Spicy Sweet Potato Fritters

Yes!!!!! Is there anything better than having the morning off and getting to make lunch at home??????

It's the little things, y'all.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS.

So these were delicious, and required a little more time than my typical quick lunch, but well worth it. The process is simple - dip slices in egg replacer, dip slices in flour mix, then fry in vegetable oil and nom nom nom nom.

Here's what you need if you're chopping up 1 sweet potato (feeds about 2-3 people):

2 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbl black pepper
2 Tbl red pepper flakes
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt

So there are your dry ingredients for the batter. Sift these together and then prepare 4 egg replacer solutions. I use Ener-G Egg Replacer. Then, pour about 1/4 an inch of vegetable oil into a cast iron skillet, and heat on med-high while you slice your tater.

You'll need to slice your sweet potato pretty thin I did mine about 1/8 an inch. Once you have your slices, dip these in the egg replacer one at a time, then coat thoroughly in the dry flour mix. Toss these into the cast iron (NO wait don't actually toss these, because hot oil) one at a time, and fry until crispy golden brown.

Let dry on a paper towel.

I served mine with a jalapeño mustard sauce, made with yellow mustard, honey and pickled jalapeños. #yumtown

This is the Greatest Sandwich in the World

I don't like to post things that don't seem too original, or tutorials for how to throw together processed food, because we are all adults here (right? babies can't read?). But someone on IG specifically said "OH THIS NEEDS TO BE ON YOUR BLOG" when I posted it the other day.

And I will concede. Simply because it is the greatest sammich I think I've ever constructed. Here, let me say more about that:

As you may or may not have heard me whining about recently, I just started serving corporate meat and other various deep-fried sundries to the masses of Bowling Green and the greater I-65 area, which deprives me of sleep time and cooking time, to say nothing of the daily ethical limbo I two-step around. Serving life is silly and romantic and difficult and I'm not convinced yet whether or not it's worth it for now, but suffice it to say that I have been cooking less hour-and-a-half long dishes, and exploring instead the sammich world.

So this was birthed out of a 16-hour, stiffed-twice, grab-a-beer-as-soon-as-you-get-home work day. It's simple enough but turned into the Greatest Sammich in the World, as you can clearly read from the post title. It is champagne dijon mustard, sauteed mushrooms and broccoli (with Braggs and nooch), pan-fried veggie dogs, and more champagne dijon mustard, all on Ezekiel sprouted bread.

I don't like to keep meat alternatives around, because a) they tend to be highly processed and b) they don't exactly promote a healthy lifestyle. But sometimes, Manager's Special, you know? Plus you can never tell when a hungry gaggle of touring punk bands will roll through your town. So I buy 'em on clearance and give them a home in the freezer.

More to come, on rare days off.

Speaking of days off - have you watched John Green's last Crash Course in World History episode of all time yet? Globalization - Good or Bad? Check it out.

Strawberry Glazed Cashews

MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

By that I of course mean, "Oh look, it's Valentine's Day, so that means I have an excuse to make sweet treats for my friends. I mean my co-workers. Oh hell they're all the same people."

There are currently 23 other baristas employed at my sweet little Starbucks, and because each one of them is a precious soul who I never ever gossip about or get frustrated with, I wanted to make each person feel special and loved on this day of days. This glorious holiday that we look forward to each year. So I bought some Power Rangers valentines and decided to seal the deal with these goodie bags filled with dark chocolate and strawberry glazed cashews.

These are relatively simple, provided you have the patience for them to dry. Here's what you'll need for a smaller serving of about a dozen:

3 cups cashews (these can be raw/unsalted if you're feeling rather healthy. I think they may come out better if they are. I only could afford the salted kind)

1 cup chopped strawberries

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

First, toast the cashews at 250 for about 20 minutes, then give them a good toss and stick them back in for another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, throw your strawberries in a food processor, and process until pureed. Heat your strawberries in a large pot on medium low, mixing in the sugar and vanilla and stirring every few minutes. Once you're sure the cashews are well toasted, stir them into the strawberry mix. 

