Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos

Watch out Taco Loco. I think I may have just kicked your ass in our competition for best vegetarian tacos.

Oh, you didn't know there was a competition going on?

I see.

Well.

There was.

Your head ... er... hard candy... shell.

You're in second place. And, don't worry, I wouldn't ever even try to make a better mushroom-tofu taco than the badboys you offer. Those are super good.

Almost as good as my sweet potato and black bean tacos.

Almost.

So I was inspired to make these when I had some sweet potato black bean tacos at the farmer's market a couple weeks ago. The Chef Shack was offering them and everything I've ever had from the Chef Shack - purveyor of fine foods such as bacon bratwursts with bacon ketchup and Indian-spiced mini doughnuts and a soft-shell crab sandwich with grilled ramps - has been exquisite, so I had high hopes. High hopes are dangerous though, especially when you finally get to watching those movies that everyone has raved about for over a decade (e.g. Pulp Fiction and Usual Suspects), and, apparently, also when you try sweet potato tacos from the Chef Shack. Don't get me wrong. Like Pulp Fiction and Usual Suspects, they weren't bad. And the portion was large, which I always like. But they definitely didn't blow my mind or even knock my socks off. They didn't even meet my expectations. The sweet potatoes were rather plainly cooked and pureed (think baby food) and the black beans were unseasoned (think canned). The guacamole and queso fresco were the best parts - hence their appearance in the recipe herein. The idea was so good though. My mission was clear.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos

Inspired by The Chef Shack, with some guidance from Mark Bittman* via Sassy Radish

Yield: 3-4 servings

1-2 large sweet potatoes (about 1.5 pounds), chopped into 1/2" pieces

1/2 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

salt & pepper

1/4 teaspoon cumin

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 cup black beans**

5 small radishes, coarsely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 clove garlic

1 hot red chile, seeds removed

1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

corn tortillas

1 avocado, sliced, or 1/2 cup guacamole

queso fresco

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss chopped sweet potatoes and onion with 2 tablespoons olive oil and place on a baking sheet that fits them all in one layer. Season with salt, pepper, and cumin. Roast in oven for 30 minutes, flipping the vegetables about half-way through. Remove from the oven and let cool a bit.

In a food processor or blender, puree the garlic, chile, cilantro, and lime juice until blended. Drizzle in the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. In a bowl, toss the black beans and radishes with the dressing.

To assemble the tacos, fill warmed tortillas with about a quarter cup of the sweet potatoes and onion, then the same portion of black beans and radishes, top with crumbled queso fresco and avocado slices or a dollop or three of guacamole.

Great date food! No - that was a joke. These are as messy as they are tasty. Which means v. messy.

* You might need a NY Times account to see the recipe. It's a sweet potato and black bean salad recipe and sounds delicious. An account is free. (You don't need an account for Sassy Radish though, and I think she includes Mr. Bittman's recipe verbatim.)

** I have been on a dry beans kick lately, and the black beans I made for these tacos were delicious, so here's where I tell you how it worked: (1) Rinse and drain dried black beans and then put them in a saucepan and cover with fresh, unsalted water. (You want about an inch or two more water than beans.) Bring water to boil and boil for 2 minutes. Turn off stove, cover the saucepan and let the beans soak for two hours. This is a presoaking shortcut. Alternatively, you could soak them overnight without using the stove at all. (2) Drain the beans and then put them back in the pan and cover them with fresh, unsalted water again. Bring to boil, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes (you can check them at about 30 minutes). (3) Don't drain the water yet! Add 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds and/or 1 teaspoon dried oregano. Give the beans and seasoned water a stir and let the beans soak for about ten minutes. Drain and rinse. Now they are lightly seasoned and ready to go.

Baked Pepper-Crusted Salmon with Absolutely Magically Delicious Mango (+ Peach) Sauce

I wasn't kidding when I said "absolutely magically delicious." This mango sauce is just really, truly, absolutely, something v. special. Perfectly sweet and herby all at once. Guest-worthy for sure. Great on salmon, possibly even better on tortilla chips, and I'm sure it would be a lovely accompaniment to pretty much anything grilled - fish, chicken, pork (do people grill pork?), hot dogs (well, okay, maybe not hot dogs, but I wouldn't judge you for trying it (yes, you, Charlotte)), tofu, maybe even summer squash or red peppers. If only we had a grill. (Sigh.)

Basically, it's what you hope to get every time you try mango salsa but end up just a little disappointed. It's perfect.

