Your Custom Text Here
The Leftovers: Roasted Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Spread
I spent yesterday at my sister's place, kissing my niece's hands and telling her I love her. We showed her the Christmas lights and she stared in amazement at the colors. We ate off of paper plates on the couch and my mother said she was thankful that I was home now. I tried to fight off a nap and nearly lost. I was in bed by ten after finishing the first season of Fargo.
Today, I'm baking alone. I have the house to myself and I'm going to clean up my mess and then make a new one, I'm sure. But, like last year, here is a recipe for some of your leftovers - this time with sweet potatoes.
Roasted Sweet Potato and Goat Cheese Spread
This recipe is very forgiving, so feel free to use any kind of goat cheese you'd like. Further, this recipe outlines if you do not already have roasted sweet potatoes on hand -- if you do, then just use a cup or a cup and a half of your leftovers.
Ingredients:
- 1 large sweet potato, cut in half and pierced with a fork
- 1 TB olive oil
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 4 oz creamy goat cheese (I used Vermont Creamery's Spreadable Goat Cheese)
- 1 TB parsley
- 2 TB honey
- Pinch of salt and pepper
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425*F and lightly grease a shallow casserole dish or baking pan
- Place your sweet potato halves skin-side down in your prepared pan and drizzle with olive oil and pat a quarter cup of sugar on each
- Roast for 30 minutes or until fork-tender
- Remove from oven, allow to cool
- Remove from skins and place meat of your sweet potatoes and the caramelized sugar in a food processor
- Throw in remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. You may want to add a bit of greek yogurt to this if it is not as smooth as you would like
- Store in an airtight container for up to a week, use on toast for breakfast
The Leftovers: Mashed Potato Handpies
I’m giving thanks tomorrow, a gesture I have to remind myself to do daily. It’s not in my nature to be kind, to be considerate. It’s something I have to strive for. To hold my hands together to say prayers takes effort. It isn’t something that’s natural to me, how traits like how arrogance and greed are. They aren’t inborn in me like self-preservation. I’m looking forward to this exercise, this ritual, this practice in gratitude again.
Last year I hosted Thanksgiving and this year I will not be. I will be a guest, a stranger in a strange house. Maybe I’ll sleep on an air mattress or a couch, maybe I will fall asleep drunk each night with friends. Maybe I’ll get a tattoo on Saturday and maybe the turkey will burn; but one thing that is so soulfully constant, so unapologetically American is that we will cook too much food and get sick of it. We will make the leftovers into sandwiches by Saturday. Last year, I scrambled mashed potatoes in with eggs. One year, my mother made vegetable soup with the sweet potato casserole and poured it all down the drain when she tried it. And try as I might to continue on with tradition as an expat on the West Coast, I appreciate the constants. I appreciate a full table and the reinventions of meals to trick our exhausted stomachs. I appreciate the gathering. I appreciate the effort I put into saying, “Thank you.”
I’ll appreciate this desert holiday, how the world will stay silent. Where the highways crops up on sand dunes and Waffle Houses. How we can roll the windows down and scream what’s playing on the radio. How the world looks so giant in the rearview mirror, but the table is always a little too small for all of the extra food.
Mashed Potato Handpies
These handpies are borne from getting sick of the same old leftovers each year. I made mine with mashed potatoes, as a play on my beloved pierogies, but feel free to fill these with turkey, stuffing, or even go a sweet route with cranberry sauce and some creme fraiche. The crust is made with cheddar, rosemary, and sourcream; so you really can't go wrong with whatever ends up in it.
Ingredients:
- 3-4 cups AP flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon rosemary
- 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 8 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
- 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons shortening, very cold
- 1/3 cup fatty sour cream, very cold (drain in a paper towel or cheese cloth if excessively watered)
- 3-5 tablespoons ice water
- 4 cups mashed potatoes
- 1 egg, beaten with a little water
Directions:
- In the bowl of a food processor, add 3 cups flour, salt, rosemary, and cheese. Pulse 4 times to blend fully.
- Add butter and shortening to dry ingredients and pulse 4-5 times or until the fats are pea-sized
- With motor running, pour sour cream in. Wait a second or two and then begin adding ice water.
