Sweet Potato Sushi

Did you know it's National Sweet Potato Month? Yup, me neither.   

I'm a member of a group called Sunday Funday.   And the theme this week was Sweet Potatoes, since November is Sweet Potato Month.   Wendy of Adayinthelifeonthefarm is our hostess this week and suggested we make some Sweet Potato recipes to share.    I decided I was making Sushi,

and then couldn't find my bamboo rolling mat, (I packed it up, prior to moving and it's probably in a bin or tote I haven't unpacked yet) I wasn't about to let that stop me however. 

The Sunday Funday

group post on every Sunday according to a theme, I've been participating lately and it's been fun coming up with ideas for food.  I took a little hiatus from cooking after my husband died, but I'm back...

 As I said, it's Sweet Potato Month, and I have ideas for how to enjoy these little orange bombshells of flavour and goodness.  Thanksgiving is coming up, and I'm betting a lot of people will be making their sweet potatoes into a casserole topped with Marshmallows. Personally, I love it, but I'm trying to eat less processed foods these days. I do love a baked sweet potato with lots of butter on top, and don't get me started on Sweet Potato Fries. They're a guilty pleasure; I enjoy them all too often. I've done a lot of different things with sweet potatoes over the years, apart from casseroles and fries, I've included them in roasted vegetables, soups, stews, cakes, bundt cakes, and layered cakes as well as fritters.  I've even used them in tortillas.    This time round, I wanted to do something a little different.  So, I thought of making some Sweet Potato Tempura, but...   Many years ago, I'd met a chef during our full-time RV'ing days who made these one day for the campground.    But I wanted to go further —I like to play with my food —but I really didn't want to fry anything, so I googled ideas.  Lots and lots of ideas.  

It just so happens I have not only sweet potatoes on hand, but also had some small cucumbers, (the avocado's I'd planned on using, got a little too ripe to use) and one of the ideas I came up with was Sushi.  Personally, I don't like raw fish unless it's pickled herring, but I do like a California roll as an alternative to raw-fish sushi.   I think that it  would be amazing made with real crab, but honestly, I also like imitation crab, not as much, but it's still good.  I did get really spoiled this summer with fresh Dungeness Crab, courtesy of my nephew, who supplied the family with plenty.   I even made my award-winning crab cakes for the family one day.   So where am I going with this? well...  

I know, I rambled and then went down a couple of rabbit holes, but I'm good now.   I found my way out again...

I washed, peeled, and cut the sweet potato into batons —think fat French fry size —then simmered them in a little salted water for 10 minutes, just until fork-tender. 

  I did this while the sushi rice was cooking.  

When the rice has cooked, put it into a large shallow bowl to cool a bit before you pour the rice vinegar mixture over it.   

I like my sushi rice quite highly flavored but you do you.    I also had some cream cheese I'd bought to use in another recipe, and since the avocado's did their "whole, I'm ripening, getting there, I'm ripe now and you need to use me in the next 3  1/2 minutes or it's too late" , and it was too late.  

I managed to get 4 big sushi rolls out of this recipe,

and cut each one up into 7 good-sized rounds.   I didn't have any wasabi, and cannot stand the taste of those nasty little tubes they sell in the store, I like to mix it up fresh each time using a wasabi powder I buy at a local-ish oriental store.  I also did a quick pickle on some ginger so I could at least have a little flavor with the sushi.  I made a dipping sauce of soy sauce and a little sesame oil, and poured it over top, since I couldn't find my dipping dishes. 

Just in case you're curious, it was dead easy to make the quick ginger pickle.   My mother would have eaten half the jar by now, just sayin...

Peel some fresh ginger; I had a small handful's worth, about 100 grams.  I then sliced it as thin as I could with my vegetable peeler and also a small, sharp knife.  Put the peeled, sliced ginger into a jar and mix up a half cup of boiling water, a half cup of Rice Vinegar, and a good teaspoon of honey together.  Poured the vinegar mixture over the ginger and put it in the fridge.   By the time I got the sushi made, the ginger had pickled nicely.  Best part, I've got lots of ginger left.  I'm thinking it would make a fabulous addition to some Chinese food or tea.  Or I can just eat the ginger, as is.  

