Look for my first post at www.marfalous.wordpress.com. Thanks for following me on Birminghamfoodgirl! I pass the torch to the next Birmingham food writer–there is much to write about!

Hey, what’s that on the far right? Oh, a glass of wine. Half empty. Hmmm… apparently, in a wine-induced haze, I invented this fabulous relish and, in an ironic swing of Karma’s cruel scythe, I forgot how I made it! (End scene and curtsy)

Luckily, I think I can piece together the recipe using this photo as my most critical (and only) trace of remaining evidence that I ever made this relish at all. Except that I recall how good it was on top of a really juicy pork chop. OH PLEASE, hold your applause till the end. Really!

Another thing I remember (only because I’m looking at a Cook’s Illustrated recipe as I type this), is that I cooked the pork chops differently than I usually do, and they came out exceptionally tender and moist, which is something that has always eluded me with pork chops and is why I rarely make them. Well, no more I say!

Cook’s Illustrated tells you to sprinkle the chops with kosher salt and let them sit for 45 minutes before putting them in a warm oven for another 45. After that, you sear them (on high heat) on the stove top till they get a nice brown crust. The salt pulls out the juices from the chop and then they redistribute when the chop returns to the oven. (Chemistry is suddenly so interesting now, isn’t it?)

Okay, back to the relish. I’ve pieced together what I remember below. So, just be creative, try my formula, and add something if you think it needs it. How’s that for vague?

Pan Seared Pork Chops with Cranberry Apple Relish (Pork Chops from Cook’s Illustrated; Cranberry Apple Relish the result of a wine-induced moment of creative genius!)

Pork Chops

4 bone-in rib loin pork chops, 1 1/2 inches thick

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 275 degrees. Pat chops dry with paper towels. Using sharp knife, cut 2 slits, about 2 inches apart, through outer layer of fat and silver skin. Sprinkle entire surface of each chop with 1 teaspoon salt. Place chops on wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet and let stand at room temperature 45 minutes.

Season chops liberally with pepper; transfer baking sheet to oven. Cook until instant-read thermometer inserted into centers of chops and away from bones registers 120-125 degrees, 30-45 minutes.

Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in 12-inch heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat until smoking. Place 2 chops in skillet and sear until well browned and crusty, 1 1/2 to 3 minutes, lifting once halfway through to redistrubute fat underneath each chop. (Reduce heat if browned bits in pan bottom start to burn.) Using tongs, turn chops and cook until well browned on second side, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer chops to plate and repeat with remaining 2 chops, adding extra Tablespoon oil if necessary.

Reduce heat to medium. Use tongs to stand 2 pork chops on their sides. holding chops together with tongs, return to skillet and sear sides of chops (with exception of bone side) until browned and instant-read thermometer inserted into center of chop and away from bone registers 140 to 145 degrees, about 1 1/2 minutes. Repeat with remainig 2 chops. Let chops rest, loosely tented with foil, for 10 minutes while preparing sauce.

Cranberry Apple Relish

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 an onion, chopped

1/2 pint of whole, fresh cranberries (not dried)

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

about 1/4 cup of sugar (you can add more later if you like it sweeter)

1 granny smith apple, peeled and sliced (or chopped)

salt and pepper to taste

1 Tablespoon butter

Sautee onion in olive oil until soft and translucent. Add cranberries and garlic; sautee until garlic is fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add sugar (maybe a 1/4 cup?) let the cranberries simmer and “pop” for about 5 minutes. Added granny smith apple and about 1/2 a tablespoon of rosemary and let cook for about 5 more minutes, or until apple is soft; season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat at add about a Tablespoon of butter.

I served this with some garlic/herb pearl (or Israeli) cous cous, which I highly recommend.

This recipe calls for grating the butter and then mixing it into the dry ingredients. I know, it seems like overkill, but please trust me. The butter is so perfectly distributed this way, and it ends up leaving little pockets of buttery goodness throughout the scone, which is just, well, hard to describe in words.

Then you roll out the dough like this… 

…fold it like a letter, like this… 

…and fold the edges in like this (using a pastry scraper makes this task a ton easier). 

