Sweet potato lentil stew

This stew turned beyond delightful, hearty and mellow.

In the crock pot mix:

• one of those huge cans of Bruce's Yams, 2/3 of the liquid poured off

• one cup dry uncooked lentils 

• one cup water

• 4 cups beef broth

• 1.5 cups cooked black beans

• 1.5 cups garbanzo beans

• about 1 tablespoon garlic powder

• about 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

• about 1.5 tablespoons cumin

• about 1 tablespoon chili powder

• about 1 tablespoon ras el hanout 

Cook about 4-6 hours on high 

Sweet potato chili

Preliminary tastes have suggested this will be a blend of sweet and spicy.

- About 1/2 large can peeled italian plum tomatoes mashed

- garlic powder

- cumin

- tons of chili powder

- paprika

- about 1/4 cup lemon juice

Bring to boil

Add

- 40 ounces sweet potatoes in syrup, mashed

- about one cup no salt white great northern beans

- two 15.5 ounce cans reduced sodium black beans

Simmer until dinner

Sweet potato oat waffles

I can't provide a recipe for these almost vegan waffles because I didn't measure and I didn't record. Looks like cooking time is about five minutes each in the Belgian waffle maker.

Approximately:
- 1 package steam in bag spiced sweet potatoes from Archer Farms (or pumpkin)
- cinnamon
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 cup almond milk
- about 1/3 cup coconut oil,warm
- 1 tablespoon Greek yogurt
- 2.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup organic flour
- 1 cup oats
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons flax
- 1/4 cup water
- pinch ginger
- brown sugar
- local raw honey

So far they taste great but they are sticking more than my waffles normally do

FAIL

They stick to the waffle iron no matter what, so I put them in the skillet to make pancakes. They burned on the outside instantly and stay all goo inside.

Probably should have baked it like a cake, because it tastes great. They are just in hash/ scramble form.

I bunched them into balls and baked them in the oven until cake like and my daughter went crazy over them.

I told her they were a failure and she ate them like they were the best thing ever.

Sweet potato fry snack

Child has a 2-hour delay today and like mom's everywhere I'm screaming "My routine is off!" And it's Monday, which makes it even more difficult. Honestly, I'd rather keep her home for the day!

So at 10:20 a.m., they have a healthy snack from home.

For own snack I made sweet potato fries, sprinkled them with cinnamon and serving with a dipping sauce of 1 part blackstrap molasses to 3 parts pure maple syrup.

Best. Snack. Ever.

Hot breakfast

We took some coconut flour corn muffins from earlier this week out of the freezer. We served them with homemade apple butter, vegetarian sausage and sweet potatoes.

A lot of color to start today!

Sweet potato pumpkin crunch

I made a crazy sweet potato casserole today with an inside custard of 2 eggs, 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce, one can evaporated milk, cinnamon, one large can yams and one small can pumpkin.

Topped with crumbs of almonds, dried cranberries, flour and brown sugar.

Poured butter on it and baked at 375 for 35 minutes and 15 minutes at 350.

Served with a side of roast beef and spinach roll ups. Or Lebanon bologna.

Everyday nonsense

So... I have discovered one large tea bag (the family size) and one Tazo chai tea bag makes the perfect iced tea/chai in a one gallon pickle jar.

My cucumber plants have turned yellow and died for the most part so I harvested the last few cucumbers on the vine. not sure if we'll make pickles or relish but... I have seven of them.

Dinner tonight is iced chai tea, sweet potato puffs, Green Giant green beans almandine and crescent rolls stuffed with vegetarian hot dogs, Morningstar vegetarian bacon strips and velveeta.

Processed. All of it.

But hey-- my husband just finished a 12-day work stretch and we all survived a crazy work/school week. I worked, went to class, did a freelance project AND did a project for my internship.

Which brings me to my next topic. NPR ran a commentary on whether or not vegans and vegetarians feel superior to meat eaters.

Go google the article if you want to read it, but it got me thinking.

