What We're Eating - A Food & Recipe Blog » sweet potatoes

Knorr Homestyle Stock: Kicked-Up Cream Cheese Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Amanda — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:25:01 +0000

In only a week and a half one of the biggest cooking days of the year is upon us!!! I’ve been talking about it for months now. MONTHS. And I’ve been testing Thanksgiving recipes using Knorr Homestyle Stocks the whole time. Yet as one would expect for a procrastinator like myself, I haven’t sat down to plan my actual Thanksgiving meal. With a last second change of plans I am no longer going to be spending Turkey Day in Puerto Rico, but will be in the deep south where I’ve offered to cook the whole meal myself (though I’m sure I’ll have assistants)!

To get in the mood to even think about planning a whole meal I decided to make myself a entire Thanksgiving-themed dinner rather than just a side dish like I’ve been doing. I made this herb roasted turkey breast – a timeless classic where you rub the herbs and seasoning under the skin. Seriously once you taste this turkey breast you’ll throw out your old recipe or stop doing the whole bird altogether. (Though if that’s not an option, here is an entire turkey guide that can give you reference to all of the ins and outs of the roasting process from defrosting to resting. Or if you are feeling nontraditional – I can also suggest this chipotle-brined butterflied grilled turkey which was off the chiz-ain, yo!) Anyway, in addition to turkey breast, I decided to whip up some some cream cheese and garlic mash sweet potatoes spiked with some Knorr Homestyle Chicken Stock and dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. I finished off the plate with a Champagne-Rosemary Beurre Blanc. (Which may or may not have been an excuse to buy a bottle of champagne so I could drink the leftovers.) Regardless – this plate definitely screamed Thanksgiving at me and gave me some insight into what I could do next week. Now whether I actually stick with that insight or not is another story.

I doubt I will have another post up before Thanksgiving so just in case I wanted to let you guys know exactly how incredibly blessed and thankful I am to have you in my life! Some of us (at least me) have been putzing around this little blog for almost 6 1/2 years now. I am so fortunate to have made so many close friends, in real life – as well as in the ether world, from What We’re Eating. So THANK YOU for all of your love, support and comments from over the years. I freakin’ love you!

*I am a professional recipe developer being paid by Knorr as part of the Knorr 4 promotion. While Knorr is footing the bill, all content and opinions comes directly from my (sometimes offbeat and slightly cheesy) brain.

Recipes in this post:

Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken & Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Amanda — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:04:02 +0000

What do you think? Does it look cartoon-y to you? Regardless - it tastes delicious!

We’re eating juicy chicken breasts wrapped in prosciutto then seared and finished in the oven. The chicken was served on a bed of fluffy whipped sweet potatoes and roasted garic herbed creme fraiche.

I grew up in a small town in the mountains of southwest Virginia with a soil scientist for a father whose job it was to do things like advise Smithfield on the most enviromentally friendly ways to deal with their shit-tons of pig poop. (In this case the word shit-ton seems only too fitting! ) Due to my dad’s work, he was often gifted a Smithfield ham around the holidays. I grew up loving a good country ham and pretty much dismissing all other varieties. There’s just something about that delciously salty cured pork leg that pulls at my heartstrings even still as an adult. You can imagine how happy I was to grow up and learn that even if I couldn’t afford to get a whole Smithfield ham for myself, I could still relieve my cravings for salty cured ham with the now widely available Italian version – Proscuitto.

In this dish, we’re using prosciutto to season otherwise boring chicken breasts. The ham adds a great salty, porky flavor and the pink color really pops against the bright orange of the whipped sweet potatoes and the vividly green herbed creme fraiche. Tyler actually said that he thought the dish looked “cartoony” with all of it’s crazy bright colors. I don’t know if I agree with that but I think the colors are all beeee-utiful together and the flavors were out of this world. Without a doubt, I would eat/serve this meal again.

Recipes in this post:

Holiday Recipes: Stuffed Sweet Potatoes Wrapped in Prosciutto

Amanda — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:48:54 +0000

Ho Ho Ho Merry Thanksgiving! As the holiday season quickly approaches, we thought it would be a great idea to get together with our good friend and fabulous food blogger, Nicole over at Pinch My Salt, and eat some great holiday food…early! With this post we will begin a new seasonal series: Fan-freakin-tastic Holiday Recipes perfect for whatever fall/winter celebration you may have. We’ll try to hit some traditional highlights and even give some new ideas on classic ingredients.

(And no, you can’t shorten the title. Whenever you speak of this post you must say “fan-freakin-tastic holiday recipes perfect for whatever fall/winter celebration you may have”.)

To start things off, we’re featuring baked sweet potatoes stuffed with blue cheese and herbs and wrapped in prosciutto. Everybody knows there has to be a sweet potato dish at holiday feasts… but why’s a hommie have to eat all that extra sugar and marshmallow crap with it? I believe that sweet potatoes are sweet enough with out the addition of extra sugar. Actually, I even like to down-play the sweetness by combining the sweet potatoes with other savory items. Let’s just say that the flavors in these sweet potatoes will hit the walls(NC-17 link) of your taste buds and make your mouth sing.