After letting it sit in the freezer for five minutes (allowing the dough to firm so it is easier to work with), roll it out once more, add the blueberries on top, and then roll it up like a sleeping bag. Awww, it’s cute.

Then, cut the log (log?) into four parts and cut those four parts diagonally. Put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, brush some butter (yes, more butter) on top, and sprinkle (generously) with sugar. If you don’t want to wait that long (or if you’d like to spend your Sunday morning doing something else), just mix together the dry ingredients the night before. It goes much faster that way. And yes, I know blueberries aren’t in season right now, but I cannot go a whole year waiting for blueberries to come back–and I happened to have some frozen from the summer. Yay me!

Tell your family to relax, have another cup of coffee, blame the British for their bad scones, and hang on for a little while. These are worth it. 

The Best Blueberry Scones 

(adapted from Cooks Illustrated) 

10 Tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) butter, chilled 

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries 

1/2 cup whole milk (I usually don’t have whole milk in my refrigerator, so I combine 1/4 cup half and half and 1/4 cup skim) 

1/2 cup whole milk yogurt (I use Fage Greek Yogurt) 

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional for work surface 

1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for sprinkling 

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1/4 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 heaping teaspoon salt 

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. 

Grate one stick of butter using the large holes of a box grater (the faster you can do this, the less messy it will be). Put the bowl o’ grated butter in the freezer. 

Whisk together milk and yogurt in medium bowl; refrigerate until needed. Whisk flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Add frozen butter to mixture and toss with fingers until thoroughly coated. 

Add milk mixture to flour mixture; fold with spatula until just combined. With rubber spatula, transfer dough to liberally floured work surface. Dust surface of dough with flour; with floured hands, knead dough 6-8 times, until in just holds together in ragged ball, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking. 

Roll dough into approximate 12-inch square. Fold dough into thirds like a business letter, using bench scraper or metal spatula to release dough if it sticks to countertop. Lift short ends of dough and fold into thirds again to form approximate 4-inch square. Transfer dough to plate lightly dusted with flour and chill in freezer for 5 minutes. 

Transfer dough to floured work surface and roll into approximate 12-inch square again. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over surface of dough, then press down so they are slighly embedded in dough. Using bench scraper or thin metal spatula, loosen dough from work surface. Roll dough, pressing to form tight log. Lay seam-side down and press log into 4 equal rectangles. Cut each rectangle diagonally to form 2 triangles and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheet. 

Brush tops with the remaining butter (melted) and sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake until tops and bottoms are golden brown, 18-25 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and let cool 10 minutes before serving (or until you can’t wait any longer, which is usually about 30 seconds for me).

And let’s just say–hypothetically again of course–that when you returned to the office after your gluttonous Thanksgiving holiday (during which you unrepentingly consumed one whole bacon-wrapped turkey), you discovered said office to be completely devoid of office furniture, computers, telephones, or even filing cabinets.

(Don’t worry folks, it’s being renovated)

Assuming all of these things happened–and I’m not saying they did or they didn’t–you might want to have something light and easy-to-cook tonight for dinner. My vote is for a warm mushroom salad, courtesy of one Ina Garten, who has never to my knowledge ever put out a bad recipe. If you made an Ina recipe and it turned out bad, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it was probably your fault.

The great thing about this recipe is, though it is a salad, it’s great for wintertime. The mushrooms and the mushroom “broth” with sherry or red wine vinegar make this salad seem like anything but. Plus, the proscuitto makes that person in your family who *must* have meat at every meal (you know who you are) happy and delighted that when you said you were going to make a salad for dinner (audible groan) they were pleasantly surprised when you put this on the table!  

Though Ina calls for sundried tomatoes in this recipe (and I usually do use them when I make it), I could not find them anywhere in my newly-reorganized Publix grocery store (why must everything change when you go on Thanksgiving holiday!?). I thought the peppers were excellent and fully interchangeable with the tomatoes. The only difference is that I cooked them with the mushrooms to heat them up a bit.

 Also, Ina tells you to “cover each portion” of the arugula with proscuitto slices. Well, I just don’t feel like sitting down to a salad and having to cut my way through it…so I shred the meat with my fingers first. Lazy? No, I prefer industrious. There you have it: the answer to a holiday meal gone over the top and an unusable office.

