We eat a lot of chicken but for some reason I don’t think to roast or bake it very often. I don’t know why because roasting adds so much flavor. The root vegetables included sweet potato, rutabaga, carrots, parsnips, and onions. I subbed new red potatoes for the parsnips. There was supposed to be pancetta in the mix but I used W30 compliant bacon. These are all tossed with EVOO , rosemary, garlic and lemon zest.
The chicken is rubbed with the EVOO mixture before roasting. This was tasty. The chicken was moist and tender. The veggies were perfect. A great way to cook the chicken. The recipe is from The Whole 30 Cookbook. (Pg 160).
If you look on page 270 of Melissa Hartwig’s Fast and Easy you will find a recipe that mixes and cauliflower and sweet potatoes. A mash. And it is a nutritional powerhouse. And it can fix your sweet cravings.
It is one of the easiest recipes ever. Cook cauliflower, cook sweet potatoes, and peeled garlic. Drain then add ghee. s/p and mash together. Does it get any easier? No!
But is it good, I did not think so. I would rather have one or the other. The cauliflower overpowered the flavor of the sweet potatoes. I do like cauliflower but not in this recipe. Sorry.
Kayte of Grandma’s Kitchen Table and I are cooking through our two shared Whole 30 cookbooks through the end of March. Check out what we are making. We are making the same recipes but not at the same time yet. She is catching up on the recipes and I am catching up on the blogging.
I have been back on W30 for a month. I needed to change my diet after the holidays so Kayte and I decided to go back on the program. If you aren’t familiar with the W30 it is a paleo style eating style that ‘outlaws’ grains (bread, pasta, rice, etc), sugar, dairy (milk, butter, yogurt, cream etc.), legumes (peas, beans, peanuts, chickpeas, etc) in favor of leafy veggies, meat, chicken ghee, etc. It is not hard, as Melissa Hartwig (the ‘inventor’) says but it is a big change if you are used to cheese, yogurt, humus, sandwiches, etc. And I was.
After a month I was feeling better. My restless legs were under control. And I was sleeping better.
So I have decided to keep going with the style even if I’m not 100%. To that end Kayte and I are trying out some new recipes. LIke this Chicken and Mushroom Soup for Hartwig’s W30 Fast and Easy. (p 189)
Simple ingredients: chicken, sweet potato, ‘shrooms, compliant bacon, onion, garlic, and chicken broth. Seasoned with thyme, red pepper flakes and salt only. I think it needed more salt and maybe a little something else I cannot put my finger on. Maybe more garlic. It lacked ‘umph’!
But it was good. It will be my lunch for this week.
Kayte made the Chinese Chicken and Bok Choy soup from Hartwig’s The W30 Cookbook. (p 122) which is a NomNom Paleo recipe. Next time we cook ‘together’ (she is in Indiana and I’m in Louisiana) we will switch soups.
A whole new year as begun. 2022. Fingers crossed it is a good year for everyone.
And it is time to start eating healthy again. I have been neglectful since Thanksgiving. Too long to neglect my health. I am going back to KETO which has been my friend off and on for the last year to so. It is easy to stick to and the food is often delicious. Especially since it is all made at home with fresh ingredients and NO sugar. No processed food. No starch, etc.
So, this week I decided to start the year off right with Ellie’s Autumn Vegetable Curry. Delicious!!
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1 1/2-inch length fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1 1/2 2 tablespoons yellow curry powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
1/2 head cauliflower, broken into 1½-inch-wide florets (about 3 cups)
2 cups broccoli florets
1 pound medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch rounds
2 tomatoes, cored and chopped
Grated zest of 1 lime
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 15-ounce can no-salt-added chickpeas, drained and rinsed
5 cups fresh baby spinach leaves
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
3 cups cooked brown rice, for serving, optional
Directions
Place the onion, garlic, ginger, curry powder, and cayenne pepper in a food processor and process to combine. Add the oil and process until a smooth puree is formed. Transfer the curry puree to a large pot and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture begins to darken, about 5 minutes more.
