Roasted Rosemary Sweet Potatoes

November 11, 2018November 12, 2018 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 14 Comments

Every Saturday morning, my husband, the dog and I head over to Richland Farmers Market, a happening and energetic place to shop in Nashville for organic vegetables and locally made food products. I am drawn to this market by both the variety of vegetables offered and the enthusiastic farmers, bakers, butchers, beekeepers, and fromagers who show up every weekend.

Last week, while visiting Corner Spring Farm’s booth, owner Marianne Cameron suggested I try the Japanese sweet potatoes she and her husband had grown. She told me they had a creamy and moist interior when cooked. The potatoes are oblong and have smudgy-red skin and white flesh.

I roasted them with an equal amount of regular sweet potatoes, chopped rosemary, salt, garlic pepper, and olive oil. Marianne was right, the interior of the Japanese potatoes was soooo creamy and delicious. I couldn’t get over the texture. I served them for dinner with Mom’s Meatloaf and blanched thick and meaty green beans — my favorite kind of dinner.

Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients
1 pound sweet potatoes, unpeeled
1 pound Japanese sweet potatoes, unpeeled
2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon McCormick’s California Style Garlic Pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425º

Scrub potatoes. Do not peel. Cut into 1½-in chunks. Arrange on a parchment-lined rimmed, sheet pan. Strip rosemary leaves from stems and chop. Sprinkle over potatoes. Add olive oil, salt, and garlic pepper. Toss ingredients together until well blended. Roast for 45 minutes on the middle rack of oven.

The Japanese sweet potatoes were so yummy, I went to Whole Foods to look for another popular variety I had been reading about, Stokes Purple Sweet Potatoes. I thought, together, the color combo would be exciting. Stokes Purples look like Japanese sweet potatoes on the outside, but the interior is solid purple. I cooked them using the same recipe as above. The colors were beautiful.

Sadly, I wasn’t as wild about the flavor of the roasted Stokes Purples. With the remaining three pounds of purple potatoes I had bought, I had another idea: make mashed purple sweet potatoes!

They were delicious. I used my recipe for Old-Fashioned Mashed Potatoes, substituting the Stokes Purples for the all-purpose potatoes. The mashed sweet potatoes were sweet, buttery, creamy, and eye-poppingly colorful and would sure look different on the Thanksgiving Day table! Speaking of which, Thanksgiving is eleven days away. Take a look at the list of recipes I’ve put together here!

Today is the fourth anniversary of Judy’s Chickens! It all started here!

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Karen’s Foolproof Make-Ahead Gravy

November 19, 2017November 25, 2020 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 26 Comments

I love nothing more in life than to sit around the table with friends and family of all generations and enjoy a meal filled with storytelling, good food, and laughs.

To get to the Thanksgiving dinner’s actual serving, I have to pass through a few cooking hurdles. For instance, I suffer from indecision every time I cut into the turkey thigh to test for doneness. Are the juices truly running clear, or are they still ever so slightly pink?

And then there is the gravy. So much mystery there.

If it’s not lumps, it’s blandness. Making a velvety smooth, full-bodied gravy has eluded me for years. It is the reason why, in the midst of the crazy hour before dinner, I nonchalantly ask, “Who wants to make gravy?” as if it were an afterthought instead of a worry. Thankfully, there is always someone who volunteers, often, my husband and his mother.

This week, I was talking food with my friend Karen Rolen, a joyful, spunky woman originally from Montgomery, Alabama. I asked her if she knew how to make gravy. She confidently and enthusiastically said, “Yes, I’ve been making it my whole life; where I come from, gravy is considered a BEVERAGE!” Her written instructions arrived the next morning.

“Make a light brown roux* with equal parts butter and all-purpose flour. I probably use ¼ to ½ stick of butter. Add hot turkey drippings and fonds** if you have them. Have two cups or so of heated chicken broth ready, and even if it’s good and homemade, have “Knorrs” or “Better Than Bullion” chicken base available for salt and seasoning later on. Slowly stir broth into the roux and drippings and boil them on medium-high until you get the consistency you want. Season to taste with lots of ground black pepper and chicken bullion. It’s usually good enough to drink!”

*To learn what a roux is, check out Bruce’s Turkey and Sausage Gumbo and learn why you should save the turkey carcass and trimmings this year.

