I LOVE SWEET POTATOES!!

Since I know Koren is having technical difficulties and may not be able to post until tomorrow I'll start things off. I had trouble choosing a recipe for this week's ingredient because....I loved them all. This means I have several to try for dessert recipes as well but since I only bought two large tubers this was the I tried. I've made sweet potato fries before but with this one there's more than just the shape of the potatoes which make them different. They're sweet with a bit of heat which even I can handle. Tim gave them a 9 out of 10 which is really quite amazing as he marks like those figure skating judges! He also rated them in the 'make them regularly category' and ate most of them. The best part is that they're simple enough to make for a weeknight supper.

Sweet and Spicy Sweet Potatoes

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon chili powder

pinch of cayenne pepper

Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Place the sweet potato chunks into a large mixing bowl. Drizzle with the olive oil, then sprinkle the brown sugar, paprika, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, poultry seasoning, chili powder, and cayenne pepper overtop. Toss until the potatoes are evenly coated with the seasoning. Spread onto a baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then turn the potatoes over with a spatula, and continue baking until the sweet potatoes are golden and tender, 10 to 15 minutes more.

Here the photos show the 1,2, 3 of peeled and chunked sweet potatoes, then oiled and tossed with spices and finally baked to a yummy finish. Enjoy!

The battle is on!!

SWEET POTATO!!! :)
Just loved this pic to the right, had to use it!

I went on a date with a Hedgehog!

So after my appetizer a la bacon, I made cookies named after an animals. And I have to say when the coconut browns, it looks quite a bit like a hedgehog.

They are really simple, like recipe numero uno but I think if I was to make them again I would make a few adjustments. I mean don't get me wrong I'll eat them all but they lack a little something, good thing I halved the recipe.

Hedgehogs

2 c. walnuts
1 c. dates
2 c. coconut
2 eggs

Grind the walnuts and dates up together. Mix in 1 1/2 of the coconut and then the eggs.

Roll the mixture into teaspoon sized balls and roll in the remaining coconut.

Bake in oven @ 350 for 10-15 mins till the fur er, I mean coconut browns.


When I was talking with Dad earlier he said it was a good recipe to add to. Dried cranberries, candied cherries etc etc. I agree, I think cranberries would be great and some vanilla wouldn't hurt either. Maybe a little cinnamon. I like the lack of flour and butter and many many steps though so I may just tinker with this one and I'll let you know how it goes.

I did a stupid thing today, went grocery shopping while hungry. My grocery bags must have ended up weighing 40 lbs, cause wow they were heavy! And it was really easy trudging through the snow with my luggage er, I mean groceries. Oh well, got a lot of savings by taking the trip to the Great Canadian Super Store so it worked out alright.

Tomorrow I will be making a chicken soup as I have a bag of bones in the freezer and some veggies now to add to it! I will also be making a little treat known as Oreo Truffles. Oreo Truffles are cream cheese and oreos beat together, rolled into balls and coated in chocolate. I don't think I'll sleep tonight as I am pretty excited!!

Thanks for checking out our dates!! Can't wait to see what'll be the ingredient next week!

I have two dates today!

I have to post the first date before 10pm AST so, I will start with this soon to be Tim Nickerson fave.

Bacon Wrapped Dates

As easy as the recipe title sounds...

The ingredients you'll need:

Dates

Bacon

Almonds

Put an almond inside the date and wrap a 1/3 peice of bacon around each date. Bake in oven on 400 degrees until bacon crisps up, between 10 and 20 mins.

Results:

Delicious!!! So easy and pretty tasty. On the website I got it from a lot of people said about making them for parties and that you could make them ahead of time but cook them when the guests arrive.

I am moving on to my next recipe right now. You'll have to read about that in the morning Mom :)

It was a date!

This week the ingredient of dates was an opportunity to time travel for me. Dad LOVED dates and Mom often made date squares and other sweets. I remember a date pie from years ago that I tried to revisit with a custard date pie recipe someone gave me but it was too…. custardy. This one I found online is this one I remember as the old-fashioned version. Yum. And it’s easy too. If you should have a purchased (Mom wouldn’t be impressed I’m sure) piecrust to bake it takes only a few moments to make the filling. It is sweet though – isn’t that what desserts are supposed to be?

Date Pie

1 pound dates, pitted
water
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
1 egg, well beaten
1 baked pastry shell, 9-inch
Whipped Cream

Cut dates into quarters. Place in saucepan, cover with water, and simmer, covered, until tender. Mix together milk, sugar, salt, and flour; add to date mixture, then add beaten egg. Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Cool and pour into pastry shell . When firm, cover date pie with Whipped Cream Topping.Above are the naked and dressed with whipped cream shots. I didn’t get any photos of Tim tasting the pie as I couldn’t figure out the high speed setting on my camera but he did say, “ummm, you win this week” when he was wolfing it down. I have explained to him several times the premise of this foodie blog but the competitive streak that he has does not allow for anything but win/lose options. His other pearl of wisdom was that “you’d really have to like dates” but I feel that would go without saying if you were choosing to eat date pie! The perishable nature of the pie and whipped topping will not be an issue I’m guessing. Until next weekend.