Warm Mushroom Salad (adapted from Ina Garten’s Warm Mushroom Salad from Barefoot in Paris: Easy French Food You Can Make at Home)

Serves 2 dinner-sized portions

1 pound cremini mushrooms (or whatever mushrooms you have–I had baby portabellas)

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

4 Tablespoons good olive oil, divided

1 teaspoon kosher salt (you may want to reduce this a little because the proscuitto is very salty)

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 bunches of fresh arugula, washed and spun dry (yay, you get to use your salad spinner! Awesome!!)

6 slices good Italian proscuitto

2 Tablespoons red or sherry wine vinegar

chunk of parmesean cheese

4 roasted red peppers, roughly chopped

Clean the mushrooms by brushing tops with a clean sponge. Remove and discard the stems and slice the caps 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

In a large saute pan, heat the butter and 2 Tablespoons of the olive oil until bubbly. Add the mushrooms, salt, and pepper to the pan, and saute for 3 minutes over medium heat, tossing frequently. Reduce the heat to low and saute for another 2 to 3 minutes, until cooked through. During the last 2 minutes of cooking, add the peppers.

Meanwhile, arrange the arugula on 2 plates and cover each with proscuitto (shred with fingers into bite-sized pieces). When the mushrooms and peppers are cooked, add the sherry/red wine vinegar and the remaining 2 Tablespoons of olive oil to the hot pan. Spoon the mushrooms and sauce on top of the proscuitto. With a vegetable peeler, make large shavings of Parmesean cheese and place on top of the hot mushrooms.  

Food Studio B Holiday Menu

Please order by November 22 (that’s Sunday).

Call 205-981-8002 or 205-965-3682 or email foodstudiob@yahoo.com

And Happy Thanksgiving!

Then, this morning I woke up again–apples in the fridge–and had a major, bigtime craving for these babies. Now, I had the recipe, but did not have the correct ingredients. At 7:00 in the morning, I wasn’t about to go to the grocery store. So, deciding I didn’t want to use the Emeril recipe again, I morphed several recipes into a new creation, and here’s what I came up with. Now, this may not win me a blue ribbon at the local fair, but it was quite lovely for a fall Saturday morning and, yes, I would take it home to my mom (cause she’d scarf it down just like me!).  

I used gala apples, which are very sweet and stand up well this recipe. Also, I added some shredded coconut. I have gotten into a habit of adding coconut to a lot of my muffin recipes. I don’t know why, but I really love the extra texture and sweetness. And I guess I’m just out of my mind cRaZY and will apparently do just about anything!

Also, a lot of recipes say to shred the apple. But why? Why would you do that? It makes no sense to me why you wouldn’t want some nice apple chunks in there. I mean, they can’t be too large so that the muffin wouldn’t hold together, but a small, even dice should do. Do not settle for an inferior muffin when you can wait for the muffin of your dreams!

So, here you have it. It is my soul muffin, and it may be yours as well.

Apple Streusel Muffins

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 apple, diced

1/4 cup shredded, sweetened coconut

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 medium muffin cups.

Prepare streusel topping; set aside

Whisk milk, oil, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy). Fold in apples and coconut. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle each with about 2 Tablespoons of topping.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from pan to wire rack.

Steusel Topping

2 Tablespoons chilled butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cut butter into flour, brown sugar and cinnamon using pastry blender or crisscrossing two knives until crumbly.

How does it do that? Well, first of all, it has a 1/2 bottle of wine in it. The wine gives the broth a wonderfully deep, rich taste and–though I haven’t conducted any sceintific experiments–I think the acidity of the wine helps to break down the beef fibers to make it oh-so-tender.

I adapted this recipe from Jamie Oliver, who says that he tried to make this stew like any other beef stew or boeuf bourguignon recipe, where you first brown the meat, then add the vegetables. But, he said this particular stew came out better without browning the meat at all and just adding the vegetables at the same time. That’s great news for us, because it’s that much easier to make!