I am far from perfect. I wish I could visit more local farms for more produce. I wish I could give up more animal products. I wish I had the money to be choosier about which company's products I consume. I wish I never used processed foods.

I was a vegetarian for about eight years and I experimented with veganism for a few months.

I had gestational diabetes. This gives me an increased risk of type II diabetes.

I was severely anemic for two years.

My daughter retains fluid in her ears, which gets worse when she has dairy.

As a result of all of this, I think a lot about my food. I think about protein, carbohydrates, iron and vitamins. I think about how pure the food is that I feed my daughter. I read labels and avoid ingredients I can't pronounce.

My daughter doesn't eat orange cheese. She doesn't know how to open American cheese in the individual wrapper. She doesn't realize that fast food kids meals come with toys.

I try to balance our exposure to wheat, sugars, salt and soy. I try to mix colors in every meal.

We drink sun brewed iced tea, 100% juice diluted with bubbles from our SodaStream, and water. We switch between almond milk and soy milk.

I do this on a strict budget.

My daughter and I garden. We bake. We preserve our food via canning.

Because of all this, I think I am superior in the kitchen to the American with the standard American diet. I work hard at it.

Nettle tea and pie

Since I'm concerned about my iron intake, and my iron pills have been swapped for a multivitamin, I am making nettle tea in the French press.

Breakfast will be nettle tea with local honey and a slice of sweet potato crunch pie from the Pocono Cheesecake Factory and a few almonds.

Hot veggie sandwich

Toasted herb bread with butter served open face with broccoli, carrots, and roasted red pepper spread and Caesar dressing. Melted cheddar and Colby.

Sweet potato chips.

Hurricane Feast

The menu: steak with brandy cream sauce, salad with dried peas, sweet potato fries and iced coffee with almond milk, and for dessert Ghirardelli brownies (one box turtle and one box ultimate fudge). I mixed them together and used a cake pan, and I am pretty sure I used too much water, so they might be more like cake than brownies.

Nope, very rich and very much brownies.

The steak was selected to use it before Irene gets here, if I lose power due to the hurricane I don't want to lose my steak too. The salad was leftover from lunch the day before yesterday. The brandy sauce was in the freezer from the last time I made this dish (July 17) and it reheated just fine.

Bratwurst, sweet potato fries & pesto toast

Tonight was another rush home after day camp kind of day.

I got a loaf of my honey oat bread from the freezer. Once that thawed, I sliced and slathered with butter and coated with a generous layer of yesterday's pesto. I toasted these in the oven while the sweet potato waffle fries cooked.

Then I sprinkled them with the six Italian cheese blend from Target. And toasted some more.

I fried up some bratwursts and we ate the meat on the pesto toast as open-faced sandwiches.

A weird little dinner

I asked my mother-in-law for one of her sweet potato casseroles. She usually makes it with raisins, walnuts and roasted marshmallow.

Unfortunately for me, nuts were out of the question. So I asked for one without. I thought I could handle the marshmallows and raisins but I could only make it through two of each. I ended up picking the others out.

But I still enjoyed it.

To accompany this, my husband chopped and cooked an aging head of cauliflower. He whipped up a cheese sauce, which he lamented came out runny but I think it fabulously came out like soup! He chopped a chik*n patty for protein and everyone in our house loved it! It had a fantastic, smooth flavor.

(of course, I merely had tiny pieces of cauliflower and lots of cheese sauce. It was yummy to eat something NOT chicken soup.)

Sweet Potato Coconut Soup

Me. My blender. No ideas for dinner.

Soup.

32 ounces kitchen basics no salt added vegetable stock
A big can of sweet potatoes with most of the syrup drained
A can of Trader Joe's organic coconut milk
A tablespoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons organic maple syrup
And a large teaspoon of nutmeg

I overblended to a thin liquid and put in the crockpot.

My husband had two bowls. I thought it tasted like something they'd serve in a fancy restaurant with sliced almonds and a dollop of some sort of cream in the center... Daughter, who loves soup and eats just about anything, HATED it. My heart is broken.

