Brittany's PantrySweet Potato Salad W/Vinaigrette
Brittany wrote this on 23 May 2012
chives, dijon mustard, gluten-free, sweet potatoes, vegetarian
Have you ever made a minor change in something in your life and then thought, why didn’t I do this before? Like switching from vegetable oil to canola oil. Or growing a garden. Or ditching the use of lip liner.
That is what this recipe was for me. I had cut out this recipe for sweet potato salad from an old issue if Gourmet magazine and it was years before I decided to make it. I really have no idea why, because it is one of the most simple recipes for potato salad ever! Very few ingredients and what I think is the best part-you don’t have to wait for it to chill! That is always the most torturous part for me. Waiting. Patience is really not one of my virtues. But I digress…I made it once and then was like, “Why didn’t I think of this? It seems so obvious!” No mayo to mess with the already outrageous flavor of the sweet potatoes and just enough vinegar to give it some kick and a hint of personality. It is a lot like the beginning process I use for this potato salad.
With one of the biggest BBQ weekends of the year just a few days away, here is a recipe that could not be more perfect for a backyard get together. It is great served at room temperature so you don’t have to worry about it being left out in the elements. Need to bring a dish to pass? Here it is. It uses familiar ingredients but with just enough variation to keep it from being boring. The fact that it is very good for you is a bonus when faced with a sea of potentially un-healthy foods at a holiday get-together. I make this quite often when I want something healthy, but that still fits the summer barbecue bill.
So just to recap, it is fast to put together, super easy, convenient, and good for you. And you can make it without the lingering regret of having set it aside all those years ago. Win win.
One Year Ago: Shrimp Cobb Salad
Sweet Potato Salad W/Vinaigrette
Adapted from Gourmet
Feel free to use diced scallions in place of the chives.
3 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite sized cubes
1 T Dijon mustard
1 T white wine vinegar or other light vinegar
1/4 c olive oil
salt and pepper
2 T chives
Steam the potatoes until just tender all the way through. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the next four ingredients. When potatoes and done, toss them immediately with the vinaigrette. Let cool to room temp or serve slightly warm. Sprinkle with chives just before serving.
Hobo Dinners
Brittany wrote this on 18 May 2012 beef, carrots, gluten-free, onions, potatoes
I am going to try to explain how happy this post makes me. This meal, a Hobo Dinner, is the kind of thing that will make your wallet happy (you can easily feed four people for less than 5 bucks), will keep your house cool when the temperature rises, and will break the monotony of ‘normal’ dinner, thus making your kids think you are awesome. It will feed one person or ten. There is almost no clean-up. It satisfies picky-eaters or vegetarians. Gluten free? Sure. No dairy? No problem. About the only crowd this is not suitable for is a dinner party. Oh, and did I mention that it tastes crazy good?
If you have made something like this before but usually only when camping, I implore you to expand it to a weeknight dinner. I mean, really. It is kinda fun, you know? And super speedy! Perfect for…well…Wednesday. And I know, because we ate it Wednesday. I vaguely remember making something like this when I was a kid (I think…) and when I went camping with my husband’s family for the first time, this was on the menu. Incidentally, it is great camping food, in that you can make everything ahead of time and keep it in the cooler. Car camping of course. No hobo dinners while backpacking…oy.
OK. So. Details. This can be streamlined in several different ways to make it easier/faster/possible. Instead of dividing up a one pound block of ground beef, you can use pre-formed hamburger patties. You could also use baby carrots in place of the carrot sticks, just know that they might not cook all the way through if they are the big ones. I like to use 93% lean beef for health reasons and you could go even further and drizzle the whole she-bang with extra-virgin olive oil instead of butter. Not a carrot fan? Use bell peppers cut into strips instead. Not everything cooks well with the flavors of beef, but feel free to use what you like and give it a try. The variety is half the fun. Due to the dryness of ground turkey, I wouldn’t use it in place of the beef unless it was the variety that has dark meat mixed in. The pure white meat, nearly fat free ground turkey just doesn’t have enough fat to work here. But again, this recipe is just the basic-and we think, the best-version. So go crazy. Far be it for me to stop you from doing something wild on your Wednesday.
