Recipe #6: Sweet Potato Fries

Kyllan Leave a comment

William was in town this weekend, so I was hoping to try a new recipe while he was here, but instead, we just enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with each other and I did not cook until he left.  Kinda funny I guess 🙂

Anyway… after dropping him off at the airport, it was kinda late and I was not up to cooking anything too fancy, so I decided to try a recipe for a side dish/appetizer.  I found a recipe for sweet potato fries on the Food Network’s website.  It gave me the opportunity to use the deep fryer we got as a wedding gift.  I cannot believe we have not used it until know.  I took it out before William left, and he says “I didn’t know we had a deep fryer.”  (Some gifts arrived while he was in Denver, so I probably told him, but it has been a while).  So, the recipe was pretty simple and the fries came out pretty good.  I may have cooked them a bit too long, but I wanted them to be a little crispy.  The seasoning was pretty good also, but I may experiment with others as well.  The recipe is below.

Sweet Potato Fries (Courtesy of Emeril Legasse)

Ingredients

  • 2 large sweet potatoes (about 3 pounds, total)
  • 2 quarts vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Pinch cayenne
  • Pinch cinnamon

Directions

Boil sweet potatoes in water to cover for 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool. Peel potatoes and cut into 1/4 by 1/4-inch thick batons.

Meanwhile in a 5-quart pot or Dutch oven fitted with a candy or deep-frying thermometer, (or in an electric deep fryer), heat oil over medium-low heat until the thermometer registers 300 degrees F. Make sure you have at least 3 inches of space between the top of the oil and the top of the pan, as fries will bubble up when they are added.

Increase the heat to medium-high and add fries, a handful at a time, to the hot oil. Fry, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are soft and limp and just begin to brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Using a skimmer or slotted spoon, carefully remove fries from the oil and set aside to drain on paper towels. Let rest for at least 10 minutes or up to 2 hours.

When ready to serve the fries, reheat the oil to 350?F. Transfer the blanched potatoes to the hot oil and fry again, stirring frequently until browned and puffed, about 1 minute. Transfer to paper lined platter and allow to drain for a minute.

Combine the brown sugar, salt, cayenne and cinnamon in a large bowl. Add the fries and toss to coat. Serve immediately.

Recipe #5: Chocolate Cookie Dough Brownies and Neiman Marcus Cookies

Kyllan Leave a comment

Ok, my recipe for week 5 ended up being on Superbowl weekend, and since I was headed to a Superbowl party, I decided to bring appetizers and desserts.  I saw a recipe for Chocolate Cookie Dough Brownies on Bakerella, a cooking blog I regularly visit.  I LOVE sweets, so I was drooling after seeing her post on these brownies.  The actually use a brownie mix and cookie mix, but the ganache that goes on top is made from scratch and is delicious!  The Neiman Marcus Cookies came from a recipe I saw in a magazine.  There was once an e-mail going around about a woman who unknowingly paid $250 for the recipe, and as a way to get even, gave out the recipe to as many people as she could, but apparently it is not true.  Neiman Marcus has made their recipe public, so I decided that it was worth a try.  I thought they were pretty good, but one of my co-workers was absolutely crazy about them.  I think he ate about half of them.  The cookie dough brownies were more my style.  For the Neiman Marcus Cookie recipe, click here.  For the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownie recipe, click here.

Recipe #3- Pulled Pork and Potato Salad

Kyllan Leave a comment

I am a bit behind on cooking posts… so let me try to catch you up.  Since I went to undergrad in North Carolina, I tried to make a Carolina inspired meal.  I made pulled pork in the slow cooker and as a side dish, I made potato salad.  I was not that impressed with the pulled pork.  I went ahead and made a sandwich with a portion of the pork that came out pretty tender, but it was not a recipe to add to the rotation.  The potato salad, on the other hand, came out GREAT!  I was really impressed with myself on this one.  I used a recipe from Patti LaBelle’s cookbook, Recipes to Sing About.  It was so good, that I had potato salad each day for the rest of the week.  I may slightly alter the recipe next time, but I was impressed.  The recipe is below, and as usual, photos are on Flickr.

