Purple? Yes, purple. Purple sweet potatoes.

Sometimes the internet can be a bad thing. A bad influence. An enabler. Like Instagram for example. Of course I follow a number of food bloggers, restaurants, stores, and food companies. You have to, if you want to stay on trend. Frieda's Specialty Produce is one of the companies that I follow and love seeing all the interesting and unique kinds of produce they offer. Many of these fruits and vegetables are tropical and cannot be grown here in Iowa, and many more are rare or a fun hybrid of traditional vegetables. I was minding my business one evening, posting silly memes about rock stars and food, tossing some recipe ideas around in my head when Frieda's posted something that immediately caught my eye. Sweet potatoes. Ok, sure, I like sweet potatoes. Love them baked like a baked potato and they are a must have with holiday turkey. These ones though......these ones were........PURPLE!

Yes, purple! Bright Minnesota Vikings purple, and unlike many other purple hybrid vegetables, these beauties do not lose their color when cooked. Think about this for a minute, we have such colorful vegetables already, with all shades of greens, yellow, orange, red, tomatoes in a rainbow of colors, now we're adding a deep gorgeous purple to the mix? Yes!!!!

We eat with our eyes, as they say, so I didn't want to hide these guys under an ocean of marshmallow. I wanted to showcase not only the color but the nutrition and healthy fiber sweet potatoes provide. I wanted these potatoes to be front and center in whatever I made. First things first though, I have to actually find them and get my hands on a bag. This is not always an easy task. Des Moines is a big city, and we have big big grocery stores with all kinds of amazing produce but sometimes I miss out on something really wonderful, like the pink sweet corn some friends were able to snag last summer. By the time I got to the store- all sold out. The amazing folks at Frieda's made sure I didn't miss out. They reached out to me via Instagram and helped me track down a couple different locations in Des Moines where I'd be able to find the Stokes Purple Sweet Potato, and after work, I headed over to Trader Joe's and incredibly enough, got the LAST bag in the display. I went home with my 3 pounds of playthings and began to narrow down my recipe options.

Like I said, I did not want to treat these guys like an everyday sweet potato. I can do that, well, every day really, so I wanted to use them in a creative way. I love roasting vegetables, it brings out such a different flavor and texture, especially with sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are loaded with good things too, B vitamins, and loads of beta carotene which is so so good for us! I decided to cut up one or two, give them a little roast in the oven, and toss them with other bright fresh vegetables in a salad, lightly dressed with a honey vinaigrette to bring out the sweetness. Here is my unique take on salad.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Kale Salad Bowl

1 or 2 purple sweet potatoes
2-3 cups baby kale
2-3 cups baby spinach

6 scallions
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted slightly
Honey Dijon Vinaigrette
olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch cubes. Toss in a bowl with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread out onto foil lined baking sheet that's been sprayed with cooking spray. Roast the sweet potatoes at 400 15-25 minutes until tender. Allow to cool slightly.

Toss the baby kale and spinach together in a large bowl. Add the scallions and almonds. Toss with some of the vinaigrette. Add potato cubes and toss again.

Easy Honey Vinaigrette

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tb Dijon mustard

2 tb balsamic vinegar

2 tb honey

salt and pepper

Shake together in a jar until thoroughly emulsified.

But the REAL fun came when dreaming up ways to use the sweet potatoes in a very delicious way. I knew I just had to figure out a way to use this tasty tuber in a sweet recipe, a dessert of some kind. There were so many good options too- pudding, mousse, ice cream and sweet potato pie. If you have never had sweet potato pie, you simply must try it. It's a lot like pumpkin pie but the potatoes are so rich and smooth and the spices make the pie so warm and inviting. All you need a simple crown of whipped cream and you have pie perfection. Now, let's make it purple!

Crazy Purple Sweet Potato Pie

1 1/2 lb purple sweet potatoes
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup half and half
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
small pinch ground cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
one pastry shell

Bake the potatoes in a 400 degree oven until tender, 45-60 minutes. Allow to cool until cool enough to handle. Slip off the skins.