While Jamie’s recipe called for parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes, I used what I had from the farm–turnips instead of parsnips–and I nixed the Jerusalem artichokes because they are just so freakin’ expensive. One note: I do not peel my root vegetables. I just don’t think it’s necessary when you’re using organically-grown veggies. Besides, how many people have eaten potato skins before? The skin of the carrot or the turnip is the same thing, right? Just wash ‘em up real good! Besides, I don’t think a little dirt will hurt you. It’s called terroir–when the food takes on the flavor of the place it was grown. Yeah, this generally refers to wine…but I think it could be true with carrots too.

Remember, you’re going to be adding a 1/2 bottle of wine to this. I admit, it is hard for me to pour a 1/2 bottle of wine into the pot, thinking about putting it to better use (by actually drinking it), but it is well worth it. I usually choose a wine that I would normally drink anyway (do NOT buy a bottle that you wouldn’t normally drink…it will taste in the stew like it tastes in the glass, so you’ll want to buy something you like. And don’t–under any circumstances–buy cooking wine. It will taste terrible). I really like this line of wines called “Just.” You can find them at Whole Foods and they are under $10.00. They are great for cooking with or for your regular weekday wine intake, when you don’t need anything too fancy, but you also don’t want to drink something icky. Half goes in the stew, and half goes in my tummy while I cook! It’s already a party and I haven’t even eaten anything yet!

This stew cooks for a while in the oven (3-4 hours). Don’t take it out a moment sooner than that! You want the beef to be nice and tender and to fall apart under your fork. By all means, test it first. I will tell you, the smell of this stew in your kitchen (and throughout your house) is a wonderful, comforting, warm smell, and it is totally worth the wait.

When you take the stew out of the oven, just before serving, add the garlic/rosemary/lemon mixture. It is so fragrant and adds a phenomenal touch to the stew. Don’t skip it! By the way, I made some cornbread to go with this, and it made for great dipping.

As you can see by the picture below, my dog Jack was all-too-happy with this recipe. I shared a little with him, but saved most of it for leftovers. It made for a great weeknight dinner the second time around.

Beef and Root Vegetable Stew (adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jool’s Favourite Beef Stew)

olive oil

Tablespoon of butter

1 onion, peeled and chopped

a handful of fresh sage leaves

¾lb beef stew meat

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

flour, to dust

4 small turnips, quartered*

4 carrots, halved

½ a butternut squash, halved, deseeded and roughly diced

1lb small potatoes (I used Yukon Golds)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

½ a bottle of red wine

½ pint beef stock

zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

a handful of rosemary, leaves picked

1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 300ºF. Put a Tablespoon of oil and a Tablespoon of butter into an oven-safe dutch oven.

Add the onion and all the sage leaves and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.

Toss the meat in a little seasoned flour, then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato purée, wine and stock, and gently stir together.

Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt. Bring to a boil, place a lid on top, then cook in the preheated oven until the meat is tender. Sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 – it depends on what cut of meat you’re using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it’s ready. Once it’s cooked, you can turn the oven down to about 225°F and just hold it there until you’re ready to eat.

Mix the lemon zest, chopped rosemary and garlic together and sprinkle over the stew before eating. Just the smallest amount will make a world of difference.

 
*I do not peel my root vegetables. I use organic vegetables, so there are no pesticides to worry about. I make sure I clean the dirt off as well as I can. Other than that, a little clean dirt will never hurt anyone. I would argue it adds a little local flavor (er, maybe).

When I make dishes that are really good and really easy, I wish I could go back in time and tell my 25-year-old self that there’s no need to overdo it. I’m specifically referring to the time I invited my family over to my Baltimore loft for Christmas dinner and went perfectly mad when I tried to cook about 8 dishes for my little dinner party of 5. It was a rookie mistake, and I learned my lesson that night with a little help from my husband, who rescued me despite the fact that I had been cooking all Christmas day and had barely spoken to him.

It was a bad scene folks. I think I got every single recipe for that dinner from Martha Stewart (whose recipes I generally like, but they can be just a tad complicated). And I didn’t begin cooking until that morning. I think I made three different kinds of cookies (sugar, gingerbread, and peanut butter blossom), several ridiculously intricate side dishes that included things like homemade breaded and fried onions (because what would Martha say if you didn’t make your own!?), and sweet potato casserole, which I had never made before (I don’t think I had ever roasted a sweet potato in my life). Five minutes before my family was to arrive, and realizing my dining room did NOT look like the cover of Martha Stewart Living, I completely lost it.

