Coconut Purple Potato Mash

Can't wait to share with you my newest discovery - delicious, beautiful and, the most important, healthy Japanese sweet purple potato, pureed with coconut milk and served with freshly toasted almond flakes. Easy!

Blog's Category: Appetizer, Awesome Findings, Dessert, Effortless, Healthy, International, Kid's Favorite, My Own Fast and Easy, Perfect Breakfast, Side Dish, Vegetarian, Warm Appetizer

In a Few Words ...

- My biggest problem with this recipe was how to categorize it - is it side dish, or is it dessert, or is it appetizer. I had no doubt it is a great comfort food and may be a perfect choice for kids, especially for cooking with kids hence it's simplicity and visual appeal. BTW, if you want your kid to eat some particular food - get him to cook it with you!

- As far as I know, sweet purple potato is a popular food item in Japan, Hawaii. There is a several varieties of sweet purple potato. This particular one has light-beige skin and a beautiful light-purple and white-ish flesh when raw. Light-purple flesh, while cooking, becomes deep purple and gives amazing color to everything it is added to. 

- My recipe is an adaptation of a simple common recipe when boiled potato mashed with a coconut milk. I have decided to add some bling to it in a form of extra splashes of coconut milk on top and some toasted almond flakes. Result has exceeded my most optimistic expectations, it was so tasty, and fluffy, and lightly naturally sweet.

- Almost the same important aspect of this recipe as taste is the fact it is very easy to cook - peel, boil, mash, voila!

- Yes, the color knocks you out!


Couple Tips

- Use nice quality canned coconut milk for it. 

- I buy Sweet Purple Japanese potato at my local Asian grocery store. Refer to pictures below to identify this kind of sweet potato. Our regular grocery store's purple potato is small, round, with a dark-purple skin and it is not the same.

Coconut Sweet Purple Potato Mash

For 4 servings:

• 2 Purple Sweet Japanese potatoes, peeled and cut in a large chunks
• 2/3 can of good quality coconut milk
• 4 tbs freshly toasted almond flakes
• 1/2 tsp salt

- Place potato into a pot with a cold water, add salt, bring to a boil. Then cook on a medium heat for about 20-30 minutes or until soft and fully cooked.

- Drain water. Mash with a potato masher nicely. Add about 1/2 cup of coconut milk and mash again. 

- Serve warm, with a coconut milk, poured on a top and around. Sprinkle with almond. Enjoy!



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In Pictures

Nature is amazing creating such an interesting vegetable... Nothing on outside tells you that you can get that beautifully purple potato puree out of it :) If you see there, I picked a bit of flesh to make sure it is purple inside ;)

Beauty revealed!

Not that purple ..yet.

Now it is very dark purple.. funny. Water is like ink. Discard it though. We won't use it.

Mash it thorougly first.

Now add coconut milk.

Oi! What a color!

FYI - it is light and fluffy but pretty filling. So make portions appropriately :)

Roasted Yellow Squash with Goat Cheese

Super simple, super healthy and super delicious. This recipe for a yellow summer squash, roasted with a goat cheese, is a perfect recipe for weekday home dinner as well as for celebration table or summer barbecue weekend. 

Blog's Category: Effortless, Healthy, Hors D'oeuvre, My Own Fast and Easy, My Staple Food, Vegetarian

In - A - Nutshell

- Goat cheese is a key for this recipe. I have tried this recipe with different kinds of cheese - goat cheese wins! It doesn't melt completely, rather becomes soft, very flavorful, it's pudginess calms and transforms into bright umami aftertaste.
- It is one of the few roasted vegetable recipes that takes literally 5 minutes to prepare, requires a very few ingredients and takes just 15 minutes to bake.
- When in a hurry, I use my toaster oven and pop squash, topped with cheese mixture, even without bothering to preheat it - easy breezy.
- If using foil, you can even skip the "favorite" part - washing dishes ;)
- Recipe does not call for salt because combination of light saltiness of cheese mixture and natural sweetness of squash is awesome-est! 

Roasted Yellow Squash with Goat Cheese

• 3 yellow summer squash, sliced in half
• 3 tbs goat cheese (about 2 " of log)
• 1 tbs mayonnaise
• extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
• freshly ground black pepper

- Preheat oven to 400F.

- Mix goat cheese with mayo.

- Place squash halves on a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, mill some black pepper on top and loosely spread cheese mixture on top.

- Roast for about 15 minutes or until cheese get some color.

- Enjoy!



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In Pictures

Chickpeas with Bacon

Have ever heard about traditional Latvian dish - grey peas with bacon? Presumably, if you ever tried it, you will remember it for the rest of your life... Well, here is an adapted version of it made with chickpeas. 

Blog's Category: Healthy, International, My Own Fast and Easy, Vegetarian, Effortless

Intro

One of my Facebook friends made a post about that traditional Latvian peas cooked with bacon. There was a raving review of this dish, impressive enough to get me on board and make me research into the matter.. The problem was - grey peas used for this dish is actually a locally grown peas, which is impossible to obtain anywhere else. I figured, the closest legume would be black chickpeas, called Kala Chana at my local Indian store, a place where a lot of my ingredients come from in general.

Kala Chana, a black chickpeas, are not the same as your regular chickpeas. They have tougher skin, a more earthy flavor. You have to cook them longer too.

Traditionally, in Latvia, grey peas with bacon are served with a cup of buttermilk. I have to tell you, now from my own and my close folks experience, buttermilk comes with this dish as french fries with a ketchup, or milk with a cookie, and so on...


What is it?

It is a very simple fare - pre-cooked chickpeas are pan-fried together with some onion and bacon. 

Taste Description

Do I even have to mention how heavenly that flavor is coming from fried bacon? But, I'm sure, I have to let you know how perfect pairing of bacon-ised peas and cold, whole-milk buttermilk is. Especially if you were generous on a black pepper, when you were cooking peas. If this combination seems odd to you, try to think of it as sour cream, which goes hand -to-hand with most of Mexican dishes ;) 

How to Serve

- Serve hot, or warm, with a glass of cold, whole-milk buttermilk.
- To make a complete meal, serve on top of steamed rice.


Note

- For myself, I cooked vegetarian version with olive oil and a lot of smoked paprika, added at the end. Yes, it has to be tried with a glass of nice buttermilk too!

- I'm sure, you can replace black chickpeas with a regular ones. It still will be fantastic. 

Latvian-like Chickpeas with Bacon

• 3 cups cooked black chickpeas (1.5 uncooked)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 lb thinly or thickly slices bacon, cut in small pieces
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• buttermilk (to serve with)

- I cook chickpeas in a pressure cooker without pre-soaking, in a lot of water and pinch of soda, for 1.5 hour.  For conventional way, soak chickpeas, with a pinch of soda, overnight. Then cook next day for about 2 hours until very soft inside (skin still will be a bit tough). 

- In a frying pan, cook onion and bacon until some fat will be rendered in a bottom.

- Rinse chickpeas and add it to a pan with onion and bacon. Cook on a medium heat to your liking - longer if you like it crunchier, less if you like it softer. Add salt and pepper at the end of cooking.

- It's done - enjoy!



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In Pictures

This is bag from my black chickpeas I bought at Indian grocery store.

This is dry black chick peas.

In a pressure cooker, before cooking...

This is hickory smoked thin sliced bacon. Although I would recommend apple wood smoked bacon - it's the best.

No crime here to get onion and bacon in a pan at the same time...

Don't forget to rinse your chickpeas before adding to bacon and onion.