And while we're on the topic of perfect - just to clarify something about this blog - not everything I make is perfect. I mean, heck, I've made chickpea blondies. NOT PERFECT. (I believe the comments in response to those particular alterna-blondies ranged from "these were actually baked?" to "they taste like refried beans mixed with sugar".) So, yeah, I fail a fair amount of the time and I also compromise. Plus, a lot of our meals are really random. I mention all this simply to highlight that this blog is not about my random kitchen exploits. I really only put things here that I think are wonderful and worth sharing. And I try to only put things here that I've owned enough to not feel like a super poacher - though there are exceptions because, well, if I find a good recipe that's perfect as is, I might as well pass it on to people who read my blog because they probably like the same kinds of food that I like, right? It's the polite thing to do, I guess, so long as credit is given where due, and it always is. So anyway, if it seems like I'm always gushing about what I make in the kitchen, it's not because I'm consistently amazing in the kitchen or even that I think I'm consistently amazing in the kitchen. It's because I'm only sharing the gushables.

Like absolutely magically delicious mango sauce. For instance.

Other blogs do a good job testing recipes for you and eloquently, with a great deal of wit and charm, explaining why certain recipes are just not worth the effort. That's just not my bag though. Baby. If it's posted here, it was worth not only the effort of cooking it but also the effort of photographing and typing it.

And that's that.

And this is the recipe I've been withholding whilst ranting.

Enjoy.

Make sure you have a bag of good tortilla chips nearby. You know, for taste-testing along the way. Obvi.

(That's the mise en place photo, taken with my MacBook's Photo Booth app because my camera battery was dead.)

Baked Pepper-Crusted Salmon with Absolutely Magically Delicious Mango (and Peach) Sauce
Adapted from The Mix Magazine, May/June 2010
Yield: 4 servings, and probably some leftover sauce, unless you ate it all on those tortilla chips

1 pound filet of Alaskan wild-caught salmon
freshly ground pepper
coarse sea salt or fleur de sel

1 jalapeño or other fresh, relatively spicy red or green chile, seeds removed
2 cloves garlic
1 medium ripe mango (or, if your mango doesn't produce as much flesh as you'd like, one mango + one peach), pitted and peeled (I didn't peel the peach)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro

To make the salmon, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place salmon, skin-side down, on a large piece of aluminum foil. Coat the top side of the salmon heavily with pepper, and not quite as heavily with salt. (I actually over-salted this. I didn't think that was possible but it is. There was some scraping off the salty crust while eating. Keep in mind, as I often forget to do, that you can always add more salt later.) Fold aluminum foil to make an enclosed tent around salmon. There should be no holes, but the foil shouldn't be lying flat on top of the salmon. Mine probably had a one-inch space, and it worked beautifully. Bake for about 20 minutes, then check on it to see if it's cooked through. (I just cut into the thickest middle part to see if it was opaque. I had to bake it about thirty minutes total.)

While salmon is baking, make the absolutely magically delicious mango (+ peach) sauce. In a food processor or blender, mince the chile and garlic. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then add the mango (and peach) and process to chop as finely as possible, for about a minute or so. Add the salt, coconut milk, and lime juice and process until smooth. Add the cilantro and pulse until it is finely chopped and well-combined into the sauce. This stores well in the refrigerator for a few days.

To serve, cut the salmon into four portions and drizzle (heavily) with mango sauce. We ate ours with peachy quinoa salad and they quite flattered one another.

Carrot Date Sunflower Seed Muffins

I've mentioned before that I have a nut allergy. Generally not a big deal, but, on occasion, particularly the kind of occasion that involves muffins or scones or Wall Drug cinnamon rolls - the gooey, sickeningly sweet ones that you think about for five hundred miles as you drive past five hundred Wall Drug cinnamon roll billboards, the ones begging you to forget that other state you are trying to get to before sundown and just give in, pull over and taste the best cinnamon roll of your life, the ones that you throw your ETA to the wind for and you succumb to just to find out that they are actually disguised killers, unavailable without pecans or walnuts - yes, on occasions like that the allergy gets a little inconvenient.

I just love breakfast pastries. So much. So so so much.

One of the two local coffee shops I frequent, Moose & Sadie's, is among the growing number of restaurants that is hyper-cognizant of the growing number of people with nut allergies, so they label everything with great detail and they also always always always offer several no-nut treats. And then, right when you think they couldn't be more perfect, they throw in sunflower seeds in lieu of nuts, because, evidently, they know that some of us might want to occasionally experience the crunchy bits in our muffins that you nut-tolerant people probably take for granted. And then - then! - with those crunchy, non-lethal bits, you happen to get one of the best muffins you've ever tasted. And that is why Moose & Sadie's is the best place on earth. (And they don't need five hundred billboards to prove that.)

