Sweet Potato Spoon Bread

Even with this holiday season being so full of things to do (work, grad school, and now my new video game Skyrim) I have been trying out recipes for Thanksgiving.  We go to my aunt's home each Thanksgiving so I do not have to cook dinner but I like bringing over different side dishes.  Last year with my sweet potato risotto I was able to get people who had never liked sweet potatoes to try them, and like them.  I wanted to do something different for this year, so this is one of the recipes that I chose.

This is a time intensive recipe.  I don't know if my oven is getting hot enough (got to get it checked) but I started this recipe when I got home from work and it wasn't done by 8 pm.  By that time I was sooo hungry.  I thought it was a decent side dish, but a bit bland.  Others in the house thought it was great.  I think I just like more complex flavors in a dish.  Enjoy! (And yes, its gluten free!)

Sweet Potato Spoon Bread

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients
4 Tbs of butter
1 lb of sweet potatoes, roasted and mashed
1 Tbs of fresh thyme
1 Tbs of fresh rosemary
2 Tbs brown sugar
2 tsp coarse sea salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 cup finely ground cornmeal
4 eggs, separated
2 tsp baking soda

After roasting sweet potatoes, reduce oven temp to 350 degrees.  In a pot, combine milk, rosemary and thyme, sugar, salt and pepper on medium heat.  Let boil.  Then slowly whisk cornmeal into milk mixture.  Keep stirring until the mixture is thick and pulls away from sides of pot.  Take it off heat and put in a large bowl.  Let cool for 3 minutes.  Add potatoes, egg yolks, 3 Tbs of butter, baking powder and stir to mix together ingredients.

In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixture until soft peaks form.  Fold the whites into the potato mixture, so you can see white swirls.  Put the final mixture in a dish that has been greased with the remaining 1 Tbs of butter.

Bake for 35 to 20 minutes until the internal temperature is 165 F.  If you would like a little browning on the top, you may have to put under hot broiler for 2 minutes.  Edges will be firm but the inside will be a little soft.  Take out of oven and let sit for 10 minutes.  Best when served warm.

French Onion and Egg Drop Soups

So I am on my three week holiday break from work. I know it is only teachers who can complain about having three weeks off, everyone else would relish it, I am just having a hard time with our new school year schedule. I need this week off during the summer where it is warm out and I can actually do something rather than now where I am sitting next to my space heater, even with the heat in the house on, because it is 10 degrees outside. The next three weeks are to organize..my house, my National Board stuff, my computer, etc. While I'm blogging I am waiting for movies to load into imovie so I can put together our dvd for this year. We just got a video camera in June to tape our wedding, but already I have enough for 4 different DVDs and have to start putting them together... what else is 3 weeks for? Relaxing? I dont know how!

One of the things that I am organizing, is my recipes. Today I am going through two of my soup recipes from the three weeks where I could only drink liquids and eat soft foods. Both turned out really good for being soup (not one of my favorite things, even though I have 3 huge books of soup recipes). These may not be the most exciting pictures, but keeping track of the recipes on my website allows me to print out them out later (important for this organizing binge Im on!)

French Onion Soup

From The Kitchn

Ingredients

2.5 lbs of onions (sliced into 1/2 moons then sliced in half again)

1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup)

4 cups of beef broth

Salt

Black Pepper

Parmesan or Asiago Cheese

Put the pot (or saucepan) on medium heat. Cut the butter into small chunks and place in the pot. After the butter has melted and begins to foam, put in the onions. Stir the onions so they are covered in butter and add a teaspoon of salt. Turn heat to medium low and let the onions cook, stirring every once and awhile. Caramelizing the onions typically takes 45 minutes or more at this heat. Let them turn a mahogany color, but dont let them burn. Pour in your broth and turn the heat to high so that it boils. Then turn the heat down and let simmer for 1/2 an hour or more--you want the soup to reduce and look shiny. Season with salt and pepper, pour into bowls and add cheese and any other toppings you like.

Egg Drop Soup

Adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients

5 cups of chicken stock

1 tsp of soy sauce

2 Tbs cooking sherry

1 tsp of ginger powder or 1 two inch piece of fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves smashed

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 green onions, thinly sliced

2 tsp sesame seed oil

Ground black pepper

Bring stock, soy sauce, sherry, ginger, garlic to boil in a pot. Simmer for 4 minutes, then remove garlic and fresh ginger (if added) with a slotted spoon. Stirring soup in a circle, add in eggs slowly. Simmer for around 1 minute until eggs are cooked. Take off of heat and add cut scallions and sesame seed oil along with salt and ground pepper to taste.

Avgolemono Soup

Day #6 on protein shake, mashed potatoes and broth diet. Its so discouraging. I feel just fine when I don't eat any solid foods and to be honest, it almost feels even better than usual. However, I miss cooking. I miss trying new foods and recipes and being adventurous. I don't know when I should try something more solid, but I keep remembering last week when a bowl of rice had me in such pain for 3 hours. I don't want to feel like that, but at some point I am going to have to try.

Today was a good day because I saw that my sweet potato risotto recipe was on my favorite food site SeriousEat yesterday. I didn't even see it till today, and was so excited. I had to post another recipe, although the pictures aren't as nice. The funny thing is that picture was rejected by tastespotting.com and foodgawker.com but made it on a much bigger site!

The last thing that I made before I got really sick was avgolemono soup. I have seen different recipes for this soup online and in my soup books but never got around to making it. Then my husband got sick and I wanted to do something different than the traditional chicken noodle (which, unless I found gluten free soup noodles, I couldn't eat). I only got to eat a bowl full because of the lemon and my stomach, but it tasted really good.

Avgolemono Soup

7 cups of chicken broth

1 lb of chicken (I always use boneless, skinless breasts but legs or thighs would do also)

5 eggs

Juice for 4 lemons

1/2 cup of rice

Black pepper to taste

Put the chicken and broth into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Then turn to low and let simmer, covered, for 30 minutes or more until the chicken is cooked. Remove the chicken and skim off the surface scum. Ladle a 1 cup of the broth into a bowl on the side.

While cooking the chicken, cook the rice and put to the side.

Use a fork to pull the chicken and put back in the broth. Bring the broth back to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Then take the pot off of the burner.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, lemon juice, and pepper. While whisking drizzle in the broth that you had put to the side while beating constantly. Then whisk the egg mixture into the pot of soup, beating constantly. Turn the heat back on to low and stir constantly for around 2 minutes until the soup thickens but do not let the mixture bubble. Add the rice, take off of heat, and it is done.