Sweet Potato and Brussels Hash

 

I found this recipe on Bexadiary, a great blog I came across a while back. I tweaked the quantity and some of the ingredients, but she pretty much drives it home with this recipe.  It's so good; there are so many layers of flavors. And yes, it's good for you!

Ingredients:

-4-5 small or 2-3 big sweet potatoes//baked, peeled, and diced

-one small red onion//diced

-2-2 1/2 cups of brussel sprouts//quartered

-3-4 cloves of garlic//minced

- 2 hand grabs (yes, hand grabs) of cranberries

-1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

- 1 cup of chopped walnuts (or pecans, almonds, pine nuts...)

- 1 tablespoon of rosemary (I didn't have fresh, so I used about 2 1/2 teaspoons of dried rosemary)

- salt and pepper to taste

-2 tablespoons of coconut oil

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Wrap the sweet potatoes in foil. Place in a baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes. Your sweet potatoes will not be fully cooked at this point as they'll finish cooking in the pan.  So long as the outsides are tender, you're set.

Step 2: Wash and quarter the the brussel sprouts. Make sure to peel of the outer leaves and trim a bit from the bottom of the sprouts just to make sure that they're clean. Don't cut off too much because you want the quarters to stay intact. 

Step 3: Dice the onions. Mince the garlic. Set aside.

Step 4: Remove the skin from the sweet potatoes. Dice the tators into smaller than-inch bites.

Step 5: In a large skillet (I used my dutch oven b/c I didn't want any possible overflow), heat a tablespoon of coconut oil. Once hot, throw in the sweet potatotoes. Cook for about 5 minutes until they're nice and golden brown. Pour them into a separate bowl and set aside.

Step 6: In the same skillet, heat another tablespoon of coconut oil and throw in the brussel sprouts and the onions. Sautee for about another 4-5 minutes until the onions are translucent and when the brussels have gotten some color on them. Pour those into the potato bowl.

Step 7: Add nutmeg, rosemary, walnuts and garlic to the skillet. Cook for about a minute or two making sure not to burn the garlic. This step smells A-mazing!

Step 8: Combine all ingredients in the skillet, add the cranberries, and season with salt and pepper. Toss everything together.

ENJOY!

No Knead Bread: A Simple Wonder

This was a first for me--homemade bread that isn't a quick bread (AKA banana bread, apple bread, etc...). I found this recipe on another blog and decided to give it a few tweaks and have my shot at bread making. Needless to say, I was pretty happy about the result, and the Mr. also approved!

This is one of the easiest recipes ever! The only catch is that you need time. You can't rush it, so I wouldn't recommend making this when you're looking to somewhat quickly curb a craving. The recipe is really simple; it's a great base, which means that you can add herbs, nuts, seeds, dried fruit or anything else to your liking.

For my first try, I decided to make two loaves--a whole wheat raisin walnut and a whole wheat rosemary loaf. I used all whole wheat pastry flour, which I think made the bread a bit denser than normal. It tasted great, but I think next time I'll do a mixture of whole wheat and all purpose flour.

(Recipe taken from Bex a Diary and adapted by me)
Ingredients:
Makes one 1 1/2 pound loaf

3 cups all- purpose flour [I'd suggest using 2 cups all-purpose and 1 cup whole wheat flour]

1/4 teaspoon yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 3/4 cup water 

additional flour or cornmeal

ceramic or pyrex dish with an oven safe lid (I used a cookie sheet as the lid)

[you could also use a dutch oven if you'd like]

whatever mix-in's you'd like (see directions for what I used)

Directions:

1. Combine flour, salt, and yeast in a medium bowl. Mix well. Add water to bowl and mix.

[For the raisin walnut: I added 1 tbs cinnamon, 1/2 cup raisins, and 1/2 cup walnuts to the mix; You'll want to put about a tablespoon of your dried flour mixture in with your raisins and walnuts before mixing it into the main dry mixture, so that they'll evenly distribute themselves throughout the loaf.]

[For the rosemary: I chopped up a few springs of rosemary and mixed it into the dough.]

2. The dough should be sticky and heavy. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rise for 12 to 18 hours, at room temperature. 12 is good but 18 is better. 

3. The dough will rise a good bit and is ready when the surface is dotted with bubbles.

4. Lightly flour your working surface and dump dough from bowl onto the surface. Sprinkle the dough with a bit more flour and fold it over on itself  2- 4 times. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

5. Working with enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to your hands and work surface, quickly work the dough into a ball. Coat generously a kitchen towel {not terry cloth} with flour, or cornmeal (I used a mixture of both). Place the dough seam side down onto the towel and dust the top of the ball with flour. Cover dough with top of the towel and allow to rise for 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is nearly double in size and does not spring back when poked with your finger. 

6. 30 minutes before dough is ready heat the oven to 450*. Place a 6-8 quart covered pot in the oven to warm with the oven. 

 

7. When the dough is ready remove the pot from the oven and carefully lift the dough off of the towel and gently place into the dish. If it looks a bit messy don't worry, shake the pan a time or two to make sure the dough is distributed evenly. The dough will straighten out as it bakes, cover the pot and place it in the oven. bake with the lid on for 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake an additional 15-20 minutes--or until bread is golden brown. Carefully remove dough from pan and cool on a rack. 

Enjoy! 

*Note: I sliced the loaves once they cooked, and kept them in an airtight container in the fridge. Whenever you're ready to eat, just pop your slice into a toaster oven for a bit to get it crispy and delish.

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Banana Recipe #4: A Smoothie For Champs

As it's the 4th installment of the banana recipe series, I'm getting a little tired of baking. This is a bit of a stretch as bananas aren't really the star of the recipe, but they do play a big part in the texture and taste of the smoothie. This smoothie might seem a bit intimidating, but it's a berry-banana meets a green smoothie. It's tasty and really good for you. Feel free to experiment with your ingredients. The sky's the limit with these green(ish) smoothies.

Ingredients
(Yields two large glasses or 4 smaller glasses)

-1 12 oz can of coconut water
-1 1/2 cups water (more or less to your taste--how thick or thin you want your smoothie to be)
-1/2 cup frozen strawberries
-1/2 cup frozen blueberries
-1/4 cup frozen mangoes
-1 large banana
-2 big handfuls of collard greens (no stems)
-1 handful of spinach
-2 Tbl ground flax seed
-2 Tbl ground pysllium husk
-juice of half a lemon
-If you want the extra creaminess, you can add a 1/4 cup of vanilla or plain yogurt

Directions
Place everything in a blender and let it do it's thing until everything's blended and smooth. Drink up. (By the way, these are super filling!)