Citrus Butter Sweet Potatoes

Sunshine has been all I crave lately. After a very snowy Thanksgiving week and a few weeks of fighting a cold, I feel like I’ve barely spent anytime outside over the last month. It’s getting to me. Staying home to cook all day is one of my favorite activities—but only if I’ve gotten enough fresh air, too. Otherwise, I just feel stir crazy. Next week, my office closed for the whole week (!!), so I am hoping to flip-flop my outside time issue. Miraculously, it’s suppose to be a sunny week… so sunshine, here I come!

Here is a holiday/winter side dish with a little sunshine built in, in the form of bright citrus juice: Citrus Butter Sweet Potatoes. They are slow roasted with a bit of butter, maple syrup (just a touch!) and orange juice. Each bite is a mix of sweet, salty, starchy and acidic.

Happy holidays!

P.S., If I know anything about you all, it’s that you love sweet potatoes. This roasted sweet potato salad is the most popular recipe on Foraged Dish! (Or is it the goat cheese?)

Citrus Butter Sweet Potatoes

Published December 19, 2019 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 4-6   |    Active Time: 70 minutes

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Ingredients:

3 medium-sized sweet potatoes

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons maple syrup

Zest and juice of 1/2 an orange

1-2 generous pinches of salt

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

1-2 tablespoons minced Italian parsley

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. While the oven preheats, place a baking dish (about 9x9 inches) in the oven with the 2 tablespoons of butter in it—this will melt the butter. When butter is melted (just a few minutes) remove from oven and set aside.
2. Wash the sweet potatoes, and then optionally, peel them. I like to roughly peel them, leaving a bit of skin on. Chop sweet potatoes into about 1-inch thick by 2-inch long pieces.
3. Add maple syrup, orange zest, orange juice, and salt to the baking mix and stir everything together. Add sweet potatoes, and use a rubber spatula to mix them in the maple-butter mixture until coated.
4. Cover top of pan with foil, and place in oven. Bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove foil from pan and continue to bake for another 30 minutes. Sweet potatoes should be browning on the edges, and extremely soft when done. Remove from oven and allow to cool 5-10 minutes before serving.
5. Season with black pepper to your preferences, and garnish with minced parsley.

Pear Harvest Salad with Hazelnuts & Brie

If you want a fail-proof salad formula, with no recipe, just take a bed of greens and add a fruit, a nut, and a cheese. Drizzle with vinaigrette. This salad is a perfect proof point for that formula (which really never fails).

Happen to be planning your Thanksgiving menu? With pears, brie, and hazelnuts this dish fits right in. Looking for more of a salad-for-lunch kind of situation? Add cooked farro, which will add some heft.

Pear Harvest Salad with Hazelnuts & Brie

Published November 13, 2019 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 2-4   |    Active Time: 20 minutes

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Ingredients:

3-4 cups baby arugula

1 ripe bosc pear

1/4 cup raw hazelnuts

1/4 cup brie, sliced into bite-sized pieces

1/4 tablespoons dried cranberries

1/4 cup cooked and cooled farro, wheat berries or brown quinoa

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon dijon mustard

Generous pinch salt

Several cracks of black pepper, plus more for topping

Directions:

1. Preheat an oven to 300°F and spread hazelnuts on a baking sheet. Place pan in oven, and toast nuts for 10-15 minutes, checking frequently. The nut should be golden brown (the papery skin will be dark, and begin to blister). Remove nuts from oven, and place in a cloth kitchen towel. Rub nuts in the towel to remove the papery skins (some won’t come off, but it’s fine). Set aside to cool completely.
2. While the hazelnuts toast, place arugula in a serving bowl.
3. Slice the pear in half. Cut off the stem, and remove the seedy center. Slice pear into 1/4-inch thick pieces. Arrange pears over top of the arugula.
4. Top with dried cranberries, farro, and pieces of brie.
5. When hazelnuts are cooled, scatter over the salad.
6. Add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard, a pinch of salt, and a few cracks of pepper to a jar/container with a lid. Place lid on jar, and shake to combine.
7. When ready to serve, drizzle vinaigrette over salad.

Soft & Chewy Flourless Ginger Tahini Cookies

In January, well after holiday season was over, a client sent a big box of Tate's Cookies to the office, where they filled the kitchen counter for half a week. It was the worst (but also the best) kind of way to kick off January. I had been wanted to make a gingery version of these tahini chocolate chip cookies for some time -- I even had made a batch over the holidays that didn't quite work out. Despite it being peak resolution season, that counter full of cookies was just the push I needed to dive back into recipe development. 

The dream: a chewy, rich, flourless ginger cookie with chunks of crystallized ginger. 

I knew that tahini would be the perfect base, but my first attempt used far too much molasses and the cookies were WAY too soft. I learned, on that attempt, that coconut sugar really imparts enough molasses-y flavor anyhow, as it's unrefined so still carries all of the minerals that are stripped from refined sugars when molasses is made. 

Tips for making these chewy tahini ginger cookies: 

• STIR THAT TAHINI. This is in all caps because it's no joke. Tahini separates fast and if your tahini is all oil or all solids you're batter won't work. Last time I published a tahini cookie recipe someone asked about how to best stir tahini, which is a really good question because it's not the easiest to stir. But don't worry! Just scrape the entire jar into a blender, and let it rip. OR, carefully put your immersion blender into your tahini container (this is what I do, but also can foresee what a mess this might make in the wrong circumstances) 

• Let them cool. Really! I too like hot-out-of-the-oven cookies, but these cookies need a minute to set up. More like 5-10. They'll still be warm, and they'll stay soft for a week at room temperature. BUT, if you try to pick one up while it's still piping hot it will just collapse and melt in your hand (if you can even get it into your hand). 

Now, the recipe! 

Soft & Chewy Flourless Ginger Tahini Cookies

Published February 21, 2019 by Caitlin Sherwood

Yields: 16   |    Active Time: 30 minutes

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Ingredients:

1 cup coconut sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/16 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup tahini (stirred very well - try blending it with your blender if it is separated)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1-1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger grated on a microplane

Optional: 1/3 cup ginger chips or finely chopped crystallized ginger

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine coconut sugar, baking soda, salt, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, and ground cloves. Whisk briefly.
3. Add tahini, vanilla, egg, and fresh ginger to bowl, and use a spatula to stir until a stiff, sticky batter forms.
4. Optional: place bowl of batter in the fridge for 10 minutes to allow dough to stiffen a bit more.
5. Using your hands, roll dough into spheres by the heaping tablespoonful. Place spheres at least 2 inches apart of a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and flatted slightly with your fingers.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies have spread and are golden. Cookies will still be quite soft when you remove them from the oven. Allow them to cool at least 10 minutes before attempting to move them to a cooling wrack or a plate.