) On Sunday my roommate cooked dinner for us and I contributed an Apple Galette. In essence a galette is an open-faced pie, that's flat. Therefore it is easier to make than pie and tastes the same. And it looks pretty cool too. It turned out quite nicely. The apples I had picked were a sweeter variety so I only lightly sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top (and mostly just because I wanted the cinnamon). I ate leftovers for a couple days. I will say though that this is definitely better warm. Even reheated.

Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, Sweet Potato Fries

Before my roommate offered to share her dinner with me on Sunday I had planned to make a roast. So instead I had that on Monday. Nothing like a good Monday roast. And I had a sweet potato so I sliced it up real nice and baked it into fries (nothing like the fries at Guru's  but then what is?) and really they turned out ok. I managed to eat almost all of them before my roast was even done cooking. Actually timing wise the whole meal struggled. Everything had to cook for about half an hour, mostly on the same temperature but the fires had to be turned half way through and you can't open the door to the oven while cooking Yorkshire Pudding or it will fall. So all three parts ended up being cooked separately and I don't think all the waiting would have flown if I had been cooking for someone else. But I will say that waiting was worth it. The pudding didn't stick to the pan at all! and it was nice and thick. It was fantastic.