Crave Wednesday: Sweet Potato Shoestring Fries

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Which is the perfect time to recap Halloween, right? Well whether it is or not, here we are.

I wanted to do a special breakfast, but weekday mornings are hard since I get the boys ready for school.  So I incorporated them in breakfast making.  I used Trader Joe's pumpkin rolls and popped them in the oven while the boys and I whipped up some cream cheese frosting.  A little food coloring and we were on our way!

This is the first year that Thatkid was allowed to wear a costume to school, and he took full advantage.

His school had a Halloween parade and it was the cutest thing ever.  I seriously get such joy out of Halloween.  Seeing all the kids dressed up fills my heart with joy.

After school we got ready for trick or treating.

This year we decided to join forces with the kids' best friends and all go out together.

Thatbaby started out with his little friends.  He got so into it.

Eventually his being so into it meant he didn't wait to wait for his slowpoke friends (someone inherited his dad's long legs and quick stride) and he joined the bigger boys in their candy quest.

After we'd hit a fair amount of houses we retired back to home base where the kids sat around and indulged in their spoils.

It was a pretty successful night.

Believe it or not, the boys have barely made a dent in these buckets.  Thatkid donated a pound of it to send to the troops, and neither of them gets more than a piece at a time, usually on a weekend afternoon.  So we'll have leftover candy for the foreseeable future.

And speaking of leftovers, are y'all ready for Thanksgiving leftovers?  For me, this is way better than candy.  In fact, I love Thanksgiving leftovers so much, I made my own!  Last year TMIL spent Thanksgiving with us, and our usual weekend with my mom turned into just spending the day and heading home after dinner.  So no leftover turkey the next day. No leftover stuffing. This year we're doing the same thing.  But this year I'm prepared. Last week I made a turkey, stuffing, the works!  And I have leftovers! Last night we even had burrito bowls made with leftover turkey.  In preparation for our feast I had bought pounds and pounds of sweet potatoes...that I ended up not using.  It seemed overkill to add to the mashed potatoes I had already made for the four of us.  So I also ended up wit "leftover" sweet potato.

Luckily sweet potatoes are easy to use.  A side that goes side just about everything.  A meal in itself with panfried with some sausage or stuffed with ground turkey.  When cut super thin and baked they turn into the perfect crisp accompaniment to sandwiches and burgers.  A great fall alternative to your regular potato fries!

Sweet Potato Shoestring Fries (from Cooking Light)

3 Tbsp orange juice

2 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground red pepper

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/8 inch thick strips

1. Preheat oven to 400. Combine orange juice, oil, ginger, salt, and red pepper in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool.
2. Combine juice mixture and potatoes in a large bowl, tossing well to coat.  Remove potatoes and discard juice.  
3. Arrange potatoes on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray and bake for 30 minutes.

Repurposing Thanksgiving leftovers

The only difficulty with having Thanksgiving at Thatmom's house is the lack of leftovers to play with. Usually there's enough for "second Thanksgiving" the next night, but that's pretty much it. And leftovers are never fun when you're eating them the exact way as the night before.

Luckily a lack of leftovers on my part doesn't stop me from sharing some great ideas with you. Because while I don't have leftovers from Thanksgiving, I do have the raw ingredients that many of you may have used in your own Thanksgiving feasts - namely, sweet potatoes and cranberries.

I've been using fresh cranberries a lot this year - ever since they showed up at the market. Mainly because last year I started getting cranberry antsy about a month or so after they had disappeared and so I've been storing up some good ideas since then. I made my own cranberry relish a few days before Thanksgiving. Between that and the cranberry butter, I had some leftovers in the bag which I felt would make an excellent topping for chicken. Reduced down to a thick and chunky chutney, this would work equally well over pork or turkey.

Cranberry Chutney
3/4 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups fresh cranberries

1. Combine the water, brown sugar, vinegar, flour, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and salt in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved
2. Add in cranberries and cook slowly about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the cranberry skins pop and the mixture thickens.
3. Serve over chicken, pork, turkey, or use in a sandwich!

This year the sweet potatoes at our table were replaced with delicious butternut squash. But that might not be the case at your house. In years past there has been a bowl filled with baked potatoes - both of the regular and sweet variety. And there are always some leftover. Mashed potatoes are a great way to use up leftover baked potatoes, but these are so great and seasonal you may not want to wait until you have leftovers. Growing up, Thatdad would make squash with brown sugar and cinnamon, so the use of sweet additions to the mashed potatoes isn't too much of a shock. The maple and brown sugar make the sweet potatoes even sweeter, and there's something so perfect about maple syrup this time of year.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes
1 lb baked sweet potatoes OR
1 lb raw sweet potatoes cut into chunks, 1 cup apple cider, and 1 cup water
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp brown sugar

1. If using baked sweet potatoes, scoop out the insides and place in a saucepan.
2. If using raw sweet potatoes, combine the chunks, cider, and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and simmer about 20 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are tender. Drain and return to saucepan. Use the back of a fork to mash the potatoes.
3. Reheat potatoes over a low heat and add the butter, maple syrup, and brown sugar.
   

AVM: An End In Sight

When I told Thatboy I was picking up Animal, Vegetable, Miracle again, Thatboy was less than pleased. He hasn't been impressed with most of the recipes, and although he's a good sport, it doesn't mean he's quiet about it.

"Just a couple more recipes" I promised. And with that, I bring you the end of Animal Vegetable Miracle recipes. Unfortunately Thatboy was right and more of these were bad then were good. Maybe that's what happens when you get into winter recipes. Because although Kingsolver raves about how easy it is to eat in the winter, it could be because they were so desperate they would have eaten ANYTHING. And so I leave you with the good, the okay, and the bad.

First, the good:

Vegetarian Chili (recipe can be found at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

"It's chili!" I said. "You can't mess up chili!" But Thatboy disagreed. I was happy to prove him wrong. I did tweak the recipe a bit, using fresh peppers instead of frozen, and canned tomatoes with chili peppers to give it some kick. But overall? Someone and I'm not going to mention names, but someone went back for seconds.

The okay:

Braised Winter Squash (recipe can be found at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
I really liked this at first. The vinegar, the apple cider, and it couldn't be easier to make. Unfortunately that sweetness from the cider gets a little overpowering after the first few bites.

And the bad:

Sweet Potato Quesadilla (recipe can be found at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
- I had SUCH high hopes for this. Even the clerk at Trader Joes thought it sounded delicious. (Seriously, why can't we get fresh tortillas at the Farmer's Market? We're less than an hour from Mexico!) Brie, sweet potato, flour tortillas. Unfortunately they were a total miss.

Butternut Bean Soup (recipe can be found at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
This one killed me. KILLED ME. I was planning on using it to enter Branny's Souper Bowl. Because I love butternut soup! But then I read the recipe and thought. Okay, it's bean soup in a butternut bowl. I could do that. Still soup. DO YOU SEE THAT PICTURE? That is not soup! That is beans. Beans in a squash. Not soup. Under no definition of soup would you find the above dish. And so I am BEGGING you readers. Pick up where I left off and make a soup and submit it to Branny's souper bowl. Do it for me. Do it for Branny. Do it to show Ms. Kingsolver and her family what soup should look like.