Roasted Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

In a recent staff meeting our icebreaker question was "What is your favorite time of the day?" My answer was breakfast.  While breakfast isn't the same time every day, I am definitely a morning person and a breakfast person.  During the week it is usually something quick like a scrambled egg quesadilla, an easy omelette, or avocado toast.  The weekend are a great time to get just a little more elaborate in breakfast and to use up the week's leftovers.  I had no intention of writing this recipe or blog post until I realized I had too much diced sweet potato for a recipe I made earlier in the week.  I put some of it in a container for the weekend and took stock of some of my other leftovers: half a jar of roasted red peppers, some fresh thyme, and half an onion.  You can certainly replicate this recipe and intentionally purchase these ingredients, but try to be creative with the vegetables and herbs you have in your refrigerator at the end of the week!

This recipe basically just implements the principles of roasting that I wrote about a few months ago.  I like roasting hashbrowns because it require no active cooking time so you can scramble up some eggs, have a cup of coffee, and read the paper while it cooks away.  I had about one diced sweet potato which is enough to share with someone else, but you'll need more than that for brunch guests.

Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray to keep the potatoes from sticking (I use olive oil in a Misto aerator).  Put the diced sweet potato, roasted red pepper, and onion on the sheet pan with one clove of crushed garlic.  Season with salt, pepper, and quarter teaspoon each of ground sage, coriander, and cayenne pepper.  Place a few sprigs of thyme on top and coat with olive oil, tossing to combine.  Place on the bottom rack of a 450 degree oven and set a time for ten minutes.  After ten minutes toss the hashbrowns and  cook for an additional ten minutes.  The high heat and the bottom rack will make sure the hashbrowns are crispy and delicious.  When they are done cooking remove the thyme stems (most of the leaves should have fallen off), toss with a little bit more salt, and serve.

Roasted Sweet Potato Hashbrowns

Ingredients

• 1 diced sweet potato
• 1/4 cup diced roasted red peppers
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 5-7 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/4 tsp. ground sage
• 1/4 tsp. coriander
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
• salt and black pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp. olive pol

Instructions

1. Preheat over to 450 degrees
2. Dice potatoes, red peppers, onion, or other vegetables
3. Place vegetables on a greased sheet pan and season with herbs and spices.  Add olive oil and toss to combine
4. Roast on the bottom rack of the over for ten minutes, toss vegetables, and cook for an additional ten minutes

Foundations Series: Roasting Part I

I'm excited to be kicking off my Foundations Series with a technique that I use almost weekly - roasting!  This edition will focus on roasting vegetables and Part II will be about roasting a chicken.  I used asparagus as an example, but potatoes would be a classic application of this technique.  I also love to roast squash, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and fennel.  Roasting is a great way to add flavor to your vegetables because they become brown, carmelized  and full of flavor.  And as our friend Anne Burrell would remind us - brown food is tasty food.

The method is quite simple.  Crank your oven up to 450 degrees while you prep the vegetables.  All of the vegetables should be approximately the same size.  Asparagus can remain whole, but vegetables like mushrooms and potatoes should be halved, quartered, or largely chopped to be about the same size.  When roasting potatoes I particularly enjoy using new or fingerling potatoes since they are already small and have a deliciously tender skin.  For most things I like a larger size for roasting, but I will sometimes roast a small dice of sweet potatoes for a lovely sweet potato hash brown.

Let's discuss seasoning for a moment.  At the most basic level roasting necessitates olive oil, salt, and pepper.  I like to use a flakey sea salt for the flavor of larger crystals when I roast, but plain table salt will work just fine.  Other seasoning can work too.  I like to add cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon to sweet potatoes.  Garlic and herbs are often appropriate for potatoes and mushrooms.  Woody herbs like thyme are rosemary are fine to roast in the oven but more delicate herbs like basil should be tossed with the hot vegetables after roasting.  Lemon zest is also a great ingredient to toss in after roasting - especially with asparagus.  

Once consideration for seasoning have been made toss the vegetable with seasoning, salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Take care to coat the the vegetables with olive oil, but don't put too much on.  You want the pan to be dry enough get a good brown on the vegetables.  Put the foil lined pan of vegetables on the bottom rack of the oven so it is closest to the heating element and cook for 25-30 minutes, flipping halfway through for even browning. (Asparagus might take closer to 20 minutes - keep an eye on them!)

#SApro Tips: Weekly Menu Planning

"I wish I could cook like you do, but I just don't plan well."

"My biggest challenge is deciding what I want to eat in advance."

"Teach me how to not eat like a toddler!"

