Boy did I ever want to go get Thai food tonight. Sean’s away on a business trip, and my Wednesdays are pretty long and tiring, and I have been nursing a hankering for red curry for several days now. But I’m in money-saving mode, so I did my damnedest to resist. I felt a bit mopey on the long ride home from Santa Cruz, through thinking how bare my fridge is, and how much work I need to get done tonight, and how all signs were pointing to a lackluster dinner. When I got home, I rallied with some apples and peanut butter, and forced myself to work out, knowing my mood and energy levels are always better afterwards.
About ten minutes into my workout I had a sudden brain-wave, and remembered there was still a sweet potato down at the bottom of my vegetable drawer. The day immediately brightened! I paused the dvd and quickly preheated the oven to 375, while I cut the sweet potato into quarters, for quicker cooking. I’m not very experienced with sweet potatoes, having only recently gotten into them on the advice of Dr. Mao, slick L.A. acupuncturist to the stars (he has slightly cheesy but oh so procrastination-friendly video blogs on all the foods that are good for you according to Traditional Chinese Medicine). Sweet potatoes were never our thing growing up, and we never had them at Thanksgiving, so thankfully I didn’t develop an aversion to them, as many people seem to have. Sweet potatoes (or yams, I suppose) at Thanksgiving are traditionally made too sweet, in my view, because people add to their already significant sweetness, which takes them way out of balance. And balance, of course, is the key! It’s too bad, because sweet potatoes are an entirely different creature if you veer away from adding sweetness, and make it more savory. It’s worth trying out, even if you think you don’t like it. It is so good for you—really a powerhouse of nutrition for how little it costs.
Tonight, I slicked my sweet potato quarters with a healthy glug of olive oil, some grinds of pepper, and a generous couple of pinches of dried sage. I put them in a small roasting pan, along with a clove or three of garlic, covered with foil, stuck in the oven, and went back to my workout. This is fairly typical mid-week improvisation for me, unless I’ve gotten it together to make a truly epic amount of food for leftovers on Sunday afternoon. My approach to the oven horrifies my sister, a scientifically-minded baking enthusiast. In a single cooking session I turn the heat up, down, lengthen cooking times, change my mind about what should be in pan, and cause all sorts of havoc, but it seems to turn out all right in the end. Tonight, I took a couple of breaks during exercise to adjust the oven, and then just turned it to warm while I showered.
The only other significant produce in my vegetable drawer was an aging head of red leaf lettuce. When I’m alone, I seem to manage an odd balance of minimalist and self-indulgent in my cooking, so it struck me that the best possible thing to put on top of my lettuce was chopped anchovies. My abiding passion for all forms of preserved fish speaks to my familial roots along the North Sea…I love pickled herrings, anchovies, boquerones, all manner of smoked trout, salmon, mackerel, eel. It’s the puckering briny saltiness of it all…just, just …YUM! So, when I’m cooking for myself, I feel no need to fancy up a dish of chopped lettuce and anchovies.
Once my salad was put together, and sprinkled with olive oil and red wine vinegar, I grabbed my sweet potatoes, and was pleasantly surprised to discover the skins peeled right off, with out any fuss. If you’re not a huge garlic fiend like I am, you might be content to just redrizzle your sweet potato spears with the garlic infused olive oil. But if you ARE a garlic fiend, mush the roasted garlic into the potatoes and eat it all up. Yum. I took a photo, even though this was about at the bottom of the list of memorable meals I’ve made in my lifetime.
It wasn’t so heavy on protein, but I had just had peanut butter before exercising, so I wasn't too worked up about it. The salad and sweet potato didn’t go together well at all. So, I just took them in courses. I started with the salad, which was delightful in its sour, briny simplicity, and the sweet potato, on its own, was awesome, and just sweet enough to make me feel like I didn’t need dessert. I felt fully satiated afterwards, and pretty pleased with the unexpected success of my barely-there dinner. My students are lucky—I’m going to grade papers in a much better mood now! I will post the photo as soon as I’ve found my damn cable!
Eat well, everybody!
Sweet potatoes are the KING! I always have a small stash in my veggie drawer, but they are so damn expensive here in Belgium....
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad that they are so expensive. You'd think root vegetables in winter would be fundamentally inexpensive. Perhaps they just don't grow well in Belgium? I do love them....
ReplyDelete