- Do three tablespoons and see how the dough is. If sticky, add more flour. If dry, add a little more water
- Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead just once or twice to cover a bit with more flour and shape into a disc
- Divide in half and wrap both halves in plastic wrap and refrigerate for thirty minutes
- While refrigerating, preheat the oven to 350*F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Beat an egg with water and use as a sealant and wash.
- When dough is done resting, roll one disc out to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut into rounds with either a biscuit cutter or the edge of a glass (about 3-4 inches in diameter). Place round onto parchment paper and spoon mashed potato filling into the center. Dab a pastry brush into the egg wash and run along the circumference of the round. Cut another round out and place on top, pressing sides and crimp with a fork. Cut a small cross on top of the handpie for ventilation.
- Repeat step 8 for remaining dough.
- Space on baking sheets and brush each egg with remaining egg wash and sprinkle with a little salt.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown
- Allow to cool slightly before eating, as the potatoes will be hot
- Maybe dip in gravy and enjoy!
Giving Thanks.
The theme this year was burlap and wheat. Tactile, scratchy. It irritated the skin, the colors were mute. The vase full of weeds and blooms were foraged on the morning walk. There were sprigs of rosemary in jars, next to the salt. For garnish and for earthiness. For authenticity, for aromatics. Rosemary steeped in hot water can speed recovery. I think we can all use a little of that. The table was beautiful, simple and connected. It was crowded. The windless day would sigh a breeze, and the grapevine would rustle slightly. It was alive. Every moment was electric in that brick and mortar kitchen. We ate outside. It's hard to reflect, I get lost in my thoughts. i'm like Narcissus, lost in that reflection. Thanksgiving is hard for me, it seems silly sometimes. I never appreciated my parents; I still don't, fully. When I was young, my mother would stay in her bathrobe until three, when the turkey was done, and she'd change into jeans and a black sweater. Every year. Every year, it was her formalware. She cooked for seven hours, we'd be done in twenty minutes. Never appreciated. No one ever thanked her for her meal. No one ever told her she was beautiful. She told me she wore her pearls this Thanksgiving, the ones I got her last year. The ones I bought in June, waiting, anticipating, happy to make her feel special. And she did. I am thankful she wore them, thankful she smiled as she clasp them around her neck, feeling beautiful and not having to cook for three ungrateful children.
I am thankful for my father, who tells me every day he loves me. I reflect on the Thanksgiving I called him from Italy and told him he needed to send me more money. He said the banks were closed and I hung up. I ignored his emailing until I saw my bank account. I'm thankful he was patient, patient in a way I know I couldn't be. He loves me more than I realize. It's jarring when you realize how one-sided that love is. I'm thankful he's waiting for me to catch up, to appreciate him. Appreciate the times he took me to school. Every morning he'd buy me coffee and ask me about my day. Most mornings, I was too asleep and too annoyed to answer back much. Now, I want to go to the Legion and drink a beer with him. Ask him how his life is. Tell him I'm growing up and I love him, too.
I'm thankful. I'm reflecting on this. I was called ungrateful more than once in my youth, and I don't want to be that same asshole anymore. I try to say thank you for everything. It's difficult sometimes. When you feel so deserving of love, and you still have to stop and realize that someone is willingly letting you have it. Nothing is for free. I've given it my all this year.
There were five of us for Thanksgiving, and I cooked for everyone. I did it out of love, as a challenge to see if I could. I wrote it all down on paper and used our neighbor's oven as a back-up. I roasted vegetables and thought about terms like umami and emulsify. I've grown a lot as a cook, and today I wrote down all the things I could do with pasta. I've seen a change in me, and I like it. I'm thankful for that.
And I'm thankful for friends. I grew up lonely, and it's a human condition I can't shake. I laughed with friends and called more that evening, we made dinner and I wrote little Thank-You cards, totems of gratitude for sticking around. Sometimes I can be desperate, I'm always playing aloof and then begging for love. But we ate around candlelight, drank the red when we ran out of white, and created a small family that night, and I'm thankful for that trust.
Thanksgiving is not the hand-traced turkey holiday of my childhood, it's not that line drawn in the proverbial sand between autumn and "The Holiday Season" where it's more appropriate to have a Christmas tree up. It's is living, breathing, steeping yourself in that gratitude and calling your parents, saying you love them. Saying you'll change every year a little bit and love them forever. Loving everything a little harder next year. Nothing is for free. I've given it my all this year.
Here are some pictures of the table and our guests...