Come back on March 7th - It's a date!

The secret ingredient for this week is.... dates!!!

I already have a recipe in mind (and no, it's not date squares :)

The Vote

Since I took my sweet-slothlike-time in getting the poll up this week I will let the results pour in for an extra day. So get your votes in, looks like it's a fruit battle this week :)

Hummus, I got the hummus!

Hummus (Arabic: حمّص‎; also spelled hamos, houmous, hommos, hommus, hummos, hummous or humus). If you are looking for something entertaining to do this evening I would highly recommend researching hummus on wikipedia (or most any subject on wikipedia for that matter). Most informative. I also learned that Humus is a psychedelic band from Mexico which has been active since the late 1980s. I am sorry I have not posted until now, Tuesday evening, not a good start considering it's only week #2 but you will be well rewarded for waiting on the edge of your seats.

So if you haven't already guessed this week's recipe contains red pepper and clearly, mashed up chickpeas. This week I found another recipe I loved and will certainly be making again. 1) Cause I have copious amounts of all needed ingredients on hand pretty much all the time and b) cause it was super easy to make (and if I had only known that before I woulda been making my very own hummus this whole time, there is like no way to mess it up!). You can make all kinds of modifications based on your personal tastes or ingredients on hand. Mom, I think everyone at the house would enjoy this one if you just omitted the red pepper.

So, I ate all my recipe and could post a picture of the plastic container all but licked out... but I think I'll just add on a pic that looks quite a bit like my final product. instead. I guess that's a good sign about how it turned out but I will try to capture my hard work the next time, roasting the red pepper was quite the photo opportunity (in addition to setting off the smoke alarm). Without further ado....


Spiced Sweet Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

the ingredients
1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas, 1/2 drained
1 (4 ounce) jar roasted red peppers or 1 large fresh roasted red pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini (I don't find this a key ingredient a little olive oil'll do fine)
1 clove garlic, minced (I probably used 3, just as Dad would :)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

How it's done: Blend it up real good. A blender or a little food processor works great. Chill for a bit and then chow down!

This is pretty much what mine looked like (minus the plastic container I keep all my food in :)

D.I.Y.O.D.S. (Do It Your Own Damn Self) Roasted Peppers: So easy!! Throw the whole pepper right in the oven on broil and flip it a few times as it gets blackened on all sides. Take it out (before setting off the smoke detector preferably) and then put it in a paper bag. Wait 15 mins or so and you can just peel and de-seed it without any effort. So delish! I will eat all red peppers like this from now on.

Looking forward to next week!

<3>

Red Peppers?

Well, I might as well share right up front that I have limited experience with red peppers and after today’s culinary challenge I’m not planning on changing that. To begin with, I’m not a big fan of them so this experiment was going to be just that – to be administered on the taste-testing panel. So those of you, who are already pepper experts, please bear with me.

First off, the recipes and websites I found weren’t specific as to how to remove the outer skin of the pepper but it did sound as if this was required. So I made an emergency call to a friend to ask how this was best accomplished and she suggested boiling, blanching, peeling as the easiest. Easy is a relative term I discovered when actually following her directions but I digress. I put the three peppers in a large pot full of water and quickly found that…. they float. Now what to do? Another call to my friend who suggested either putting a bowl over them to hold them down in the water or just use less water, cover and sort of steam them.

Blanching-hot to cold ...........................Peeling what a lot of work!

Onions sauteed & all simmered..............Cooling to blend to puree

I cooked (boiled, steamed whatever), blanched and peeled the three peppers. After a fashion, taking about 20 minutes, with a lot of muttering and only a little pile of pepper ‘flesh’ as a result. Definitely in the more work than I’m willing to invest column. Adding the onions, sautéing, adding broth all were straightforward. And yes, I did remember the rule of NOT putting hot soup to be pureed in the blender so cooled, blended and reheated the soup.

The judges gave this soup a 'give the leftovers to the dog rather than save it' rating. Kaleb says "a 4 out of 10" and Tim says "it was ok but nothing special" instead of a thumbs up. Tamara did her best to not make a comment and sipped some and of course to me it tasted too much like red peppers so I opted out - well duh, it is red pepper soup. Clearly it is a one off attempt for me. The reminder of the ingredient list doesn't include anything I'd rather not eat so it's clear sailing from here. And perhaps if you're a red pepper addict, with lots of time on your hands this would be the dish for you.

RED PEPPER SOUP
3 lg. red bell peppers

2 med. onions

3½ chicken broth

1 tbsp. butter

Sprigs of fresh parsley

Boil the peppers long enough so skin can be removed easily. Cut pepper and onions into strips or thin slices and brown them in butter, using a large skillet. Add chicken broth and let simmer 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool slightly before putting through blender. If desired, add 1 or 2 drops of red food coloring for true red appearance. Serve warm with fresh parsley on top. Serves 4.

http://www.cooks.com/