Chomp Zone

Ugh. I know. I’m a horrible blogger at the moment. But I promise, I have recipes.

Recently I decided to make twice baked sweet potatoes. The original recipe I came across was Asian inspired with miso paste and sesame seeds. But I love baked potatoes for butter and sour cream and bacon. And I would not do it any injustice.

Here’s what you need -

• 3 -4 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed
• 3 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp of rosemary, crushed fine
• 1 egg
• salt & pepper to taste
• 4 strips of bacon, chopped

Preheat the oven to 400. Place tin foil on a baking sheet and arrange potatoes on it. Pop in and cook for 40 - 50 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 325. Cut potatoes in half. With four halves, scoop the baked potato out leaving about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of potato against the skin. Remove all of the potato from the other halves. Beat with a mixer until smooth. Add the butter, rosemary and egg and beat.

If you want to be fancy, you can put the potato mix into a piping bag. I had difficulty with this and ended up just plopping it into the skins. Place back into the oven and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

When there’s 5 minutes left of cooking time, cook your chopped bacon in a frying pan according to package instructions. Sprinkle bacon on top of finished potatoes and serve.

Our CSA has finally come to an end, but each week we received more spinach than humanly possible to consume. For example.

This isn’t spinach you can just wash and be done with. No. It’s covered in dirt. And the stems need to be snipped off. One bag took us two hours to wash, snip, cook and package to freeze. But regardless, we still needed to use it up.

Another item we had in abundance were potatoes - both sweet and white. Epicurious saved the day. Inspiration did the rest. 

Here’s what you need -

• 3 tbsp olive oil, divided
• 10 ounces fully cooked chorizo sausage, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 - 2 pounds of sweet potato, peeled, and cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 1 - 2 pounds white potato, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch slices (you should have 3 pounds of potatoes total, so accommodate accordingly) 
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 9 ounces of spinach

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan. Cook sausage until browned, about 8 minutes. Remove sausage with a slotted spoon and place on a plate covered in paper towel to drain. Add onions and garlic to the pan and cook until translucent. Add all of the potatoes and cook until starting to soften, about 12 minutes.

Add broth. Scrape up bits of browned stuff on the bottom. Simmer for 20 minutes until potatoes are entirely cooked through. Add the sausage back in, and the spinach. Cook until spinach is wilted. Stir in remaining olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

We started the late fall share for our CSA, which means mutant sweet potatoes, squash and a plethora of beets, radishes and turnips. Mutant is referring to their size, which massive. I have never seen vegetables so large before.

Anyway, I need a way to use up some of these veggies, and risotto is always a favorite go to.

Here’s what you’ll need -

• 1 cup arborio rice
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 tbsp olive oil (or butter)
• 1 large sweet potato, baked (skin removed afterwards)
• 3 tbsp sage, chopped roughly
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 - 2 chicken sausages, cooked and sliced
• Salt/Pepper to taste

In a saucepan, heat the chicken stock until simmering. Lower the heat so that broth stays warm. In a large saucepan, heat olive oil, add onions and cook for a minute until soft. Add rice and coat with olive oil and onions.

Add 1/3 - 1/2 cup of the chicken stock to the rice. Stir continuously until all of the liquid has been absorbed. Continue to add stock until you have approximately a cup left. At this point, add the pumpkin puree. Cook until liquid has been absorbed. Add the rest of the broth and the wine at the end. Remove from stove and let sit.

Chop your baked sweet potato into cubes (remove skin. It should fall away from the flesh). Add cubes, along with sage and sliced sausage to the rice. Stir to combine. Let sit for another few minutes. Serve.