**Fond is French for “base” and means the bits and pieces of browned meat or vegetables left in a pan after roasting or frying.

My goal was to tweak Karen’s instructions to create a flavorful and dependable gravy you could make a few days or hours before the holiday dinner.

Yield: Makes three cups (this recipe is easily doubled or cut in half)

Ingredients:

½ cup butter (1 stick)
½ cup all-purpose flour
4 cups (1 quart) heated boxed or homemade chicken broth
½ teaspoon ground pepper
¾ to 1½ squares of Knorr Chicken Bullion (for “seasoning to taste”)

Instructions:
Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Using a whisk, stir in the flour.

Stir continuously over medium heat until the roux starts to change color, usually about three minutes, give or take a few seconds. The picture on the left was taken at 2½ minutes. The one on the right was taken at three.

Think of the roux’s darkening color as “toasting” the flour. The roux should be medium brown when done. This cooking of the flour gives gravy its depth of flavor and that desired taste of nuttiness. I promise, if this is your first time making a roux, you are going to feel very accomplished as a cook once you make this gravy.

As soon as the roux changes color, whisk in the broth to stop the roux from cooking any longer. Whisk and simmer for about five minutes until the gravy thickens.

Stick with it, don’t let the flour stick to the bottom of the pan. Also, do not adjust the seasonings until after the gravy has finished cooking because as the liquid evaporates, the flavors will concentrate.

“Salt and Pepper to Taste”
Add the pepper first because it is easier to adjust. Next, instead of adding salt, Karen and I use Knorr’s bullion cubes for flavoring. The amount you need will depend on whether you use unsalted or salted butter and regular or low-sodium chicken broth.

To successfully “season to taste,” cut the Knorr bouillon cube into four quarters. Add one quarter at a time until you hit that magical point where the gravy suddenly tastes beautifully rich.

Notice how velvety smooth the gravy is.

Reheat the gravy in a saucepan just before serving. Feel free to add strained juices from the roasting pan, if desired.

If you wish to make your own chicken stock, consider these two posts to learn how: Chicken Stock from Rotisserie Chicken Bones and Rotisserie Chicken Soup, Revisited.

My friend, Renée, whose family likes to fry their turkey every year, reminds me there are no drippings for gravy-making when deep-frying a turkey, so plan accordingly.

Epilogue
Thanks to Karen Rolen for teaching me how to make gravy. I’ll think of her every Thanksgiving when I make it. Once I got Karen’s recipe adapted for this post, I took a sample of the gravy to my friends. They each tasted it and agreed it was indeed sippable! Thanks, Mary, Susie, Corabel, Jane, and Mary, for being taste-testers.

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Old-Fashioned Mashed Potatoes

August 19, 2017January 17, 2019 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 19 Comments

My grandson turned one this week, and in celebration, I wanted to make a birthday dinner full of foods he could eat by himself with his adorable little hands. I chose Judy’s Mom’s Meatloaf, Amazingly Delicious Sautéed Carrots, mashed potatoes and a funfetti cake.

He loved everything and entertained us all as he picked away at his food with focus and determination.

It has been easily five years since I last made a bowl of creamy, mashed potatoes. I’ve been roasting them for so long it hardly ever occurs to me to mash them anymore, but have I ever been missing out. They were good. The calorie count wasn’t too bad, either. I only used six tablespoons of butter and one-half cup of milk for three pounds of potatoes. I like to make mashed potatoes with a combination of Russets and Yukon Golds if I have both in the potato bin; Russets for their high starch content and Yukons for their great flavor.

When I looked at a photo of my dinner plate, its plainness brought back memories of my childhood dinners: starch, vegetable, protein. That threesome was a religion for my mother.

Ingredients

3 pounds potatoes (5-6 large), peeled and quartered
½ cup milk, whole or 2% reduced fat
6 tablespoons butter
Salt, to taste. I used ¾ teaspoon (plus the tablespoon that went into the potato water)
Pepper (optional)

Mise en Place

Instructions
Fill an 8-quart pot with water and one handful (1 tablespoon) of salt. Bring to a boil. You will want enough water to cover the potatoes by about an inch.

While waiting for the water to boil, peel and quarter the potatoes. Cut potatoes into uniform chunks, so that they will cook evenly.

