Sweet Potato Hash

You know the other good thing about make-ahead brunch recipes?  You know in advance if the recipe is a flop!  My first attempt at sweet potato hash was a total mess – the crumbled sausage completely dried out and the chunks of sweet potatoes were mushy.  So I tried again the next morning with this recipe from Martha Stewart as a guide.  I didn’t have any more sausage in the house, so this ended up a vegetarian dish.

My second try at sweet potato hash was better, but the recipe is fairly time intensive and not make-ahead at all.  It didn’t have a lot of flavor, so I added the smoked paprika at the end which helped quite a bit.  So I am still on the market for a great sweet potato hash recipe, but in the meantime I’ve got plenty of leftovers to enjoy.

 

 

 

Sweet Potato Hash

4 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1″ pieces
3 T canola oil, divided
1 Vidalia onion, chopped
Smoked paprika, salt, and pepper

Boil sweet potatoes for 5-8 minutes, until just tender.  Drain and place in refrigerator for at least 1 hour to cool.

Heat 1 T oil in a large pan, and saute onions for 15-20 minutes until soft and lightly brown.  Remove from pan.  Add remaining 2 T oil to pan.  Saute potatoes for 10-15 minutes, until browned on all sides.  Return onions to pan and heat through.  Season with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.

-Adapted lightly from Martha Stewart

Spinach Crustless Quiche

I posted a version of this recipe a long time ago, but over the years I’ve made some updates.  This is one of my favorite brunch recipes because you can prepare it in advance and then just pop it in the oven in the morning.  It’s become a Christmas morning tradition in my family, but it’s good anytime of year.

Even if you don’t normally eat cottage cheese, you’ll like it here because it makes the quiche rich and creamy.  You can vary the vegetables according to what’s in season, and make it colorful.  I served the quiche with salsa on the side, which was a hit.  I hope it becomes part of your brunch tradition.

 

 

Spinach Crustless Quiche

1 T olive oil
2 Vidalia onions, chopped
1 (16 oz.) package sliced mushrooms
1 (1o oz.) package frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 (16 oz.) container fat free cottage cheese
6 eggs, beaten
1 c. reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese

Heat oil in a frying pan.  Saute onions for 10-15 minutes, until softened and just starting to turn brown.  Add mushrooms, and continue to cook until mushrooms are soft and most of the liquid has evaporated.  Stir in spinach.  Allow vegetable mixture to cool.

In a large bowl, mix cottage cheese, eggs, and shredded cheddar.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in vegetables.  Pour into a 13″x9″ dish coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes, or until eggs are set.

Vegetable Stew with Cornmeal Dumplings

Everyone’s working extra hours these days, and my crockpot is no exception.  Last weekend, I made Lentil Soup overnight, poured it into containers, and then got the crockpot clean and ready for this recipe.  The stew by itself is a hearty vegetable and bean stew which is good, but a little boring.  It’s the cornmeal dumplings that make the difference!  The texture of the dumplings is hard to describe; they are firmer than a matzoh ball, but moister than a biscuit.  The steps at the end of the recipe take a few minutes, but the dumplings are well worth the time!

 

 

 

Vegetable Stew with Cornmeal Dumplings

1 (20 oz.) package peeled and diced butternut squash
1 (16 oz.) package sliced mushrooms
1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes in juice
1 c. frozen shelled edamame
1 (16 oz.) bag Trader Joe’s frozen romano beans
1 c. water
2 t Italian seasoning
1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. cornmeal
2 T Parmesan cheese
1 t baking powder
1 egg, beaten
2 T milk
2 T canola oil

Place squash, mushrooms, tomatoes, edamame, beans, water, and Italian seasoning in crockpot.  Stir and cook on High for 5 hours.  Lift cover and smash butternut squash pieces against the side of the crockpot to thicken the stew.

Mix flour, cornmeal, cheese, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside.  Mix egg, milk, and oil in a small bowl.  Add wet ingredients to dry and stir just until moistened.  Drop the dough by spoonfuls into the stew.  Replace the cover and cook on High for 45 minutes.

-Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Crockpot Cookery

Banana Walnut Dark Chocolate Muffins

Of course there are a lot of breakfasts you can eat on the go – healthy things like hardboiled eggs, orange sections, peanut butter sandwiches, and apple slices with cubes of cheese.  But I do like muffins as a treat sometimes, and my freezer was empty.

When I saw this recipe for Banana Nut Dark Chocolate Chunk bread from Danica’s Daily, I immediately bookmarked it, but knew I needed to make muffins for portion control.  Then I found really ripe bananas in the discount produce bin at the supermarket, and the fate was sealed.  I got 85% cacao Dark Chocolate from Trader Joe’s, pulled the last half cup of walnuts from my freezer, and got baking.  As muffins, they only require about 25-30 minutes in the oven, so be sure to set the timer accordingly.