 Can I just say I had a good dinner!  

Check out some of the great dishes my fellow Sunday Funday bloggers came up with.  You can see them at the end of this post, after the recipe card.  

 

Sweet Potato Sushi

Yield: 4-6

Author: Sid's Sea Palm Cooking adapted from many recipes

A fun way to enjoy Sweet Potatoes during Sweet Potato Month

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked Sushi Rice
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1 sweet potato, cut into batons and cooked to fork-tender
• 2-ounce cream cheese
• 4 sheets Nori (dried Seaweed)
• 1 small Cucumber cut into matchstick sizes
• Prepare Sushi rice and place it into a wide shallow bowl to cool. Prepare the rice wine vinegar, with the sugar, and pour over the cooled, cooked rice and mix well.
• Using damp hands, spread one quarter of the cooked, prepared rice evenly over a sheet of Nori, rinsing hands as needed, and pat into place. Add a sweet potato baton, a slice of cream cheese, and the cucumber, and roll up tightly in a piece of plastic wrap. Place in the fridge to cool.
• When cool and set, bring out and slice into medallions using a sharp knife.
• Serve with dipping sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi.

Instructions

Dipping sauce

1. 1/4 cup soy sauce
2. 1/2 tsp. sesame oil
3. 1 tsp. brine from pickled ginger.
4. Mix well and serve alongside the sushi.

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• Karen's Kitchen Stories: Beef and Sweet Potato Stir Fry 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili 
• Food Lust People Love: Miso Honey Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes 
• Culinary Cam: Spiced Sweet Potato-Red Lentil Stew 
• Sneha's Recipe: Sweet Potato Patties 
• Sid’s Sea Palm Cooking: Sweet Potato Sushi

Drying Rosemary

 I was all set to bypass this week's Sunday Funday until inspiration hit.  The theme this week is Hunter/Gatherer, and it's hosted by Stacy Livingston Rushton of Food Lust People Love. We're to blog about something hunted or foraged.   

Well, I don't know anyone who hunts anymore, but I do love my venison, even if I haven't had any for years.  I didn't have any favorite parts, but I was always happy to accept whatever my former neighbor and good friend was willing to share.    My FIL would also share some of his hunting bounty with me.  And I love it all.  

I decided to become a forager for this challenge.  I went foraging in my garden, or rather, what's left of it.   I do have a rosemary plant out there that needs pruning.  

As I said, I have a rosemary plant that survived my absence this summer, so I decided to pick some and dry it to use in future dishes.  So I did.  I also wanted to shape the bush a little, and hopefully train it better for the spring.    

This is foraging, right?  Even if it's in your own front yard.     I also found out the rosemary was growing very nicely.   

I love the resinous scent of rosemary, and the flavour is amazing as well.   I've used it in many dishes over the years.  

I have a good friend who is teaching me how to forage; in fact, she shared how tasty Spiderwort blossoms are, and I used some to top this soup a few years back.   

 

I washed and dried the leaves, chopped them up very fine, and then used the dehydrating feature on my Nuwave toaster oven to dry them further.   I'll use them for seasoning when I want a hit of rosemary in a baked or cooked dish. I'll also process them further once I find the coffee/spice grinder I packed, since I know it's somewhere in the bins I haven't unpacked yet.  😜

  And those woody stems, well, they'll be used as skewers or chucked into a stew for extra flavoring.  

And before I forget, this is a Sunday Funday post.  