When the water comes to a boil, add potatoes. Bring water back to a boil and set a timer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes of cooking, check for doneness by piercing a potato with a sharp knife. It should go in easily. If it doesn’t, add 5 more minutes of cooking time and test again. If you are not sure if they have cooked enough, just taste one. When finished cooking, drain potatoes in a colander and allow the steam to dry them. You want the potatoes to be hot and dry when you add the butter mixture.

Heat butter and milk in either a microwave or a saucepan until the butter is melted and the milk is hot, but not boiling.

Place potatoes in a bowl and mix for about 20 seconds on slow speed. Add the hot butter/milk mixture and ½ teaspoon of salt. Mix until potatoes reach the consistency you desire — lumpy or whipped.

“Salt to taste” Add more salt according to your taste preferences, realizing that the interior of the potatoes have already been salted while they were boiling and there is salt in the butter. To adjust salt: add salt in increments of ¼ teaspoon. For this batch, I only needed to add ¼ teaspoon more for a total of ¾ teaspoon.

Serve hot. They do not taste as delicious reheated. Better to store prepped, uncooked potatoes in a bowl of cold water until dinnertime and then cook, rather than make them earlier in the day.

Kitchen Tip: When you smell something bad or rotten, in the kitchen always check the potato bin first. That happened to me this week and sure enough, there was a rotting potato in my basket of homegrown new potatoes.

Related Posts
Judy’s Mom’s Meatloaf
Amazingly Delicious Sautéed Carrots

Always check the website for the most current version of a recipe. Thanks!

Outrageous Roasted Rosemary Cashews

July 28, 2017November 23, 2021 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 10 Comments

Warning: these nuts ~~can become~~ are addictive!

Even the reject batches turned into something absolutely wonderful.

I had been served roasted rosemary cashews twice, both times at The Nashville Food Project’s Patron’s Party for Nourish. I was smitten! After this year’s event, I cruised the Internet for a recipe and found that superstar chefs like Ina and Nigella and a slew of others had been writing about these “bar nuts” from the Union Square Cafe in New York City for years. I had to make them.

A few words about the ingredients:

The Nuts. I made this recipe using one-pound bags of raw (unroasted), unsalted, cashews from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. The pound bags cost $7.99 at both stores. Be forewarned — raw, unsalted, cashews are hard to find at traditional grocery stores. At the Union Square Cafe, they use a combination of raw nuts.

Kosher Salt versus Table Salt. If you use kosher salt, you will need to add more salt. Kosher salt has larger crystals than table salt. Thus the salt takes up more volume but has less weight in a measuring spoon. Plan on using 1¼ to 1½ tablespoons of kosher salt to 1 tablespoon of regular salt.

Kosher salt has larger crystals because historically it was manufactured for “koshering” meat, a process where large crystals of salt were rubbed onto meat to remove surface blood. If table salt had been used, it might have been absorbed by the meat. Eventually, the name “koshering salt” was reduced to kosher salt.

Olive oil versus Butter. I tried using olive oil instead of butter, but the seasonings wouldn’t stick to the nuts.

Yield: 6½ cups
Preheat oven to 350º

Ingredients:

2 pounds whole, raw, unsalted cashews
3 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary (from about ⅔ ounce of sprigs)
½ -¾ teaspoon cayenne pepper depending on how much heat you like
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon sea salt (if using kosher salt, you will need to use 1¼ to 1½ tablespoons)
2 tablespoons melted butter

Mise en Place:

Instructions:

Pour nuts into a large, rimmed, baking pan in a single layer. Roast for 10-12 minutes until very lightly browned.

Meanwhile, measure the seasonings and mince the fresh rosemary.

Melt the butter and add to the bowl of seasonings. Stir.

Immediately after removing nuts from oven, pour nuts into a large bowl and add the seasoning mixture. You could add the butter mixture directly to the pan and toss, but the nuts tend to spill out as you stir and much of the seasoning stays on the bottom of the pan. I think it’s better to mix in a bowl.

Let flavors meld for about ten minutes, occasionally stirring to distribute the seasonings evenly. Your house will smell divine. Serve warm or allow nuts to cool by spreading them in a roasting pan.

These nuts make great holiday and hostess gifts.

Roasted Rosemary Cashew Nut Butter

What did I do with my reject batches of roasted cashews? I tried making nut butter for the first time using my Vitamix processor. The results were amazing!! I’m so thrilled to have made something new that is so tasty. I processed the three pounds of nuts for only two minutes.