Purple Sweet Potato

I am always really delighted to see produce that comes in colors other than what is typically thought of when thinking of said produce. The first one that comes to mind is my sheer delight in coming across a whole bag of Peruvian potatoes a couple years ago. I made them into mashed potatoes and I tell you, they were the prettiest, starchiest, most lovely violet mashed potatoes that I have ever made. Imagine my delight in finding out that there is a purple sweet potato that comes from Okinawa, and another type that was lab-engineered to fight cancer! It may just be the same potato, I’m not quite sure. I guess they’re hard to find in the US unless you’re in Hawaii or California. I’d love to find these somewhere!

Carrots of many colors!

Carrots in colors other than orange are something I’ve known about for a while (and bought and used in cooking). There’s no change in the flavor, but they’re very pretty. I’d bought red carrots at the grocery store, and I’d bought a package of multicolored baby carrots at H-Mart last fall. Melissa’s has maroon carrots; sometimes you can buy bulk produce from their website, sometimes you can’t. Melissa’s is an excellent source of fun-colored veggies, actually. I’m considering ordering some stuff from the website right now, specifically a big ole’ box of baby vegetables (artichokes, beets, variety radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, potatoes, cauliflower, eggplant, squashes, leeks and carrots).  If there’s one thing that delights me just as much as color-variant produce, it’s tiny little baby produce! Cherry tomatoes, champagne grapes, baby zucchini, baby corn… so cute! So tiny!

Cauliflower in secondary colors

Cauliflower was one of the favorite vegetables of the unfortunate Atkins diet trend of the last decade. Cauliflower is super-delicious, though, and very versatile (my favorite method of preparation is roasting, as you can find on this very blog via my recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Soup). It, too, comes in fun color variants like purple and orange! I’ve seen/bought the orange cauliflower many moons ago, but I’ve definitely never seen the purple. I want to gather up all of these dang purple veggies/fruits and make something that makes use of all of them at once. Even to just have these out as crudites at your summer barbecue, how much fun is that? Maybe you could even convince kids who are all bratty about eating veggies to eat their veggies if they’re presented as being fun and cute as well as full of virtue and health-benefit. I want to see more of these at the grocery store!

Since yesterday afternoon, I have become aware of:

• Purple jalapenos
• A bunch of different varieties of lemon, including one with a striped skin
• Purple asparagus
• Purple artichokes
• Black radish
• Red corn
• Torpedo onions

I would like to try and find these things, but I especially think I want to try that Okinawan sweet potato!

Sausage with many ingredients!

A couple months ago or so, I went to my mom’s house where she made something rather fantastic for dinner. She told me that she’d been making such a thing for herself and my father a lot recently. She took sweet and hot Italian sausage and cooked them with garlic, sliced white onions, strips of roasted red pepper, pepperoncini, and some very tiny potatoes from Trader Joe’s. The dish was basically invented so she’d have something to do with these tiny potatoes. When it was all done, she’d cover it with some shredded cheese, and there you had a meal. Read the rest of this entry »

Ugh, what a crappy day.

I’ve had some ingredients lying around for a couple weeks to make rose truffles. I was going to make them for the Anime Boston staff dessert contest, but I ran out of time. I also got some other stuff that I wanted to mess with, including bamboo rice and Meyer lemons (I wanted to try making lemon curd)

As I’ve been doing virtually no cooking for a couple weeks for one reason or another, I’m itchy to cook something. I have been craving plantains and black beans like mad. I’ve been nagging my husband to go to a Cuban restaurant in Jamaica Plain, but he denies me this request because he feels parking in JP is a pain in the ass (which it is, but suck it up, mister). I decided I’d make some at home  instead. Armed with my newly-upgraded membership to the Cook’s Illustrated website so I can get at the “Editor’s Choice” recipes, I’ve got some recipes saved and some shopping lists created to make: twice-fried plantains (tostones); black beans with ham hocks, cilantro, and lime; roast pork loin with mojo and oranges; and baked long-grain rice. I think this could be pretty good, but first things first! We’ve got to clean the hell out of the fridge, do some dishes, tidy up the kitchen, and most importantly, we need ingredients. The husband’s taking a nap (he’s been up since pretty early this morning, so I’ll be good and patient). Maybe later, we can go get groceries. I’m excited to try making this stuff! There was also a recipe for Cuban-style oven-roasted pork shoulder, but I’d end up with enough pork for like 12 people, and there are two of us. Maybe I’ll save that one for another time; I don’t think I’m up to having buddies over this weekend as I’m getting over an MS flare-up and I still feel kinda crappy.