Sweet Potato Crunch/Casserole hybrid

So, yesterday I thought I would serve some sort of sweet potato with the chicken. The cordless can opener battery died a few turns into the can and the manual can opener just would not latch. (Husband even tried.)

Now that the Gizmo is recharged I got the can open. And I made a use-up-leftovers kind of baked sweet potato dish.

For the potato base:
- 1 can sweet potatoes, drained
- 2 handfuls brown sugar
- About one-half cup farm fresh milk
- 1 egg
- 1 handful raisins

Over top, mix and spread:
- 1/4 cup walnuts (all I had)
- about 1/4 cup leftover pie crumbs
- about 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon

Coat with three tablespoons melted butter.

Arrange in Pyrex bread loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes

Sweet Potato Crunch

My husband's Aunt Carolyn makes a variation of this dish, so I thought the recipe came from her. It appears the one I have came from "Janet Muchoney" in the Weis Recipe Exchange...

Sweet Potato Crunch

• 4 large sweet potatoes, cooked, peeled and cooled
• 1 cup sugar
• 12 ounces evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
  

For the crunch:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cupped pecans, chopped
• 1/2 stick butter or margarine, melted

In a large bowl, mix the first set of ingredients. Pour into 9x13 inch greased pan. Mix remaining dry ingredients. Layer on top of creamed sweet potatoes. Pour melted butter over topping.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

My modifications:
I didn't use fresh yams (and Gayle is mad at me for this, or perhaps disappointed). I used two 29 ounce cans of Taylor Yams in syrup, drained. I also reduced the white sugar to 2/3 cup. I upped the pecans to 1.5 cups because I like pecans...

And I used an 11x7 dish not realizing how small it is...

Family Movie Day

Last night, my husband went Christmas shopping and I allowed a splurge, a very unhealthy one at that. Cheesesteaks! This morning my daughter had leftover cream of wheat for breakfast while we had toast. My husband went shopping again for gifts and spent another $30 on groceries, though about $5 was really for Christmas gifts and another $4 for supplies for a holiday party at his office tomorrow. So that means we've spent about $140 on groceries so far this month and $35 on dining out.

The grocery shopping was really a ruse to get him out of the house to get a present for our daughter. He went to get a fun lunch for before family movie day. She picked Cats. As in the musical. So, my husband brought home crunchy cheese curls for her (and not the organic real cheese kind I would buy) and Starbucks in a can for us. Our lunch, pictured, was sweet potato fries made from the potatoes I bought last week that were getting mushy. (Cook at 450 and flip regularly until the texture seems right.) And Morningstar fake chicken nuggets, plain for the rest of the family and buffalo wings for me. Dippings included blue cheese dressing, Frank's Red Hot sauce (mix the two together and I'm in HEAVEN) and ketchup.

If the weather holds out tonight, the whole family has a dinner party.

The bulk of the groceries my husband bought: eggs, cheese, chocolate soy milk, sesame bagels.

Pork with Apples

Since I've worked so late all week, and I have a house full of groceries, I opted to make the family a nice hot lunch. This is one of those rare occasions when we use the big plates. I scrubbed and baked the sweet potatoes, with plans to serve with butter and cinnamon sugar.

Now I will post the recipe for Pork with Apples as I copied it from recipeZaar, but I'll note how I changed it.

Glazed Pork with Apples

8 servings

2 tablespoons oil;

8 boneless pork chops 1/2 inch thick (I used two, but sliced them into stir fry type pieces);

1 cup apple juice;

1/2 cup brown mustard (I used 1/4 cup imported French honey dijon and 1/4 cup brown);

1/2 cup brown sugar;

1/4 teaspoon fresh rosemary, crushed (I forgot the rosemary this time);

2 apples sliced;

I also add raisins.

Heat oil in skillet over medium-high. Cook pork jobs about five minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to boil and reduce heat to medium. Simmer, uncovered, for 8-10 minutes, until sauce thickens and pork finishes cooking.