Friday, October 26, 2012

My Sweet Potato Pie

sweet potato pie
Been on a sweet potato kick lately. I have 3 potatoes waiting to get roasted up. I really love the sweetness that roasting them brings out. 

I made this pie a couple weeks ago for the restaurant, it seems like people liked it [got a note from a customer asking me to make more]. 

I used my mom's pumpkin pie recipe and tweaked it a bit. My mom's pumpkin pie is a favorite of our family and friends. It's very creamy and custard-y. I used alway have it as my breakfast the morning after Thanksgiving if there was any leftover. It makes a giant pie--9x13 pan. Lots to share. 

I cut the crust amount in half to make it thinner but kept the same amount of filling. So thinner crust, thicker filling. Switched out the pumpkin with oven roasted sweet  potatoes, that I mashed with potato masher so not too smooth. If you look at the picture you can see little chunks of potato.

I thought I'd share it with everyone. It's a big pie, should feed 12 to 14 or 10 big slices like we do at the restaurant.


Sunday, October 21, 2012

My Finish Products

zucchini caramelized onion tart big
I thought I'd post some of the finish products of my weekend of cooking/baking. This is my zucchini caramelized onion tart.

I got called away yesterday when I was about to start my tart and pie [it was pretty good timing, I had just made the crust and put it in the refrig to rest]. Some friends stopped by the restaurant and went over to have a visit. By the time, I got back home too tired to start up again [stayed a bit at the restaurant, it was busy. Yah!] 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Cooking up some savory goodies

red, orange and yellow
Got these beautiful carrots [red, orange and yellow, I'm a sucker for these kinds of veggies] from the farmers market, with some red and orange beets,  swiss chard [my favorite)] and a delicata squash and decide to make up some savory goodies for my lunch this week.

carrots and beets

Starting out roasting the some of the carrot and beets with olive oil, Herb de Provence, salt and pepper. 

I used only 1/3 of the bunch of carrots, so I decide to try making a carrot salad asian-style with the rest.

While the carrots and beets are roasting, I'm caramelizing onions for a zucchini and caramelized onion tart. Someone from work gave me a giant zucchini that I need to use and I found this recipe from One Perfect Bite

I found my way to One Perfect Bite while I was looking for instructions to make dried apricot jam in crock pot. I bought a big container of dried apricots a while back and I thought I better use it up soon. And loved the apricot jam made this summer. So that's also cooking away at the moment.

The onions are done now and I'm off to make some crust, making up 2 crust, one for the tart and one for an apple sour cream crumb pie from Martha Stewart. Yes, I got some apples from the farmers market. [my eyes are bigger than my stomach]
apples for pies

My kitchen smell amazing at the moment. I'll post some pics of the finish products later. 

I'm thinking of trying a stuffed delicata squash with swiss chard [and probably the leftovers of the giant zucchini] and cheese. But that's tomorrow's project. I have a ton of baking and cooking on my list for tomorrow. It's perfect weather for all this cooking. I'm taking advantage when I can. 

I know this all sound way too much for one person. But I have all of this great veggies and fruits from the farmers markets and friends that I need to use up. I guess I'll make someone happy when I surprise them with a sampling.

Monday, October 8, 2012

I went to my local library this weekend

To get some books on CDs for my long commute. I can't remember the last time borrowed something from the library. 

Been wanting to get some audiobook for my ride because my commute is getting very old, too long, too much crazy delays, just too much time in the car. And listening to the radio is cutting it these day, with all the political talk on npr and the same roundup on the "new" alternative station [although I'm happy it's back on the air but with my long commute it seems as if their playlist is very limited]

Got two book: Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad [which I started this morning on my ride into work] and The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim

Crazy for the Storm Calligrapher's Daugther


These look like they will keep me busy till they are due back. Crazy for the Storm the author story of surviving a plane crash in the mountains. I do like non-fiction so hope this story keeps my interest for the next 4 days [my prediction on how long it will take to go through the 8 disks. Faster if we get a bunch of rainy/stormy days, brings out the slow drivers]. The Calligrapher's Daughter is a very long, [I think 32 disks]. Been on a roll with Asian historical fiction from the bunch of cd my sister past on to me. Thought I'd give this a try. I'll probably find out a lot about Korea that I didn't know. 

I hope this borrowing from the library works out for me. Next on my list to borrow: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. I know I would never finish reading it [too slow reader/always falling a sleep while I'm reading/would have to re-read too much/my reading list is too long to add another book] but this might just work with my commute. Wish me luck on my new tactic to making my ride a more pleasant.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Doughnuts!!!

Sweet Potato Rice Flour Doughnuts to exact. Doughnuts was one of my favorite things until WG said "it's the worst thing you can eat!" These days, I usually just look and wish I could eat one. On a real bad day, if there is a munkin around I'll have that without feeling too guilty of having eaten he worst thing I could eat. But after I saw this recipe I just had to try it. It has so many of my favorite things, doughnuts, sweet potatoes [I had a batch of potatoes in my freezer, a pat on my thrifty self shoulder], the color orange and rice flour [I'm thinking it will have the mochi-chew quality--yummmm].

While doing some research on korean fried chicken, found my way to Beyond Kimchee. I thought I was there to check out her fried chicken recipe but how could I help myself from not stopping to read about sweet potato doughnuts. Here's a link to the recipe: http://www.beyondkimchee.com/sweet-potato-rice-donuts/

The recipe is pretty easy, especially if you already have the potatoes ready. And the frying up is pretty easy as you don't have to cook it as hot as regular deep fried item. See the Beyond Kimchee's comments about oil temp. Got some pictures of my recipe test [yes, I remembered this time].

Pre-doughnuts
pre-doughnuts
I love the color from the potatoes.