Munchie Monday: Another (Semi-) Food Disaster

 When I went to Dorr Farms I picked up two sweet potatoes.  Because I was sort of in a rush, I put them in the air fryer to cook.  As it happens, they were not quite cooked when the timer went off.  Since Dear One is not totally fond of sweet potatoes, I just left them in the oven to "finish up" cooking then ate one of them which was, admittedly, slightly under-done.  The other one that definitely was underdone I put in the refrigerator.

The next day I removed the sweet potato from the refrigerator, sliced it into 1/2 inch slices and laid them out on a piece of parchment paper on a sheet pan.  With my very handy Yeti mug, I smashed them down to about 1/4 inch thick.  I had a small bowl with some leftover seasonings in it to which I added a little bit of olive oil.  Using the red silicon brush, I brushed the seasoned oil on top of all the smashed potatoes, covered them with grated parmesan cheese,  then put them in the air fryer.  I set it at 400 degrees F and 25 minutes.

Either the temperature was too high or the time was too long. Or maybe both.

Here they are!  You can see the parmesan cheese which  more or less melted down.

Actually, these are not as bad as they look.  The black bits are the potato skin. I always scrub potatoes within an inch of their lives then eat the skins, too.  In fact, one of  the delicacies of life is russet potatoes baked then cut in half, the innards scooped out and butter and salt put on the potato skins.  So good.  So bad for you. At least that butter is bad for me.  You can tell that by looking at me...oh, what am I saying?!  I never let people take pictures of me.  At least I prefer not to.  Which is, of course, not great for family history work...

I can hear you asking why I left these sweet potatoes to burn.  Well, I was busy on another project and I DID smell the potatoes but they only smelled like they were cooking, not like they were burning.  Lesson learned.  Multi-tasking is now beyond me.  And I say lesson learned, but I bet anything that it is not rock solid in my brain yet...more burn notices will probably come my way.

Yes.  I did eat them.  Not all the incinerated skins, though.  Not so tasty...

Munchie Monday: Three Ingredient Flat Bread!

 Today I saw a video that showed how to make a "quick and easy" flat bread.  I was thinking burrito in a big way and since we had the ingredients, plus some leftover refried beans in the refrigerator, I decided to make this flat bread.

Well...this did not turn out the way I was expecting!

The person in the video used whole wheat flour but said you could use any kind of flour you have on hand, including almond flour.  Since I did not have any whole wheat flour ground up and we DID have two bags of almond flour for some reason, I used almond flour in place of the whole wheat flour. I do not recommend it.

The recipe I made was:

1 cup almond flour
1 cup warm cooked and mashed sweet potato
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix all together.  It will  be somewhat sticky.

When I started mixing the dough I put the cast iron skillet over a medium flame to heat.  Using extra almond flour on the counter I rolled out the flat bread then plopped it into the hot skillet.  The girl on the video said to cook two minutes then flip and cook two more minutes.

This is the first two flat breads! It looked burned but did not taste burned.

This is not what I was thinking we were going to get!  I did eat a few of the crumbs and they tasted really good, so I tried again.

This time I got out our cast iron tortilla press:

To be successful making tortillas in this press you need to split open a gallon-sized Ziplock bag to line the press.  Put in a ball of the dough between the Ziplock "sheets", close the lid, and give it a press.  Take out the flat bread/tortilla and slap it on the griddle.

This did not work the first time because the dough ball was too small.  The tortilla was so thin I could not get it off the plastic so back to the drawing board.  The second time I ALSO put flour on the bottom of the plastic.  That worked better but the final flat bread I put more almond flour on the plastic then even  MORE almond flour on top of the dough ball before pressing. This worked out better.

This is how the "burrito" turned out!  More like a burrito plate!  AND we needed a fork to eat it because the flat bread was so tender.  It tasted great!  To me.  Dear One said he would prefer not to have so many "interesting" meals, just plain old store-bought tortillas.  Now, this is disappointing, but since I love him, I will honor his request. To some extent, at least!

 This does not mean I will stop trying. I will just make regular flour tortillas which I make and cannot keep ahead of his eating of the hot off the griddle tortillas!  I can make the interesting ones for myself and let him try them if he chooses...

Munchie Monday: Sweet Potato and White Bean Burger

Over the weekend I saw a recipe for Sweet Potato and White Bean Burgers and thought I would see if I could improve it...without trying it first.  I am always trying to make a good veggie burger; good meaning: tastes good, has good texture,  mostly fat-free, and holds together.

Well, this one was about three-quarters good.  It did not hold together.  Dear One said it was okay.  High praise, indeed.  

This is the way I made these burgers.  For some reason I did not save the original recipe.  That recipe had corn in it, some more spices, and they were fried, something we are trying to avoid.  I am sure they was taste even better fried in a cast-iron skillet with your favorite cooking oil.

Sweet Potato and White Bean Burgers
​

Makes 12 burgers

2 medium sweet potato, roasted and peeled

2 15-ounce can of white beans, drained and rinsed

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 teaspoon granulated  garlic 

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2/3 cup nutritional yeast

1  cup Italian parsley, finely chopped

2 tablespoon lemon juice

1 cup bread crumbs

1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning

Salt

Black pepper

Place sweet potatoes and beans in a large bowl.  Mash with a potato masher until well mashed but not totally mush.  Add onion, parsley, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and seasonings.  Mix very well then add in the bread crumbs to make a good consistency.

Using a 1/2 cup portion scoop, dip out the mixture and place on a parchment-paper lined baking sheet then flatten to about 3-3 1/2 inches across.  Bake 30-40 minutes.  Let cool a bit  then remove from pan.  Eat plain or in a bun with all the fixings.  These are really good.  In my opinion.  Some people in the family used Frank's Red Hot sauce on his.