sweet potatoes -

by BS

Sweet Potato Cashew Bourbon Milkshake (Yes, That is All One Thing)

What’s that you say? Our avocado milkshake recipe wasn’t crazy enough for you? Well hold your mofo horses, because it’s time to turn sweet potatoes into a shake — and add a little bourbon along the way.

Chef Thomas Dunklin of B&O American Brasserie in Baltimore — the same guy who gave us the deviled egg we are most likely to make love to — was kind enough to share his amazing/insane sweet potato milkshake recipe with us. It’s pictured above with the red velvet donuts that he serves it with, and the full recipe is below. Fair warning — this one is a process-and-a-half to make at home, but you probably guessed that.

Sweet Potato Cashew Bourbon Milkshake

by Emily

Success with Southern Biscuits

I am a west coaster born and bred; my family hails from San Diego and I happen to live in Seattle, which in many ways is the antithesis of the deep South. That being said, I don’t know how it happened — maybe Paula Deen is a long-lost-great-aunt-twice-removed or something (fingers crossed!) — but I harbor an intense love for Southern comfort food. Sadly, up here in the somber Northwest, I am rarely presented with the opportunity to try my hand at whipping up a grand dixie feast. With the exception of my impressive cole slaw making superpowers, I am pretty inexperienced in cooking Southern food.

So when ES was presented with the opportunity to preview Nathalie Dupree & Cynthia Graubart’s newest cookbook, Southern Biscuits, I knew this was a perfect chance. Fresh off the heels of an authentic creole food binge, I figured it was only fair to prove my love by giving Southern cooking a go myself. Southern Biscuits addressed a double whammy of insecurity, actually — not only am I lacking in the Southern cooking department, I am also mildly suspicious of baking in general. It involves so much precision, patience, adherence to directions…basically all of my weaknesses. Though Nathalie is a James Beard winner, she certainly had her work cut out for her with this book. Teaching a baking-skeptical Seattleite how to craft perfect Southern biscuits is no small feat.

Plus I had been slightly dubious about the breadth (no pun intended) of biscuit options. I mean, how many variations could there be? Turns out, about a million. After it covers the basics, Southern Biscuits also includes recipes for things you can do with biscuits, such as breakfast sandwiches, casseroles, bread puddings, etc. While some of the more complex recipes in the back of the book were tempting, I knew I shouldn’t get too overzealous. I decided to go with an intermediate biscuit recipe that included one of my very favorite ingredients: sweet potatoes.

in Recipe 2 comments

by gansie

The Garnish Debate: Call Me a Rebel

As a little kid I remember parsley garnishes mystifying me. Why did curly greens occupy so much space on my plate—and it’s not even Passover?

But the parsley garnish, for garnish sake, no longer visits our tables. Instead, garnishes spring from what’s in the dish, if a dish is garnished at all. Use cilantro in a sauce, use cilantro as a garnish. Use kumquat in a cupcake, use a kumquat slice as garnish.

David Rocco of Cooking Channel‘s Dolce Vita reiterated this fact in a recent episode, refusing to add a leafy green to top a pasta dish since the dish did not contain it. Instead he cracked fresh pepper on top, silently communicating his heavy usage of pepper in the dish.

Rocco’s commandment popped in my head as I decorated a sweet potato and lentil soup with black mustard seeds.

in Rants & Raves / Trends / Veggie 3 comments

by gansie

Eggs and Sweet Potatoes with Cottage Cheese Chipotle Sauce

It’s been happening more this winter. Last Saturday Bennett and I stayed in and watched a high-pitched, giggling Mozart in Amadeus. And this Saturday, after a large group birthday dinner for a friend, we snuck off for our sweats and lumpy couch; I pined for young (handsome and bumbling) Hugh Grant and attacked the acting ability of Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral. And is it just me, but wasn’t it difficult to determine the (link is a spoiler!) gay couple until the very end? I guess that’s 1994 for you.

Because of our tame night, breakfast became more than the usual scrambled eggs and bagels. I decided our first meal should include vegetables, particularly sweet potatoes, after I read this glowing article from the NYT.

Eggs and Sweet Potatoes with Cottage Cheese-Chipotle Sauce

in Breakfast / Eggs / Recipe / Veggie 4 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Wow. Ya’ll mofos have some crazy ideas for how to make a peanut butter sandwich. And we like ’em. Thresher:

It sounds nasty, but try mixing a little mayo (or veganaise!) into the peanut butter. If your PB is on the sweet side, remedy that by adding in a little extra salt. If you’re fancy, do all this in a food processor so the PBayo is fully blended. Totally delicious by itself or with jellies.

Slawhead:

in Sandwich 0 comments

by BS

Five Ways to Drink Your Thanksgiving Dinner

Turkey…stuffing…mashed potatoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they’re all great, but in the ES book holidays are a time to get booze-y. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up traditional Thanksgiving flavors. These five liquor-fueled concoctions put the yay in turkey day.

1. Pumpkin Martini

We’ve been seeing this one pop up a lot lately, whether made with pumpkin spice or pumpkin syrup. At Devil’s Alley in Philadelphia, they say screw the FDA and throw some caffeine in there too. Their espresso pumpkin martini is made from Van Gogh Expresso Vodka, Bailey’s Irish Cream and pumpkin syrup. Leave pumpkin pie for the babies. (Photo by M. Edlow for GPTMC)

2. Cranberry Cocktail

We all know that frightening blob of canned cranberry sauce is gonna be left on the table at the end of the meal, right? Fortunately for cranberry lovers who want their antioxidants in a more easily digestible form, there are now several types of cranberry liquor on the market. At Patina Restaurant in LA, the turkey day menu gets washed down with “the fall cocktail” — 1½ oz. Pear Vodka, ¾ oz. Cranberry Liquor and 1 oz. Apple Juice.

in Drinks / Endless Cocktails / Fowl / Holiday 9 comments