Lemony Sweet Potato Wedges

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In line with my lack of cooking lately this is more of a non-recipe. It's one you should try, though. Like really :)

Have you ever noticed how when you make sweet potato pie or cheesecake and you add lemon zest it really makes the sweet potato flavour pop? I ended up wondering whether that would work as well when making wedges. Short answer - it does. Really well.

The long answer is that you don't loose the sweetness of the sweet potatoes but I find these work better with savoury stuff than their overly cinnamony siblings.

Lemony Sweet Potato Wedges (perfect for one)

1 Sweet Potato

Zest of 1/2 Lemon

1 tsp Salt

1/2-1 tbsp Olive Oil

Preheat your oven to 220˚C.

Peel the sweet potato and cut it into wedges.

Rub the salt and lemon zest together using your fingers. Combine with the olive oil. What I do is start off with half the oil and safe the rest for later.

Toss the wedges in the lemon-mix. If you feel they are not properly coated add a bit more oil but keep in mind that you don't want the oil dripping off the wedges either.

Bake for 20 or so minutes (until the the edges are crispy).

Now, the wedges are lovely on their own with some humus, but they work particularly well with some ragu or some other stew you found hiding in your freezer.

I hope you have a fantastic week!

Sweet Potato Pancakes - The Recipe

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Last weekend I finally got around to making the sweet potato pancakes I have been dreaming about since having some at Highland Bakery with Kelsey.
If you're still unsure about what to do this Sunday, how about you invite some friends over for pancakes? They'll love you enough to offer to bring some gin for your boardgame night the following weekend :) what more could you want?!?
This recipe is based on one I saw on La Fuji Mama earlier this year but never got around to trying them but as expected, they were just as amazing as everything else Rachel writes about.
Anyhow, let's make some pancakes!

Sweet Potato Pancakes
450g Sweet Potatoes
130g Plain Flour
50g Rye Flour
80g Kamut Flour
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
1 tbsp Sugar
55g Butter
11/2 tbsp Molasses
2 Eggs, beaten
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
350 ml Milk

Before you can make your pancakes you'll have to cook your sweet potatoes. The way I normally do that is by peeling them, chopping them into chunks about the size of the ones in the picture and boiling them until they are tender (and yes, that probably washes out all the vitamins and stuff but hey, we're making pancakes, let's be honest, if you're gonna drown them in maple syrup it's not like the vitamins are gonna make much of a difference, embrace the unhealthiness and have an apple in the afternoon). If you want to boil them whole, then wait until they're cold enough to peel  etc. be my guest but don't expect to ever see me do that :)
Once the sweet potatoes are boiled, you can mash them with a fork or a potato ricer.
If you're making them in advance because you want to have people over the next day but you also want to go swimming in the morning, cover the sweet potato mash with cling-film and stick them in the fridge overnight. You could even get the dry ingredients ready which, if you're doing everything in one go is what you'd want to do right now anyway.
Mix all the dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
If you mashed the sweet potatoes the night before, melt the butter, otherwise the sweet potatoes will do the job for you, and stir the butter into the mash. Then whisk in (i.e. with one of those wire whisk things, not the electric one, even my wrist is strong enough for this batter so no whinging) the eggs, molasses, vanilla extract and milk.
Once the wet mix is well combined, add the dry mix and stir everything together. Things don't have to be super combined, especially with the sweet potatoes in the mix it's going to be lumpy anyway from the sweet potatoes.
Anyhow, give the batter some time to rest (mine only had about 5 minutes and it worked just fine) and get a skillet or griddle ready.
Once the skillet is hot add some butter and once that is bubbling away spoon in about 1/4 to 1/3 cup sized scoops of the batter depending on what size you want them to be.
You'll want to turn them once the top side starts bubbling, so it will probably still be fairly goopy. I have found that yes, that way you might ruin a pancake or two but the ones that I turned once the top seemed as well-done as I would have expected from a normal pancake were consistently burned and I had my heat on the low side and I had borrowed Ashley's fancy pan so I think for these lovelies you'll just have to suffer through a few ugly ones unless burned pancakes are your thing :)
Right, I'm starting to ramble, go and give these a try, they were absolutely lovely and they're super nice with some maple syrup and lots and lots of berries and banana slices.
I hope you have a fab rest of your weekend and that the weather is nicer where you are!

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

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Have you ever had sweet potato fries?

Ever since I tried some in Atlanta last year I have been in love with the flavour.

But since I don't own a deep-fryer I never made any and kept suppressing the memories :)

Until Anna and I decided to make a fancy fish supper.

We made some steamed salmon and then cut some sweet potatoes into really thin slices and while they didn't taste exactly like the ones I had last year, they came incredibly close.

© Anna Blanch

The problem is this is starting to turn into an addiction not just for me but also for several people around me which means I might have had some on 3 occasions this weekend and while I think sweet potatoes are a perfectly healthy food-choice this is starting to get out of hand...if tesco's run out of sweet potatoes, you know who's to blame.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, they are also really nice if you make them with some normal potato slices thrown in.
Anyhow, let's make some sweet potato fries!

Sweet Potato Fries
1 Sweet Potato per person
Olive Oil
Salt

Preheat your oven to 220˚C.
Cut the sweet potatoes into fairly thin slices (the thickness of a 1 pound coin is a good one to go for), then toss them in some olive oil (alternatively you could drizzle them with the olive oil after you have spread them out on a baking tray but either way, you don't need crazy amounts 1 tsp per sweet potato is more than enough). Sprinkle them with some salt (I like to put it on at the beginning because I tend to forget everything once the baked lovelies are staring at me).
Once your oven is hot enough bake them for around 20 minutes. Rotate the baking tray halfway through the cooking time.
Stop yourself from eating them straight off the baking tray but pretend you're all grown up and put them on a plate before you have them either all grown up with some steamed salmon or with some horseradish mayo, cucumber raita or whatever else you like to have with sweet potato fries.

Sweet Potato and Cashew Curry Soup

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This recipe was inspired by a visit to Nahm-Jim in St Andrews. Is there anyone who doesn't love their food? Anyhow, on a cold Friday night in March a (back then) vegan Katharina got blown away by this curry.
Here's my version of this little piece of heaven in soup form

Sweet Potato and Cashew Curry Soup
2 largeish Sweet potatoes chopped into nice big chunks
1 handful Cashews
1/2 Onion, finely diced
2 cloves Garlic, thinly sliced
2 tsp Red curry paste
2 tbsp Cream of Coconut
1 tin Coconut milk
Enough stock to cover the sweet potatoes

Heat some oil in a pan, saute the onions, add the garlic and once it starts smelling all lovely and  garlicky, add the red curry paste and cook for a minute.
Add the cream of coconut and cook for a bit longer. If it goes a bit too thick, add a bit of the stock. Don't forget to stir :)
Add the sweet potatoes the coconut milk and add enough stock so the sweet potatoes are pretty much covered (i.e. you don't want half the chunks to be uncovered).
Simmer until the sweet potatoes are tender.
Depending on how you like your cashews you could either add them relatively early (they go all buttery tender) or just before serving (they'll still be nice and crunchy....well as crunchy as cashews will ever be...).
Enjoy on it's own or with some bread (strips of corn tortillas work really well, too).