You can see what my fellow bloggers foraged and hunted here: 

• Chili Cheeseburgers with Bison Chili from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Dried Rosemary from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Momiji Tempura from Culinary Cam
• Pork Korma from Sneha's Recipe
• Roast Pheasant Crowns from Food Lust People Love
• Urban Foraged Stovetop Potpourri from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Venison Tater Tot Shepherd's Pie from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Breakfast spaetzle

 A few years back, I was part of a blogging group called the Secret Recipe Club.  We were a pretty big group, and were divided into several groups, and each month were assigned a blog to make a recipe from, and post about it at a certain 'REVEAL' time.  Well, I had a lot of fun doing it, and one month I found a recipe on Sarah's Kitchen, well, it was more of a how to, but I glommed onto it and posted about Breakfast Spaghetti.   

So last week I posted about how to make Spaetzle, and guess what I have in the freezer right now?  Yup, lots of Spaetzle.   I need to make some dinner, but I couldn't think of anything that sounded really good, but I did have bacon, eggs, and lots of Spaetzle.  So I put my thinking cap on, or let my hunger decide what dinner was going to be, and here it is.  Breakfast Spaetzle. 

Well, it should probably be renamed cause I made it for dinner.  I honestly don't think it cares what it's called, cause I call it delicious.  

I cooked the bacon first, set it aside while I thawed the spaetzle and scrambled the eggs in a separate pan.  I then added the thawed spaetzle to the pan I'd cooked the bacon in, and warmed them through with the little bit of bacon fat in the pan.  Then I put it onto a plate, took a couple pictures and then devoured it.  

I have some more bacon and spaetzle in the freezer and can see this dish making an appearance again.   Maybe next time I'll make an Æggekage.     Which is basically a baked omelette.  

And now I have all kinds of ideas on how to use these little nuggets of deliciousness.  My waistline may not approve, but I do. 😘

 

Spaetzle

 This week's assignment/challenge for SundayFunday is Pasta Dishes, hosted by Camilla Mann of CulinaryCam.    
I made Spaetzle.  And yes, that is Jaegerschnitzel alongside it. 

She said that since October is National Pasta Month, she wants us to share a favorite pasta recipe. It can be homemade pasta or the sauce you serve with pasta. Sunday Funday is a group of bloggers who blog every Sunday on a theme.

I kinda bowed out of posting a few years ago after my husband died, but I'm back and excited to keep trying new stuff. This week, we're posting about Pasta. `

I got a little excited. I love pasta —homemade, commercial, doesn't matter. I love it all.

Since I finally cracked the secret to really good Spaetzle, I thought I'd share it here. I've made spaetzle in the past, and the batter has been alternately runny or too thick. I've tried quite a few recipes. Honestly, some of them were pretty good, and others, well, at least I know how to clean up messes.

I'm going to let you in on the secret, at least the secret I found. It's all in how long you mix the batter. Yup, it's that simple. And since I'm single, I end up freezing the majority of the spaetzle for later meals. It's actually really good that way. I also broke another rule. I didn't rinse it in cold water after cooking. I just threw a big clump of butter onto the cooked spaetzle while it was in the colander, gave it a bit of a stir, to keep the noodles from sticking, and ate some while it was hot.

And then added more butter after I put it into a bowl. (It keeps the noodles from sticking to each other, and it just plain tastes good.)

I have to say I've actually been making some form of pasta for many years. I've made potsticker wrappers, aka Gyoza; Pierogi; regular Egg Noodles; I've even made ravioli; and my personal favorite, Melboller, which is a Danish Dumpling that goes in soup. So lots of different kinds of pasta.

I've never posted about how to make Spaetzle. Spaetzle is actually a basic egg noodle or dumpling, cooked fresh in boiling water. It's in irregular shapes, and the name, derived from the Germanic languages, means little sparrow. You can read more about it here. I actually bought a spaetzle maker, well, it's more like a disk which I can also use as a colander to strain pasta and other items. And it's not a single-use item.

I have several of those already, and do not need any more. And have to say it was easier to use than my old method.

I have a flat skimmer ladle with holes in it that I used to use when making spaetzle. It was good, but it's packed away somewhere. I tried making some spaetzle a couple of weeks ago, using a small Ziploc bag to squeeze out the batter into the boiling water. And it worked, but this spaetzle maker is a touch easier to use. Besides, the batter got all over my hands when I squeezed the bag too hard, and it was yucky and goopy.