Patti’s Potato Salad (Courtesy of Patti LaBelle)

Ingredients:

3 pounds red-skinned potatoes (20 potatoes), well scrubbed

6 large eggs, hard cooked

1 medium red onion, finely chopped

1 medium green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped

2 medium celery ribs, finely chopped

2 teaspoons celery seed

2/3 cups mayonnaise

2 tablespoons yellow mustard

3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Paprika

Place the potatoes in a large pot and add enough salted water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, but not mushy, about 20 minutes. Be sure they are cooked! Pour out most of the water and place the pot in the sink. Run cold water over the potatoes for about 2 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Drain Well.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into ½ inch cubes. Place in a large bowl. Chop 4 hard-cooked eggs and add to the potatoes, along with the red onion, green pepper, and celery. Sprinkle with celery seed. Gradually stir in the mayonnaise, mustard, and relish (wear rubber or plastic gloves and use your hands, if you wish), being careful not to smash the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer to a large serving bowl. Slice the 2 remaining hard cooked eggs. Arrange the slices on top of the salad and sprinkle with paprika. Serve immediately, or cool, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours.

Super Bowl Ads

William 12 Comments

Who would have thought that the Super Bowl would actually be better than the ads! The ads were lackluster again this year, but there were a few that I enjoyed. Which ads made your list? Catch ads you may have missed below and see our favorites below that.

How could you not like this one?

Kyllan LMAO

I thought this was funny

By far, this was our favorite

and just because (w/ scene by scene break down here)

Budgets

William 3 Comments

This is completely random… One of the things that Kyllan and I want to do this year is keep a closer eye on our budget. The economy is killing our dreams of early retirement. I recently started using quicken online and really like it. With just your account information, it automatically details out your spending over the past several months and generates different charts showing spending trends. It uses those trends to setup budgets for categories like entertainment or dinning out and an overall budget. It will keep track on how well you are sticking with that budget as the month goes on. I don’t want to sound like an infomercial, so I will stop there. I like it, so I thought I would share… It’s free.

Photo Next to Your Comments

William 11 Comments

The real reason for the recent redesign was to take advantage of some of the newer features of wordpress. One of those features is the ability to add a photo next to your comments. A few of you have asked how to do this. There are two options… I think. The first option is to sign up for a gravatar account here. All you have to do is upload a photo and associate it with an e-mail account. When you enter that e-mail when commenting on the blog the photo will show up.  If you happen to have a facebook account, the second option is to sign in to the blog using facebook connect. The sign in is at the bottom of the right hand sidebar. Just enter your facebook credentials and the photo from that profile should appear when you make comments… Not having a facebook account, I haven’t actually tested it. It should work, but I am not making any promises.

Here’s to President Obama!!

Kyllan 1 Comment

Yesterday was a wonderful celebration of a long journey (one that started long before President Obama’s announced his candidacy for President).  It was such a wonderful thing to witness, whether in person or on television or the Internet.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the events.  Despite the fact I had to work, we have a television in our office and myself and several colleagues watched the ceremony in the midst of a busy work day.  After the acceptance speech, I didn’t even have words to say.  All I could do was reflect on such a powerful moment.

Given the historic nature of the event and the excitement in the air, my sister and I decided to attend an Inaugural Ball here in Dallas at the House of Blues.  We celebrated with food, dancing, entertainment, networking, and the hope of extraordinarily great things to come.  We had a great time!  I posted pictures on my flickr page.

I was so motivated at work today while thinking about the aggressive agenda President Obama had today on day 1 of his new job.  I was so inspired to push myself harder and I know I am not the only one who feels that way.  I simply cannot wait to see what is  in store during the Obama Administration.  Being a political science major, I wish, just for this instance, that I was a member of the Executive Office of the President.  How incredibly challenging, but wonderful that would be!

Inauguration

William 3 Comments

I was going to make a random post just to prove that this has not become a cooking blog, but instead I think I am going to talk about the inauguration. Are you taking off from work to watch? Unfortunately I will be watching from the lab. For those of you in a similar situation, this site has a lot of options for watching coverage online. I will probably go with the CNN Live option. Now, I am going to go out on a limb and embed a live stream via Hulu below. Beware; the stream is from FOX News, of which I am not a fan. Just trying to give some options.