These muffins are incredibly delicious, and a great treat for a Friday (or any!) morning.  The only problem is that you end up with chocolate on your hands.  There are a lot worse problems to have, right?

 

 

Crockpot Lentil Soup

When things get hectic, and they always do, I like to go back to the basics.  The celery and carrots in my vegetable drawer looked pretty tired, but I hate throwing away produce.  While I got a good night’s sleep, the soup simmered in the crockpot and the vegetables came back to life.  I stirred in a little balsamic vinegar at the end for extra flavor.  You’d never know this soup is just lentils, vegetables, and spices because it tastes much richer.  Getting back to the basics can be really good.

 

Crockpot Lentil Soup

1/2 large Vidalia onion, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 c. lentils
1 t minced garlic
1 t Italian seasoning
4 c. vegetable broth
1 (14.5 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes in juice
2 T balsamic vinegar

Combine all ingredients except vinegar in crockpot.  Cook on Low for 12 hours.  Stir in vinegar and serve.

-Lightly adapted from the Better Homes & Gardens Crockery Cookbook

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

Sorry to leave you hanging on the Mardi Gras recipes, it turned out to be a busy week and this post required more typing.  I was pretty far out of my comfort zone in making this dish, and the Internet has about 1000 different gumbo recipes.  There seems to be some squabbling among cooks as to what makes a gumbo authentic, and I am not even educated enough to have an opinion.  So I took a step back from the computer, and turned to a classic Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.

The recipe starts with a roux, and thankfully BH&G said to cook the roux until it is the color of a penny.  I am not sure I would have waited (and stirred!) that long if I hadn’t read that advice.  I was also a little nervous about using okra.  I’ve only had okra once, and it was tough and stringy.  That’s not the way okra is supposed to be, so I was grateful that the recipe uses frozen okra and I didn’t need to pick it out myself.

In the end, this is the only gumbo I’ve ever had, so therefore it was automatically the best.  I liked the smoky flavor and the okra was good, not stringy at all.  We couldn’t take a trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but I’d say our Mardi Gras dinner was a success.

 

 

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. canola oil
2 onions, chopped
1/2 c. chopped celery
2 t minced garlic
1/4 t black pepper
1/8 t cayenne pepper
4 c. vegetable broth
10 oz. smoked turkey sausage
1 (16 oz.) package frozen okra, thawed
3 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts, cut into 1″ pieces

Combine flour and oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Stir continuously for 20-25 minutes, until the roux turns reddish brown, similar to the color of a penny.  Stir in onion, celery, garlic, black pepper, and red pepper.  Cook for 5 minutes until vegetables are softened.  Gradually stir in hot broth, sausage, okra, and chicken.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and cover; simmer for 30-40 minutes.  Serve over rice.

-Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

Muffuletta

Our cooking club theme this month was Mardi Gras, and we had quite the feast!  Our party was scheduled just ahead of actual Mardi Gras, which gives me time to share the recipes with you.  The table was colorful, and filled with gumbo, Mardi Gras slaw, and muffuletta of course.

My friend Susan made this muffaletta sandwich which was awesome.  First, you make an olive salad with black and green olives, peppers, celery, onion, and capers in a vinaigrette. Then, you assemble the sandwich with salami, ham, capicola, Provolone, and the olive salad.

 

 

 

I never would have made this on my own, or ordered it off a menu, mostly because I am not a fan of olives or peppers.  But somehow when the sandwich was all together, it tasted great.  That’s one of the things I like best about our cooking club, it pushes me to try new things sometimes, and usually I end up really liking them.

Pasta Fagioli

My grandmother used to make pasta fagioli all the time, and it’s still one of my favorite soups.  I am always so busy trying to make new recipes that sometimes I neglect the classics.  This pasta fagioli recipe from Skinnytaste is a vegetarian version of my grandmother’s, and perhaps a bit more like a soup than a stew, but the flavor was right on.  After a weekend full of blondies and nachos and macaroons, this soup hit the spot!

 

 

Toasty Coconut Macaroons

Some of the best afternoons include an impromptu cooking project with friends!  Well, it was impromptu for me anyway, but a friend wanted to make macaroons and I never turn down an invitation to cook, especially when there’s a Kitchen Aid mixer in the house.

We used a very simple Alton Brown recipe with three ingredients: toasted coconut, egg whites, and sugar.  The recipe calls for dropping just a teaspoon of batter on the cookie sheet, but we used much closer to a tablespoon so they took a little longer to bake.  Still, they came out nicely browned on the outside and chewy on the inside.  The picture below doesn’t capture how good the cookies were or how much fun we had!