These are some phrases I hear a lot, and it seemed to be time to share some tips and tricks on how to make menu planning and your food life a success.  We'll go through the process of menu planning and then use my actual menu from the past week as an example to show how to implement the system and make a grocery list.  Big thanks to my professor, friends and colleagues who contributed to the ideas for this post: Dr. Chris Linder, Tim Mousseau, and  Chandler Thompson (check out their blogs too)!  I hope that you find planning in advance will help you have less stress, reduce food waste, and save money.

The Process

Make it a habit:  I think the most important way to make weekly menu planning a reality is to incorporate it into your weekly ritual.  For me that means I sit down with a cup of tea and Pinterest (you can follow me on Pinterest here) every Sunday morning to create my list.  Some weeks I'll do this on Saturday if my Sunday plans prohibit me from going shopping, but it's almost always a Sunday endeavor.  Pick whatever day works best for you and stick with it.

Figure out your formula: There's no prefect formula and this will be different for everyone depending on your appetite and the size of your household unit.  I'll share what works for me and offer some amendments for you to try to have enough food for your needs.  Most people who know me know that I'm all about moderation; I generally eat pretty healthy and I'm also not too concerned with things like calories and carbs.  Especially carbs, this Italian guy loves carbs.  My rule of thumb is to have at least one vegetable with every meal, including breakfast.  With that in mind, I cook four meals a week which is enough for dinner and leftover to bring to work for lunch.  I always have pasta once a week (a self-imposed restriction because I could eat pasta every day) and one meat-free meal.  Since I don't buy anything additional for lunch this could be an easy way to make the same four meal system work in your multi-person home.  Play around with the proportions until you find what works for you.

Check your calendar:  This step is especially important for my student affairs colleagues.  With all of our late nights, programs, and after-hours meetings we need to be cognizant of what our time limitations are.  I know that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't get home until around 7 because of meetings for the organization that I advise so those evening have to be quick and easy dinners that don't require a lot of prep.  On Wednesday nights I have an evening class that doesn't end until 8pm, so Wednesdays are always a night for leftovers.  For the extra-busy weeks, like Welcome Week, where I have an event every evening I switch up the plan and cook a couple of big things on Sunday that will last all week. For those weeks I'll do something like a big batch of chicken enchiladas and a sausage and superfood hash.

Utilize leftovers: Now that you're ready to start making a menu and list, take stock of things that are left over from last week.  I always seem to have leftover tortillas and fresh herbs.  This week I'll use the leftover tortillas to make egg and arugula quesadillas for breakfast, the leftover rosemary for the panko crusted chicken and roasted sweet potatoes, and the leftover chives for kotlety.  If you use Pinterest you can search by ingredient if you need ideas for what to do with something leftover.  You can also search "just my pins" as a way to cull the results down to things you had already shown interest in.

Look for overlapping ingredients: Similar to repurposing leftover ingredients, looking for ingredients that overlap throughout recipes is a good way to cut costs and reduce waste.  I make a point to do this whenever I'm buying bagged greens like arugula, spinach, or kale because any leftovers are unlikely to remain fresh into a second week of cooking.  This week arugula is becoming a big overlap player as a filling for my breakfast quesadillas, a bed for my panko crusted chicken, and a side salad for my kotlety.  The panko breadcrumbs will do double duty as a coating for the chicken and a filler in the kotlety.  Lemon zest will be used in the chicken coating and the juice from that lemon will be used to make the salad dressing.

Pick a splurge item: Do something good for your emotional health each week and pick a splurge item.  This could be something luxe like prosciutto, a fancy cheese, or an expensive cut of meat or something downright comforting like a frozen pizza or boxed macaroni and cheese.  Either way I think it's important to incorporate some little food items that make you happy as long as you do so in moderation.  This week I got an awesome frozen pizza from Trader Joe's, the Tarte d'Champigon (not as fancy as it sounds), and had absolutely no regrets about it. Self care, y'all!

The Menu

• Breakfast all week: Arugula and Egg Quesadilla 
• Sunday: Lemon Rosemary Chicken (from The Country Chic Cottage) and Roasted Sweet Potatoes

• Monday: Kotlety (from Natasha's Kitchen), Orzo, and Arugula Salad

• Tuesday: Chicken and Asparagus Stir Fry (from Skinny Taste)

• Wednesday: Leftovers
• Thursday: Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Chickpeas (from Buzzfeed)

The List(s)

Each week I go to both Kroger and Trader Joe's.  I love Trader Joe's and find that some produce items like mushrooms and bagged greens are much cheaper there (organic spinach for $1.99, what?!).  Other TJ's items are simply much better quality.  I get everything else from Kroger.  The two stores are across the the street from each other so going to both is not much of a hassle, but all of these items would be available at your grocery store.  Please note that these lists are not exhaustive of everything you would need to make all of the dishes for this week.  The lists do not include things like rice, pasta, oil, spices, and seasonings that I always have in the house so take stock before you go shopping!