While potatoes are cooking, line a pie plate with pastry. Trim and crimp a tall edge. Cover and set aside in a cool place. I popped mine in the fridge.

Place the sweet potatoes in a bowl. Use a fork to break up and mash the potatoes, and beat in the softened butter until completely mixed in. Mix in all remaining ingredients.

Pour into pastry lined pie plate. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 50-60 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. You may need to cover the edge of the pastry halfway through baking time to prevent burning. Use foil or a pie protector if you have one. Cool completely and serve with whipped cream.

I used a small pie plate for mine, because we are a small household, and I had a little filling leftover so I baked that in a custard cup alongside. Baking in cups is a great gluten free option, too, if you omit the crust and spray well with cooking spray. Just look at the color of that filling! It tastes like autumn but looks like a pop of summer color.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 55: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Getting My Summer Tomato Fix

Summer is in full swing at The Little Lake House. The garden is growing well and loving the rain and warm temperatures. We are enjoying our second round of radishes, lots of lettuce and herbs, and patiently waiting for the real joys of summer gardening- peppers and tomatoes. Although the first tomatoes of the garden haven't ripened just yet, heirlooms are available at farmers markets all over. Of course I had to get some.

Since returning to work I thought I'd miss out on most of the farmers markets around. It's a long haul back home to my neck of the woods on farmers market day just to find all the good stuff has been sold. I had no idea that the farmers market would come to me- but that's exactly what has happened. The company I work for is very focused on creating a positive and healthy environment for employees and they have organized a farmers market on the campus every week. I just couldn't be more thrilled. Beautiful fresh produce is such a huge part of our diet, especially in the summer months, and fit perfectly into tonight's dinner.

I mentioned tomatoes. This year in the garden we have an interesting variety or heirloom tomatoes growing. Almost all of them are cherry type, or small tomatoes. Chocolate cherry tomatoes, Gold Nugget, Indigo Rose and Indigo Blue Berries are all new to us. Yellow pear berries and good old red cherry tomatoes complete our tomato crop. I chose these tomatoes because of their colors and flavors. What an interesting pico de gallo, salad and salsa they will make, not to mention great eating off the plant while enjoying breezy evenings on the deck. 

I'm a firm believer in salads as a main course. You don't need a heavy dinner every night, don't need meat or dairy products like cheese. A big bowl of fresh vegetables sprinkled with a light dressing and not overloaded with pasta or grain is exactly the kind of salad I'm looking for. I am all about vinaigrettes. It's hard to beat this dressing for maximum flavor and minimal fat. Get rid of that ranch and commercial dressing- make your own in seconds with ingredients you probably have in the cupboard.

Summertime Cous Cous Salad

1 1/2 cups cous cous (I used Trader Joe's whole wheat cous cous)

1 1/2 cups water

pinch of salt

1 medium bell pepper, chopped (I used half yellow and half orange)

6 scallions, sliced

2 cups mixed small tomatoes, halved or quartered

1/4 cup chopped mixed olives

handful Italian parsley, chopped

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons vinegar (I used my own chive infused- use whatever kind you like)

6 tablespoons olive oil

juice of one half lemon

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring the water to boil in a small saucepan. Add the cous cous, stir, cover and let sit off the heat for 5 minutes.

Combine the vegetables in a large salad bowl. In a jar combine the mustard, vinegar, oil and lemon juice. Shake well to combine. Set aside.

When the cous cous has absorbed all the water, fluff with a fork and toss with the vegetables. Drizzle half the dressing over; toss well. Drizzle with remaining dressing. Toss again. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

You don't need meat to get your fill with a salad like that! Fill up on colors with all those veg- and switch it up every time you make it and it's like a new dish each time. Use what's in season and fresh and you'll never go wrong. Later in the summer when I make this again I'll add a little bit of fresh hot hot hot pepper to add a kick and warm things up.