One Year Ago: Whole Wheat Cornbread
Hobo Dinners
1 lb ground beef-I use 93% lean-anything too fatty and your food just sits in a pile of grease
1 large potato, scrubbed clean and peeled or not peeled, and sliced thin
3 carrots, peeled and cut into sticks
1 small onion, cut anyway you want
season salt
garlic powder
pepper
butter
Divide the ground beef into four equal portions, or in our case two a little bigger and two a bit smaller for the kids. Place them each onto their own sheet of aluminum foil. Shake a bit of season salt over the meat and add some sliced or diced onion. Lay on some slices of potato. Sprinkle with a bit of season salt and some garlic powder. Add carrot sticks and place a knob or two of butter on top. Carefully bring up two of the sides of foil and fold-over to seal, leaving a pocket of air if possible. Seal the ends and place on the grill over low or medium low heat or coals. Close the grill and let cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the meat is cooked through. Alternatively, bake the meal packets in a 350 degree oven.
Note: The butter helps everything get nice and brown. If the grill heat is too high it might burn, so adjust the heat if you need to.
Lemon Quick Bread
Brittany wrote this on 15 May 2012 lemon
Have I ever mentioned to you that I really love citrus? Mmmm, I do.
Anyway, years ago, just after my husband and I got married, I was finishing up my student teaching in a small town in Wisconsin. The home port of his submarine had just changed from Pearl Harbor to San Diego and I was counting down the days until I was done with college and could join him in California permanently! My best friend, Ashley, who happened to be a fellow Navy wife and married to my husband’s best friend and fellow sailor on the sub, flew out to road trip across the country with me and my last car load of belongings. There was one day left in the term and at 3:00 I would be free to go. Ashley was waiting at my apartment, cleaning and all prepared to cram a ridiculously large amount of stuff in my jeep and I was barely able to contain myself. Understandably so, right? I was about to embark on a legendary road trip and a tall, dark, and handsome sailor was waiting for me at the finish! Wouldn’t you be excited? Just before I finally left the school, my teaching supervisor gave me some parting gifts: a huge bag of candy for the road trip and a paperback Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook for my kitchen. I tucked the cookbook in the glove box, the candy in the center console and we hit the road. I will spare you the details of the trip but suffice to say that we survived a blizzard in the Rockies, Vegas, and seven lanes of traffic that were bumper to bumper and yet traveling at over 80 miles an hour.
Due to the size of the closet apartment that we lived in, all of my books were packed in boxes and stored. This included every cookbook I owned, with the exception of BHG, which, as it happened, was still in the glove box of my jeep! I spent the next two years cooking for a lot of sailors and I used it constantly as a reference. Understand that this was over ten years ago, so the Internet was not as much of an enormous recipe reference like it is now. There was no Tastespotting, Foodgawker, Healthy Aperture, or Pinterest. So I took a lot of notes while watching Food Network! For some reason, lemon bread became one of those things that I really wanted to make, and I made it often. Since the BHG version was all I had access to it became my regular. And it still is. Even though the view out my window has changed from the Pacific to a sea of Midwestern corn and I am no longer feeding hungry sailors but instead my beautiful family, just using the cookbook makes me think of those days.
Now, let me be clear. This recipe is just your basic quick bread. The flavor is mildly lemon with a sharp glaze brushed over top. The bread is not a delicate cake that you would serve for dessert, but instead is more of a snack kind of thing. Some other time I will post a recipe for a super lemony, delicate lemon loaf that you can serve with berries and cream. But for now, here is a version that you can whip up in a bowl with a wooden spoon. No creaming of butter and sugar and no alternating milk and dry ingredients while you mix. Just a regular quick bread. And I have no doubt that you will love it regardless of where you are and who you serve it to.
One Year Ago: Black & White Angel Food Cake
Lemon Quick Bread
Adapted from BHG
Note that this bread has a lemon and sugar glaze that gets brushed on when it comes out of the oven. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! The glaze makes this bread and punches up the subtle lemon flavor. You won’t regret it!
In a large bowl:
2 c flour
3/4 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
Mix with a whisk until evenly combined. In a large measuring cup:
1 c milk
1/4 c canola oil
zest of half a lemon
juice of half a lemon, about 2 T
1 egg
Whisk together with a fork and add to the dry ingredients. Gently fold together and mix just until completely combined. Pour into a greased 8X4 inch loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50 minutes to an hour, or until toothpick comes out clean. I actually cover my bread lightly with foil at the end to prevent over browning. In the meantime, in a small bowl, combine the juice of the other half of the lemon (about 2 T) and 1 T of sugar, stirring every so often until sugar dissolves. When bread is done, brush evenly over the top of the loaf, continuing until all the syrup is gone. Let cool in the pan at least 10 minutes and then turn out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. This tastes even better the next day!
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