Heat these juts a few minutes. More competent cooks will take this opportunity to rant about candy thermometers and the importance of maintaining a controlled temperature, but as you might guess, I have no clue as to these sorts of things. Just eyeball it, you know? Until everything is heated and sticky and goopy and delicious-looking.

Then remove these from heat and stick them back in the oven at 350 for about a half hour. Remove and let cool, for like, a while. I threw mine on parchment paper, and spread them out evenly so that each cashew has a little space to chill. If there are spaces and clumps that are too gloopy, get rid of some of that strawberry gloop. This will make them really hard to cool.

I let mine cool for a day, but I'm sure there's a better way to do this. Dehydrator? Living in Tempe, Arizona? Hair dryer? Different recipe? No clue. 

So happy Valentine's Day to all! I leave you with a love poem from one of my favorite writers:

What Love Does

Billy Collins

A fine thing, or so it sounds

on the radio in the summer

with all the windows rolled down.

Yet it pierces not only the heart

but the eyeball and the scrotum

and the little target of the nipple with arrows.

It turns everything into a symbol

like a storm that breaks loose

in the final chapter of a long novel.

And it may add sparkle to a morning,

or deepen a night

when the bed is ringed with fire.

It teaches you new joys 

and new maneuvers --

the takedown, the reversal, the escape.

But mostly it comes and goes,

a bee visiting the center

of one flower, then another.

Even as the ink is drying

on her name, it is off

to visit someone in another city,

a city with two steeples,

rows of brick chimney pots,

and a school with a tree-lined entrance.

It will travel through the night to get there,

and it will arrive like an archangel

through an iron gate no one ever seemed to notice before.

<3

Sweet Rosemary Turnip Chips

And for my weekly plebeian confession to you, I've never really cooked with turnips. But my dear friends at the Bowling Green Community Farmer's Market supplied me with these and here we are. Like any good root vegetable, they are quite versatile - they're good roasted, mashed, fried, baked, boiled, thrown at moving vehicles. So today I made chips out of these suckers, on account of that's what we do with new vegetables.

Honest, these would truly be more "chip-like" fried, but it's 2013 and we need to be good to our bodies, yes? So preheat your oven to 400 and start slicing. Here's what you'll need:

A bundle of turnips - how many did I use here? Unsure. Maybe 6. Again, new to this.

a tablespoon or two of olive oil

2 tsp dried rosemary

1 T honey (or agave if you're not down with honey. One of these days I might post a rant about why I vehemently support local honey, why I'm vegan, and why I think it is important to be good to our earth and our bodies. One day!)

So this is simple. Now that your oven is heating, search the house for the best slicing knife you have. It's good to slice these as thinly as you can. Hell, use of them fancy burshz-wah slicing attachments to your food processor, I don't care. Of course, first you need to rinse and peel your turnips, then get to slicing. (Balmorhea is good slicing music, if you were wondering.)

Toss these slices with remaining ingredients - olive oil, honey and rosemary. Then spread them on a baking sheet with as few slices piled on top of each other as possible. Stick those shits in the oven for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, remove from the oven and flip each slice with a fork. Because these are hot. Duh.Stick back in the oven for another 20 minutes. 

Voila! I served mine with sauteed broccoli and grape tomatoes. Yum dawg.

Holler if you're down with turnips - really, I could use some root vegetable inspiration. Rootspiration?

Sweet Corn Salsa

I could eat this early-autumn snack all day. Diced onion and red pepper with sweet corn, cilantro and lime juice. Perfect with avocado of course, and an Oktoberfest brew.

Fresh Spring Rolls

Favorite quick lunch: spring rolls filled with spinach, shredded carrot, tempeh and vermicelli.

Sauce is a mixture of Braggs, chunky peanut butter, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and garlic chili sauce.

Oreo Ice Cream Pops

Lazy day ice cream pops. These were made blending frozen bananas, biscoff spread, almond butter, almond milk, cocoa powder, cinnamon and maple syrup. I spooned them into an ice cube tray (ghetto) and stuck mini oreos in them (ghetto), only because that’s all I had in the house. Shrug.