The muffin recipe below is my version of Moose & Sadie's Carrot-Date-Sunflower Seed Muffin. If I may be so bold, I'm going to go ahead and say that it is quite comparable in tastiness. And I added bran so it's healthy too, right?

(No. It's not healthy really. It's not awful, but it's not healthy. Bake and eat at your waistline's own risk.)

I hope you like them. I really think you will.

Carrot Date Sunflower Seed Muffins

Yield: 18 muffins

Adapted generously from this carrot muffin recipe, which I'm sure is also quite good

1 1/3 cup flour

2/3 cup oat bran

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

½ pound shredded carrots (about 2 medium carrots)

½ to 1 cup chopped dates (or, better yet, the coconut-covered kind at co-ops and natural grocery stores)

½ cup raw sunflower seeds (they will toast in the muffins while baking)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter your muffin pan.

Mix all the dry ingredients (flour through salt) in a bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the brown sugar, eggs, and oil until well mixed. Add the vanilla. Pour into the flour mixture. Stir in the carrots and dates and sunflower seeds.

Distribute batter in muffin pans so that each cup is about two-thirds full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a knife place in center-most muffin comes out clean. Let cool a few minutes before removing.

These store in an air-tight container for a good week and freeze v. well. Just microwave them for 20 seconds and enjoy.

Peach Brown Bettys

I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe yet! What was I thinking? I was like blah blah blah cocktails, blah blah blah quinoa and all its boring protein, blah blah blah presto pesto. But let's be honest - dessert is what we're all here for, right? I thought so.

I've been such a slacker.

I think part of it is that I gained several pounds when my parents and nephew recently visited for a week.

Another part is that I got SEVEN BAGS OF LEAFY GREENS in our first CSA share last week, so I've been sort of preoccupied with trying to use those up in blog-worthy, beautiful concoctions.

So I haven't been making as many desserts lately. But "not as many" is not the same as "none".

So here we are.

And what I have to share with you, actually, is one of the more interesting and remarkable desserts I've happened to make, maybe ever. As of a couple weeks ago, I'd never heard of a brown betty before. (Only surf bettys, because I grew up in the surfingest county in California: Santa Cruz.) But then the Smitten Kitchen featured a lovely little brown buttered brown betty recipe with strawberries that piqued my interest. Except that browning butter seemed like more work than I was up for on the day I made these. And I don't love cooked strawberries. So I went straight to the source and crafted these here darlings.

These are what I ended up making for my little dinner gathering with the peachy quinoa salad and feta sandwiches and round two of the St. Germain cocktails. They turned out delicious and attractive and were a perfect follow-up to a light, picnicky meal. Basically, they're like a buttery, unabashedly sweet, fruit-filled pastry. Topped with cinnamon whipped cream, they are nothing short of wonderful.

You should probably make them.

Peach Brown Bettys with Cinnamon Whipped Cream

Adapted from Gourmet, April 2009

Yield: 6 little lovelies

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted (plus more for greasing muffin cups)

1 tablespoon cinnamon-sugar (you can buy this at store or just mix 3-1/2 teaspoons sugar with 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon)

7 slices fresh white bread, crusts removed (I used vanilla challah and it was wonderful; I bet King's Hawaiian bread would be super good as well)

3 peaches (or nectarines), coarsely chopped

1/3 cup brown sugar (or regular sugar, in a pinch)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Using a blender or food processor, pulse one slice of the white bread to make coarse crumbs. Spread crumbs evenly on a baking sheet and bake in oven for 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from oven and set aside.

Meanwhile, lightly butter six of a muffin tin's muffin cups, then sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar.

Roll remaining six bread slices with a rolling pin to flatten. Brush both sides with melted butter, then gently fit into muffin cups. (This is a little trickier than it sounds, but totally doable. Just anticipate that it will take slightly more time than you imagined, and don't freak out of they don't look beautiful in the cups before they are filled and baked into the beautiful brown bettys that they will soon be.)

In a small bowl, stir together peaches, brown sugar and cinnamon, tossing to coat. Stir in the bread crumbs and remaining melted butter. Heap peach mixture evenly into cups.

Cover pan with foil and bake 15 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 minutes more. Let stand 5 minutes before removing from pan. To remove them, run a thin spatula or knife around the edges. Serve warm or at room temperature, topped with cinnamon whipped cream. (They are better warm. But don't tell my guests that. I don't want them to know they got the short end of the stick.)

To make Cinnamon Whipped Cream: in a cold mixing bowl, beat on high speed half a cup of heavy whipping cream with 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon until fluffy and wonderful. Chill until ready to use.