• Trader Joe's
• 1 head fresh broccoli
• 1 head fresh cauliflower
• 1 lemon
• 1 bag arugula
• 1 package white button mushrooms
• 4 apples (for snacks)
• 3 sweet potatoes
• panko breadcrumbs
• frozen pizza
• smoked gouda cheese (for snacks)
• Kroger
• 1 lb. chicken cutlets
• 1 lb. chicken tenders
• 1 lb. ground turkey
• 1 bunch asparagus
• 1 inch fresh ginger
• 1 lb. pasta
• 1 can chickpeas
• 1/2 dozen eggs
• 1 bag shredded Mexican cheese blend

I hope this guide helps you to plan your weekly meals and run a more efficient kitchen.  Let me know if you have any questions or other tips and tricks in the comments!

Sweet Potato Fries

I've talked about it before, but I really love sweet potatoes.  They're so rich in nutrients, and now that I've got over the sugar shock of their Thanksgiving preparation sweet potatoes make frequent appearances on my table.  I love baking these fries with a lot of seasoning combinations, but this blend of cumin, paprika, and cinnamon is one of my favorites.

You have to take a couple of steps to make these fries crispy.  The first is cutting them fairly thinly.  More surface area means more crispiness.  I like to look for longer, less squat sweet potatoes when I make fries.  Make sure you're using a sharp knife for this - cutting into a raw sweet potato can be difficult and a blunt knife can make it dangerous.  I like to skin the sweet potatoes before cutting them, but that's a personal preference.  Scrub them very well if you decide not to skin them.

Once you've sliced the potatoes submerge them in a bowl of cold water for at least an hour. This helps to remove some of the starch, which is another way to make them crispy.  When you remove them from the water rise them off to remove the any additional starch and pat them completely dry.  Lay them on a foil lined sheet pan, and make sure the potatoes have enough room to be spread in a single layer.  Use two pans if necessary.

Bake the fries at 450 degrees for 20-30 minutes on the lowest rack of the oven.  Flip them halfway through the cooking time to ensure maximum crisp.

If you have any leftovers let them cool completely before you store them so they don't get soggy, and reheat them in the oven.

Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients

• 3 medium sweet potatoes
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• Salt and Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. Slice sweet potatoes in half and slice lengthwise into fries
3. Soak potatoes in water for at least 1 hour
4. Drain and rinse potatoes and dry them completely
5. Place potatoes on a foil lined sheet pan and coat with oil, spices, and salt and pepper
6. Bake potatoes for 20-30 minutes, and flip halfway through cooking time

Sweet Potato, Mushroom, Kale, and Sausage Hash

I feel like working in student affairs sometimes means your never more than forty feet away from a pizza.  Let's face it - the convenience of the free food around campus is nice sometimes, but it seriously lacking in nutritional value.  This meal is chock full of vitamins and nutrients, so it's great when you need a break from all of that pizza. 

Sweet potatoes and kale are both superfoods, which means they're super nutrient rich and full of antioxidants.  Eating "across the rainbow" when it comes to vegetables is also a good practice because different nutrients express themselves in different colors.  I find that I have the hardest time getting the reds and oranges in my diet so I love using sweet potatoes when I can.  These sweet potatoes will be spiced with paprika and cayenne pepper, making them deliciously smoky and hot.  Roasting them will also make them brown and caramelized.

Once the potatoes are in the oven, remove the sausage from the casings and brown them in the pan.  Remove them from the pan once they'e cooked through and add the onions and mushrooms.  Try not to eat half the sausage while you're cooking the vegetables like I did - oops.

Once the onions become translucent and the mushrooms have cooked down, and the kale  and garlic and season again with salt and pepper.  Seasoning each layer you add to the pan is really important in this dish so it's evenly seasoned.  Once the kale wilts return the sausage to the pan and add the roasted potatoes.  Stir to combine and serve!

Sweet Potato, Mushroom, Kale, and Sausage Hash

Ingredients

• olive oil
• 2 medium sweet potatoes 
• paprika
• cayenne pepper
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 12 oz. crimini mushrooms
• 1 bunch of kale
• 3 italian sausages 

Instructions 

1. Preheat oven to 425
2. Peel and dice sweet potatoes, coat them with olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper, and arrange them in a single layer on a foil lined baking sheet.  Roast potatoes in the oven for 20 minutes
3. Remove sausage from the casings, crumble, and cook through over medium heat
4. Chop the onion and kale, slice the mushrooms, and crush or mince the garlic.
5. Remove the cooked sausage from the pan and add the onion and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper
6. Once the onions become translucent and mushrooms soften, add the crushed garlic and kale.  Season again with salt and pepper
7. When the kale is wilted stir in the cooked sausage and the sweet potatoes