Momma Said Eat Your Greens

Eat your greens? How many times did you hear that growing up, while sitting at the kitchen table, staring forlornly at a lukewarm pile of the dreaded spinach? I heard it a few times. I didn't mind spinach and salad, but if you put some other cooked leaf in front of me..... I was not likely to try it with gusto and clean my plate.

In this day of head to tail eating, and more concern about food waste, people are rethinking the parts of plants we eat and the parts we discard. In particular, the greens. Sure, we have been eating things like turnips greens and mustard greens for ages, but today as I pulled the first batch of radishes from the garden I wondered, what can I do with these greens?

Radish greens are a little unusual. They are a little "prickly" but not overly so. As long as you don't let the radishes grow into tennis ball size radishes, the leaves stay pretty tender. So I began my quest for information and recipes, and suggestions.

I found several recipes for cooked radish greens. Sauteed with garlic and olive oil, or tossed with Asian flavors like sesame oil and soy sauce. Sound pretty decent. One friend told me they like to chop the greens, saute them briefly and toss with crispy fried potatoes. Interesting. I might consider trying that. I also got suggestions to swap the radish greens for basil and make pesto. Huh.... might try that too.

Fresh and crunchy radish greens

I'm much more likely to try them raw, in salads. I really like unusual lettuces and leafy herbs in salads, and I'm pretty sure the peppery taste of the radish leaf would be very happy in my salad bowl. My first harvest of radishes yielded a quart sized bag of radishes and a gallon sized bag of greens, so I have a good amount to test, taste and experiment with.

So let's start with the cooked greens. A quick stir fry with some garlic, sesame seeds and a splash of soy sauce seems to be the way to go. I really love Asian flavors so that's the game plan.

We're going to start by giving the greens a rough chop. I don't want it too small, just not whole leaves. Set aside.

Heat a tablespoons or so of cooking oil in a large skillet. I am adding 2 cloves of fresh garlic that have been bruised/smashed to allow the flavor to diffuse into the oil. Stir fry the garlic for a couple minutes. 

Add the radish greens and cook, tossing to coat evenly with the garlic-infused oil. Stir fry until just wilted. Add sesame seed to taste, and a dash or so of soy sauce. Discard the garlic cloves and serve.

The verdict? Not bad. The greens are mild and remind me of spinach and similar green leafy vegetables. I'd make this again for sure. I imagine they would be really good added to Dragon Noodles.

Leaf lettuce fresh picked from the garden 

In a salad it's super easy- just chop or tear the leaves into bite-sized pieces and toss with mixed salad greens and vegetables. Don't drown a beautiful fresh salad like this in ranch dressing. Make a quick vinaigrette with a beautiful vinegar like an herb infused vinegar. You can make these at home easily- just pack a couple handfuls of fresh herbs in a jar and add a cap or more of vinegar. Cap, shake and store at room temp for a week, then strain and use. Shake with some Dijon mustard, good olive oil, a squeeze of fresh lemon, salt and pepper and lightly dress the salad. So delicious and the freshness and flavors of all those vegetables comes right through. 

Easiest vinaigrette ever- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, 2 tb
vinegar and 6 tablespoons olive oil. Shake and pour over.

How was the salad? Awesome! The radish greens taste really good, nice and crispy and the stems are tender. The leaves, like I mentioned above, are a little "prickly" but when you eat then, you don't even notice. Tossed with the lettuce and veggies it makes a delicious salad green.

Home grown radishes are by far the best!

I paired the radish greens with an equal amount of leaf lettuce, also from the garden, radishes from the garden, grape tomatoes and chopped carrots, tossed in a Dijon vinaigrette. It was light and perfect. I can't wait for the next crop of radishes! 

Now I'm anxious to check out other leafy greens that I can grow and eat. Of course I have several different lettuce varieties and kale growing, but also beets- beet greens are often cooked and eaten. Time to explore the wide world of leafy deliciousness!