Add the vegetable broth, coconut milk, cinnamon stick and ¼ teaspoon black pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick. Stir in the lime zest and juice, chickpeas, and spinach and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes. Season with up to ¾ teaspoon salt.
Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice.
Cook time is about 30 minutes.
You can see that I left out some ingredients. Some of them simply because they aren’t keto friendly. I did leave in the sweet potato but decreased the amount. A little of it was needed for the taste of the stew. I also increased the amount of broth to use it more as a soup rather than a stew. It was just spicy enough to warm you up on a winters day.
The recipe is HERE if you want to see it in the original form and in Ellie’s comfort food fix (page 208).
Check with
Kayte, Peggy, and Gaye or their first Eating with Ellie post for 2022.
If you would like to join in, just leave a link to your post in any of the comment sections of the participants and we will come and see what you made.
It has been chilly here in the deep south for the last few days. Highs only in the 60s and lows in the 40s. Now that may not seem chilly to many of you up north where the temps are LOTS lower but to those of us in the south it is soup and gumbo weather. So last night I made gumbo and today I made a Whole30 Sweet Potato Soup. And then the temps went up the mid 70s and it wasn’t soup weather any more.
Sweet potatoes mixed with cinnamon and ginger then simmered in water and coconut milk . Thick, filling, tasty. Tasted like sweet potato casserole at Christmas. Without the marshmallows and nuts. Although, I could have garnished it with chopped pecans. Over the top for soup? I don’t think so. { I was searching for the recipe on the Whole30 blog and ran into a curried sweet potato soup where curry powder was added while the soup was simmering. What a GREAT idea!}
Anyway. The recipe is from The Whole30: The 30 day guide to TOTAL HEALTH and FOOD FREEDOM {page 300} my book for March’s Cookbook Countdown.
Still cooking from the Low-Cholesterol Cookbook from the American Heart Association. And still finding good recipes that are healthy and tasty.
Sweet potatoes are probably one of my fave veggies. I count them as a veggie and a potato so I am covered both ways. AND, the plus of sweet potatoes, they can also be dessert. This dish could have gone either way.
If I had mashed them and put a little whipped cream on them…
But I didn’t. I used them as a side one night. They were very good. Soft. Creamy. Sweet.
The thing about sweet potatoes is that they have to ‘ripen’. If you eat them right after picking they are not very good. If you let them sit for about a month they get sweeter. These have been sitting for about two months so they were very sweet. The 2 Tbl of brown sugar just enhanced the sweetness without making them too sweet.
1 lb sweet potatoes peeled and sliced crosswise into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup fat free 1/2 and 1/2
2 Tbl light brown sugar
1 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp cinnamon {I used a little more}
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tbl light tub margarine
400 degree oven. { I was baking chicken and biscuits at the same time so I upped the oven to 425}
Peal and slice the potatoes into 1/4 inch circles. Layer them in an oven safe dish in even layers.
Mix the 1/2 and 1/2 {I subbed in milk and cream}, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest. Pour this over the layered sweet potatoes and dot with margarine {Not my fave….and I hesitate to say this is healthier than butter.} Bake for 35 – 40 minutes. Stir them about 1/2 way into the baking time.
The recipe is from Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Cooking – page 259.
Curry, any kind of curry, is comfort food to me. And even though it is 87 degrees out today {UGH!} this was just too good to pass up.
I did make a couple of changes to the recipe:
The recipe calls for Spanish Pardina lentils, I only had brown {YUCK!} in the pantry. I will use yellow next time.
I used two heaping teaspoons of Curry powder rather than the 1 teaspoon Keller called for. I LIKE the flavor strong!
I made mine more of a stew and only used 4 cups chicken stock rather than 8.
You can find the recipe on page 121 of ad hoc at home, but I also found it HERE.
Of course, because I was making this soup/stew I also had to make the curry powder itself. A foodie friend sent me a jar of curry powder and then sent me the recipe, which I subsequently lost. I never knew where it the recipe came from until…..