As I said, this time round I broke a couple of rules, but not the most important one. Keep stirring the spaetzle dough until bubbles form. I think I could have actually mixed the batter a little longer, but I was hungry and couldn't wait. And I could have maybe added another couple of tablespoons of flour to the batter as well. It was a touch thinnish. Maybe next time.

 

 Here's the recipe:

Check out what my fellow bloggers posted about their pasta adventures; it's at the end of the recipe card. In other words, keep on scrolling.

 

 

Spaetzle

Author: Sid's Sea Palm Cooking adapted from many recipes

Prep time: 10 MinInactive time: 20 MinTotal time: 30 Min

This easy peasy pasta is perfect with Schnitzel, or any pasta sauce you like. I've enjoyed it with bolognese sauce as well as plain with butter.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup AP flour + 1-2 tablespoons if needed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 quart boiling, salted water. (You can flavour the water with chicken or beef stock if you wish. I like to use chicken stock.)

Instructions

1. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add the flour, milk and salt and using a hand mixer, mix it together.
2. Continue to mix it for at least 10 minutes. You are basically encouraging the formation of gluten here. I've read you have to mix it until you can pick up some of the batter and holes appear. I just mix it for 10 minutes or a little less.
3. I like to let the batter rest at this point for a few minutes, up to half an hour. (Usually, while I'm preparing and frying the Schnitzel).
4. Using a spaetzle maker, spoon some of the batter onto the maker and, using the scraper, press the batter through the holes, into the boiling water.  It will cook very quickly, and as soon as it rises to the top, it is done.    Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl. You can add a little butter to the just-cooked spaetzle to keep it from clumping together at this point.
5. Add the buttered spaetzle to your plate to serve. Or pour your sauce of choice over it. The spaetzle lends itself very well to being frozen for a later date. You can also refrigerate the leftover spaetzle (if there is any) and reheat it in a pan with some butter for a little breakfast treat. I like the leftover spaetzle browned in a little butter alongside some eggs and bacon, or with chopped up bacon.

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• A Voyage into the Pasta Universe with Gluten-Free Pestazzule. Malfadine. and Stringozzi by Culinary Cam
• Pasta alla Norcina Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Pumpkin Gnocchi by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Spaetzle by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Vegetarian Rice Roni With Homemade Rice Roni Mix by Sneha's Recipe

Stove top 3 cheese Mac n' Cheese with Asparagus and Black Olives

 I can't say I was looking for a healthier version of Mac n Cheese, but was in the mood for some comfort food and needed to use up some asparagus and some garlic scapes.   

And it just so happened I also had some sliced black olives that were calling my name, rather loudly and rudely, I thought.  

I'd actually bought the olives to use in some Cheese Enchilada, Tijuana Tilly style And you know I still have all the rest of the ingredients, but haven't committed to making them yet, but I will.  

To get back to my little story, I made this whilst staying in a furnished apartment earlier this summer which had a 2-burner cooktop, and I decided I was tired of eating out. If my Mom could cook for a whole family on a 2-burner cooktop and make good meals, I can make some decent food for myself.  And I wanted some comfort food, so I fired up the stove, cut up the asparagus and a couple of garlic scapes, cooked some macaroni, and made a cheese sauce of some Colby Jack cheese and the heel of a Port Salut cheese.  

As the macaroni cooked, I melted a little butter in a pan, added some half-and-half and some milk, and then chopped the cheeses into fine dice and added them to the butter-milk mixture.   Let that cook over very low heat until the cheeses melted, then whisked it together.  (If I'd had some cornstarch, I would have added about a half teaspoon.)  

I added the asparagus, garlic scapes, and black olives to the pot with the macaroni and let them cook a bit.   After they were cooked a little, I drained the pot, added them to the pan with the cheese sauce, and let them cook together for a couple of minutes.  

And there you have it, a fancied up version of Mac n' Cheese done on a stove top.