As my little homemade onions, which were to go on my undercooked green bean casserole (with homemade lumpy mushroom sauce!) burned and I started to cry, Glenn (who had not yet married and me and probably was beginning to have second thoughts about it) came to the rescue. “Do you really need the onions?” He said calmly. “YES!” I whined. “Kelsey,” he asked again, slowly, “Do. You. Need. The. Onions?” (Anti-Martha Stewart!) “No,” I said, sadly, but knowing they couldn’t–they wouldn’t–be spared. He threw their sorry charred selves in the trash. “Do you really need the maple glaze for the turkey?” He asked, pointing to the not-yet-in-the-saucepan maple syrup and glancing at the 30-45 minute cooking instructions. Sensing that this was a rhetorical question, I answered the most defeated “No” I could muster. I watched him put the maple syrup back in the cabinet as the little Martha Stewart on my shoulder shuddered and let out an audible “humph!”

Granted, my mom had made perfect Thanksgiving turkey for decades with no fancy maple glaze. But I thought I could do it better. Well, thank goodness for my kind family and soon-to-be husband. They didn’t say a word about it (though Glenn does like to tease me about it to this day). Gloppy mushroom sauce, stringy sweet potato casserole, overcooked turkey, and an exhausted me. (I will say that the gingerbread cookies were AWEsome.)

Unlike that hot mess, this is a perfect weeknight meal. It’s quick, it’s easy, and there’s not much to clean up.

The butternut squash, with the addition of the cream, becomes tender and, well, creamy. The seasonings on the chicken are light and tasty, and leaving the skin on means the chicken comes out moist.

And the best part is that your partner will not have to rescue you.

Roasted Chicken Breast with Creamy Butternut Squash and Chilies (adapted slightly from Jamie Oliver’s recipe)

Serves 2

2 chicken breasts (bone in, skin on)

2 red chilies (I used jalapeño)

3 or 4 sage leaves, chopped

1/2 cup heavy cream

3/4 teaspoon fresh nutmeg (or however much you like)

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Put chicken breasts in a bowl. Deseed and slice chilies and add them to the bowl with a few sprigs of chopped, fresh sage. Sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss together and set aside.

Carefully slice a medium butternut squash into quarters. Remove the seeds and slice 2 quarters of the squash as thinly as possible (I didn’t use all of the second quarter. Just use what will fit in your baking dish).

Place each chicken breast and flavorings snugly in an aluminum foil “bowl” sitting in a medium baking dish. Place the squash slices around the chicken breasts snugly.

Pour the cream around the squash slices (not on the chicken). Season with grated nutmeg, sea salt, and pepper. Drizzle with a little olive oil and bake in the center of the oven for 35-40minutes.

It has been chilly and rainy in Birmingham for the past, hmmmm…month? This soup was perfect for a chilly, rainy night, and I’m actually going to make it again as soon as Glenn brings home more collards. I decided to alter Paula’s recipe just a smidge and, instead of chopping the chicken up beforehand, I let it simmer longer in the broth whole and allowed it to break up itself. I’m sure if you don’t have time to spare, you could chop it up first. But letting it simmer for a whole hour really does make the chicken super tender and allows the flavors to marry longer. Aw, I love it when flavors marry, don’t you? It’s sweet.

Another thing to mention about this dish: an acquaintance of Glenn’s brought us some fresh New Mexico green chilies she picked up while she was out there visiting (these are the benefits of being a farmer–people trade you great stuff for your produce). Though Glenn and I use green chilies in a lot of cooking (and we must, of course, use the canned variety), the flavor of fresh chilies is superior (the canned variety can taste slightly “tinny”), and the ones we used for this recipe were very very hot.

Though I didn’t have any time to make cornbread with this, I highly recommend doing so. I would have loved to dip some cornbread in this chili to sop it up and take off some of the heat. If you don’t like your chili too hot, just don’t add as many crushed red pepper flakes and use mild green chilies instead of hot.

The next day, instead of eating this as regular soup, I broke out the tortilla chips, which we used to scoop up the leftovers. Overnight, the soup became much drier than it was first day I made it, so it was totally scoopable. Delicious!