The other potato dish at our pre-holiday fest was Nicole’s insanely delicious cream cheese mashed potatoes. Apparently these potatoes are a tradition for her family’s holiday meals and I can see why. Seriously – they were dy-no-mite! Truth be told, I prefer plain old, non-sweet potatoes to sweet potatoes almost any day but I think I gave her a run for her money. Right now I would love to a have a big plate of both potatoes and enjoy a carb-fest of a dinner!

Recipes in this post:

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes Wrapped in Prosciutto

Candied Yams Gone Wild!

Us — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:49:29 +0000

Bleu Cheese Candied Yams

As part of our week-long Thanksgiving food celebration, we ate a breakfast of homemade candied yams prepared with a stellar combination of molasses, honey, fresh sage and butter. The yams were topped with crumbled extra-creamy danish blue cheese and ganished with fresh sage leaves.

A: Happy Thanksgiving, T!…oh wait… it’s not thanksgiving yet.
T: that’s ok, for foodbloggers (in america) Thanksgiving is a week-long holiday! It’s the ultimate!
A: true dat. this little ditty started a week-long celebration for us. now we may not eat all of this food come thursday, but if we start now, we can get in all our favorites, and still eat the untraditional stuff we want.
T: Hell yeah, this is awesome. Being a foodblogger rocks! Especially for me because if you weren’t cooking I’d be eating nothing but granola bars and Burritos. (not that there’s anything wrong with burritos, I eat them for lunch everyday, but there comes a time to eat something else)
A: shit yeah! well, it rocks for me too, because if i didn’t have you to cook for, i would eat salad all the time… or veggies sauteed in PAM to watch my calories. and my god, would that suck.
T: yes, that would suck. throw in a few california burritos, though, and you’ve got yourself a well-balanced diet.
A: hmm… i’ve still only had the Santana’s cali burrito. before i could commit to that well-balanced diet, i’d have to eat a good one!
T: fair enough. Hey, I just had a great idea…
A: yeeees?!?
T: you could make us some california Burritos, Amanda style!
A: now, while i like how you’re thinking, i just can’t make the best tortillas… and without a decent tortilla, burritos suck!
T: that’s very true. k, mmm… screw the burritos. I eat them all the time anyway. How bout a nice big stuffed burger?
A: now you’re talking! but, you’re talking a different holiday altogether. now’s the time for starches and fowl.
T: Yes, but the burgers don’t have to be for the holidays. They can be just for the heck of it.
A: alright! i’ll do it! within two weeks we’ll have stuffed burgers… mark my words.
T: you’re words have been marked! And I will show you this post in exactly 2 weeks if we haven’t had burgers, and I’ll bitch. And then you’ll remind me of what I would be eating without you, and I’ll shut up.
A: glad you figured that one out for yourself!
T: So, time to talk about the yams. These were super-delish, and made a magnificent breakfast. I’ve got to recommend candied yams for breakfast- they’re just the right sweetness and starchiness for the morning. Trust me on this one.
A: you know, i never would have thought of that on my own, but you’re pretty right-on. when you were eating them, was there anything that you thought might improve them?
T: no, they were absolutely awesome. I mean, they probably would have been a little better if there was some smothered fowl with gravy next to it, but, you know, by themselves I think they were about perfect.
A: hmm… you know, that’s the real problem with cooking these dishes on random days… you don’t get the whole “holiday-food-melding-together-on-your-plate” experience, but them’s the breaks, kid.
T: yeah, everyday can’t be thanksgiving day. If it were, americans would be so fat-
A: but wait, T! americans are so fat!
T: let me finish, woman! If everyday were thanksgiving, we’d all be so fat that we’d be stuck in our apartments! we wouldn’t be able to squeeze through the doors… but then some savvy business man/woman would get rich off of double-wide doors. God this country rocks.
A: please…. whatever brave souls still happen to be reading this… PLEASE don’t take tyler seriously! (please) this country would not rock for making money because our population was too fat to squeeze through the current doorways.
T: No, our country would absolutely rock for that reason… it would suck because the entire population was so fat that nobody could leave their apartments. The double-wide door industry would be the one great thing about this nightmarish scenario.
A: hahahah touche! well, now that we’ve evoked such wonderful images, what’s your rating for the yams?
T: I give ‘em a 4.63/5. They were excellent… what really made them a knock-out was the bleu cheese. I don’t think anything else could have complimented their flavor better (other than a pool of gravy over on the other side of the plate).
A: you know, i’m gonna agree with you. I give them a 4.45/5. That’s pretty much as high as i can possibly go on yams. they’re one of those holiday foods that i’ve always avoided. i generally find their sweetness to be overwhelming, so i thought to myself, “hmmm… what can i do to like these crazy things more?”. and man, add bleu cheese to pretty much anything sweet, and i love it.
T: oooh yeah. And gravy. Add gravy to pretty much anything sweet (or not sweet), and I love it.
A: hehehe i think that’s gonna have to work itself into a new nickname for you… Crazy Gravy T, or something
T: You can just call me T-gravy.

p.s. please don’t call me t-gravy.

Recipes in this post:

Candied Yams with Sage and Danish Bleu Cheese