…I found it again – in ad hoc. {page 336} I was so happy. Now I have a jar in the pantry ready to use. There are 20 different spices in this mix,
allspice, anise, bay leaf, brown mustard seeds, cardamom, cinnamon stick, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel seed, fenugreek seed, nutmeg, mace, black peppercorns, ginger, star anise, yellow mustard seeds, turmeric, paprika, flaky sea salt. {The only thing I didn’t have in the pantry was mace but since it is very similar to nutmeg in flavor, only stronger, I subbed in 1/2 nutmeg and 1/2 ground allspice.}
some whole some already ground, and worth all the trouble to make it. It is much more fragrant and tastier than what you can buy and the recipe makes about 1 cup of powder.
Okay,that ‘s the last recipe from ad hoc at home. This has been fun this month cooking with Thomas Keller. Next month I will be gone mostly so I’ll be back in June with……?
This week’s theme: It’s in the Bag: Cooking in Parchment from Kayte. Evidently Donna doesn’t cook a lot of food in bags at least not in the books I have. But I did find a couple of ideas on The Splendid Table that looked really good. Like this one.
Spiced Chicken
And it was incredibly easy. Just place some shredded sweet potato on a piece of parchment (making sure it is big enough to fold over all of the food involved) and then on top of that you place a chicken breast. I didn’t want a big piece of chicken so I cut some strips instead of using a whole breast. Then you simply sprinkle with a little za’atar, which I was lucky enough to have some in the spice drawer from another recipe. It’s really not a spice everyone would have in their pantry. Drizzle the chicken etc with some olive oil and wrap the parchment around it all forming a small bag. Bake the package for 12 – 15 minutes at 400°F. Donna suggests serving it with some yogurt and mint leaves.
Okay. This was good. Not great, but good. I only used 1/2 of a large sweet potato. I should have used the whole potato. The za’atar is a Middle Eastern mix of sumac, thyme, whole sesame seeds and salt. I really liked the flavor it added to the chicken.
The only thing I didn’t like about the dish was all the chicken ‘juice’ and oil that accumulated at the bottom of the package. I think I will use less olive oil next time, too.
All that being said I will definitely fix this again. It was tasty.
Have you visited Wednesdays with Donna Hay lately? If you haven’t let me tell you – the group has changed. No longer are we picking a weekly recipe. We are picking weekly themes. This week – Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Kayte’s idea.
When it finally gets cold outside we tend to gravitate toward stews, soups, and gumbos to fill us up and keep us warm. This week we had all three. One of them was Donna Hay’s sweet potato soup.
Sweet potato combined with ginger, coconut, cumin seeds, and lemon grass. What a wonderful combination of flavors. Although the lemon grass didn’t seem to add much to the mix. Donna’s recipe said to boil the sweet potatoes but I chose to roast them instead. Lots more sweetness and depth of flavor. I liked the inclusion of the cumin seeds . I didn’t like the inclusion of the coriander leaves so I left them out and garnished with some extra cumin seeds instead. The recipe is in Donna’s the new cook page 68
Warm and filling. Definitely a repeat as winter continues and the days get colder.
Last night when I baked pork chops I needed a different side. I had forgotten that the next week, this week, the Krieger theme for I Heart Cooking Clubs was SIDES. Lucky me when I just happened to pick this dish from Ellie’s The Food You Crave
These are super simple to make and done in about 40 – 60 minutes. (Depending on how thick you cut the ‘fries’.)
Peel and slice some medium sized sweet potatoes into ‘fries’, about 2 pounds or so. Toss with 2 Tbl EVOO, 2 Tbl honey, 1 tsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp of salt. Make sure you mix the slices well with the ingredients. Bake at 400 for about 30 – 40 minutes. {Ellie says 350 for 60 minutes but I had mine in with the Pork Chops.}. The potatoes should be tender when they are done. Season with the salt to taste.
Check with the other ‘Clubbers” to see what Ellie Side they chose this week.
Tea and Scones 