If you have never tried collard greens before, or if you’re like me and think of them only boiled down to a pulp with ham hock, please please please try this recipe. Paula Deen, I curtsy to your goodness.

Adapted (ever so slightly) from Paula Deen’s White-Bean Chili 

Makes 4 good-sized bowls (or one bowl for me and three for Glenn)

2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon minced garlic

3/4 cup diced onion (I used a Vadalia, just to be extra southern-like)

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (2 halves, that is, about 3/4 of a pound), seasoned with sea salt and fresh black pepper

1  Tablespoon ground cumin

1 Tablespoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper (I did not have any white pepper on hand, so I substituted black pepper, but I’m leaving this as Paula Deen originally intended, because I’ll bet it’s tasty)

Pinch of red pepper flakes (oops, I added a couple pinches and, yes, it was dang hot)

Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 pound collard greens, stemmed and roughly chopped (about 5 cups)

1 1/2 cups chopped green chilies. I happened to have fresh/frozen ones on hand that a friend of Glenn’s brought to him from New Mexico. Use ‘em if you got ‘em. Otherwise, canned would be fine.

1 quart low-sodium chicken broth

2 15-oz cans navy beans, undrained

Optional garnishes: 1/2 bunch fresh cilantro, light sour cream, chopped tomatoes, lime wedges

In a dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the garlic and onion. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until slightly softened. Add the chicken, cumin, oregano, white pepper, and red pepper flakes. Season with salt and 1-2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper. Cook until the chicken is slightly browned on both sides, 3-4 minutes.

Add the collard greens and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are slightly wilted, about 5 minutes.

Add the chilies and chicken broth and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to medium low, cook, stirring occasionally for approximately 1 hour. As soon as the chicken was cooked through (after about 15 minutes), I helped it along by breaking it up a little bit in the pot. After a while, it will begin to get very tender. If I had time, I probably would have let it simmer for another 1/2 hour to get it even more tender. Stir in the beans in the last 10 minutes of cooking. Garnish and serve.

Though I had an entire summer to write this article, I did not actually begin writing until about a month ago when my other work at the Library seemed to settle down a bit. But of course, things never settle down like you think they will, and this final week of writing was filled with early mornings, long days, and late evenings. Then, in the middle of the week, when I didn’t have a moment to think about cooking, Glenn brought home the first of this season’s sweet potatoes. I got home from work on Wednesday night, tired and cranky, and saw them sitting on the counter, just another thing needing my attention. I thought about looking up a recipe or two, wondering what fancy schmancy thing I could do with them, but I just couldn’t do it. I was exhausted. 

So, I did the absolutely simplest thing I could do: I washed them, poked them with a fork, and threw them in the oven to roast for about an hour while I watched House Hunters…er, I mean CSPAN. When they were tender, I split them in half, scooped out the meat, and mashed them in a bowl with butter, brown sugar and sea salt. That’s it. That was dinner. Comfort food in a bowl. The people of Gee’s Bend didn’t mess with any butter, brown sugar, and sea salt, but I think they would have approved. To make a long week’s story short, I got my essay turned in on Friday, but with a little help from some mid-week soul food that absolutely lived up to its name.

 Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes (I used two big ones)

about 1/4 cup of brown sugar

about a 1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons)

between 1/2 and a full teaspoon of sea salt

Wash (scrub if you’re scareda dirt) and poke holes in sweet potatoes (to let the steam escape). Roast them in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour. My sweet potatoes were big and took a whole hour. DO NOT TAKE THEM OUT EARLY–they will be kind of tough and stringy and just no fun. I put mine in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and mashed them with a potato masher, but feel free to use a mixer if you don’t like yours with some lumps. Because the size of sweet potatoes varies (don’t worry, size doesn’t matter, unlike what some people tell you), test the butter/sugar/salt ratio until you find something you like. I particularly love sea salt in this recipe. The coarseness of the salt granules means they don’t quite melt all the way, and a little salty grain is nice with such a sweet vegetable. If you’ve got it, I would recommend some pork ribs or collard greens with these (Gee’s Benders knew what they were doing).