Green Kitchen: A Sweet Potato Kugel Recipe

Green Kitchen is a bi-weekly column about nutritious, inexpensive, and ethical food and cooking. It's penned by the lovely Jaime Green.

I don’t make many traditional Jewish dishes. They’re tasty, and fondly associated with big family dinners, but they don’t tend to prominently feature the myriad vegetables and vegetarian proteins I try to work my meals around. It’s more about carbs and meat, much like other European peasant cuisines.

So, when I decided to bring a kugel to Passover dinner at my dad’s house, there were a lot of things I took into consideration:

• Passover’s traditional dietary restrictions: no leavened grains, or, really, grains at all.
• My own personal restrictions on meat (being vegetarian) and dairy (being lactose intolerant).
• My inclination towards local, seasonal produce, which this early in the spring is still what’s left from last fall: apples, winter squash, potatoes, and onions.
• The palates of the assembling group, and the traditional vein of a Passover meal, which excluded most international or adventurous dishes.

(Note: What I did not take into consideration was my lack of a food processor with a grating blade. I got to know my box grater and several pounds of sweet potatoes very, very well.)

Kugel is basically Jewish casserole, and comes in two traditional iterations. The first, noodle kugel, is a sweet side dish of egg noodles cooked in a creamy base, sometimes using cream cheese or cottage cheese, featuring a variety of additions like raisins, pineapple, nuts, or crusty, crumbed toppings. The second variety, potato kugel, is savory, shredded potatoes and onions, sometimes with a dash of color from a carrot, held together with eggs and sometimes matzoh meal or flour.

I love noodle kugel, but can never really get into the potato variety. It has the same ingredients as potato latkes, which are fried pancakes, but aren’t those tasty because they’re fried? Baking it all in a casserole dish seemed to take away the magic – the crispy edges, the (let’s be honest) delicious fat.

But then, ding (!), a light bulb went off: sweet potato kugel! It would have the architecture of potato kugel, with sweeter and more interesting flavors. Bonus: all the vitamins and good stuff that come with the orange tubers, and it’s almost entirely seasonal, locally available produce, with the addition of happy-chicken-borne eggs.

I tooled around the internet, made a couple of calls to my local potato kugel expert (my mom), and came up with the deliciousness below. There’s no sweetener beyond a little fruit juice (squeezed from an in-season, if not local, orange) and the natural sweetness of the vegetables and some raisins.

It’s all brought out by spices that we associate with sweetness – cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves – for a hearty but healthy side dish that works well with a salty, savory meal. (It’s also amazing reheated and served with a scoop of cottage cheese, as my breakfasts this past week attest.)

There’s nothing traditional about this kugel, and there’s also nothing limiting it to Passover or Jewish kitchens. Leftovers freeze well, and I’ve got a stockpile now for tasty breakfasts and snacks. You can also cook this ahead of time and then reheat it before serving, for about 20 minutes at 350.

Even if I did get to spend a little more time with my grater than I ever, ever wanted, well, that was a nice workout for my arms, too.

~~~

If you like this recipe, you might also treasure:

• Grilled Sweet Potato Salad
• Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes
• Slow Cooker Pork Chops, Apples, and Sweet Potatoes

~~~

Sweet Potato Kugel
24 small servings (or 12 large)
(Pictured here with cottage cheese)

(NOTE: All spice measurements can and should be varied to match your taste.)

5 lbs. sweet potatoes (about 8 cups)
2 apples (something sweet and crisp – no mushy macs!)
5 eggs
1 cup golden raisins (You could also use dates. Just chop them and skip the soaking.)
½ cup orange juice (or the juice of one orange)
½ cup walnuts, crushed to small pieces
½ cup pecans, crushed to small pieces
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
¾ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cloves
butter for greasing

1) Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9x12 cake pan with butter. (I like the flavor this adds, but you can use cooking spray or line your pan with parchment paper.)

2) In a small bowl, soak the raisins in orange juice, adding water so the raisins are covered. (You can speed up the plumping by microwaving for 30-45 seconds.)

3) Peel the sweet potatoes. Using a grater blade on a food processor or a box grater, grate them. Put the grated sweet potatoes in a large mixing bowl.

4) Beat the eggs. (The fluffier they are, the fluffier your kugel.) Mix into sweet potatoes.

5) Grate the apples, add to the sweet tater & egg mixture.

6) Stir in the salt and spices.

7) Add the raisins and soaking liquids. Stir.

8) Pour/scoop mixture into your cake pan, smoothing flat.

9) Sprinkle with crushed pecans and walnuts, pressing them a little into the kugel.

10) Bake 45 minutes or so, until the edges are a little browned and the top gets golden. Let it cool a bit, then cut into 24 pieces, but know that everyone will probably want more than one.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, and Price Per Serving
Small Serving (total/24): 164 calories, 4.6g fat, 3.9g fiber, $0.44
Large Serving (total/12): 328 calories, 9.3g fat, 7.8g fiber, $0.88

Calculations
5lbs sweet potatoes: 1994 calories, 3.7g fat, 65.6g fiber, $5.45
2 apples: 189 calories, 0.6g fat, 8.7g fiber, $1.25
5 eggs: 388 calories, 26.5g fat, 0g fiber, $1.46
1 cup golden raisins: 520 calories, 0g fat, 8g fiber, $.75
½ cup orange juice: 55 calories, 0g fat, .5g fiber, $.20
½ cup walnuts: 383 calories, 38.1g fat, 3.9g fiber, $.60
½ cup pecans: 377 calories, 39.2g fat, 5.2g fiber, $.75
1 ½ t salt: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.02
1 t cinnamon: 6 calories, 0g fat, 1.2 g fiber, $.04
1 t powdered ginger: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.02
¾ t nutmeg: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.02
½ t cloves: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.01
butter for greasing (1/4 t?): 24 calories, 2.9g fat, 0g fiber, $.02
TOTAL: 3936 calories, 111g fat, 93.1g fiber, $10.59
PER SERVING (TOTAL/24): 164 calories, 4.6g fat, 3.9g fiber, $0.44
PER (LARGER) SERVING (TOTAL/12): 328 calories, 9.3g fat, 7.8g fiber, $0.88

Ask the Internet: Favorite Wedding Foods?

The following question comes from a soon-to-be-wed food blogger and Mets fan. (Note: It is not Johan Santana).

Q: Mah nuptials are coming up in a few months, and we have to start thinking about the menu. What’s the most memorable wedding food you’ve ever eaten?

A: Mine is a tie. Two years ago, a pair of good friends used giant bowls of candy as their centerpieces: one tables was Smarties, another was Jolly Ranchers, etc. It was adorable, delicious, and held us over until the entrees arrived.

Three or four years ago, Seattle-based friends of ours served the best garlic mashed potatoes I’ve ever had. I still have dreams about them, in which I ride a magic potato carpet into my giant potato castle, where the Potato King greets me with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. (Just kidding. They’re potatoes.)

So, how about you guys? What’s your favorite-ever reception food? Or, for a slight tangent: what edible makes you happiest when you see it on a wedding menu?

Want to ask the interweb a question? Post one in the comment section, or write to Cheaphealthygood@gmail.com. Then, tune in next Tuesday for an answer/several answers from the good people of the World Wide Net.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Asparagus and Turkey Sausage: A Recipe for Baseball Season

Today on Serious Eats: Buttermilk Corn Muffins, a basic, healthy muffin recipe you can customize just about any way you like. Aces.

Yesterday was Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. For millions, it was celebrated with beer can poppings and resounding whoops of great joy, for the event not only heralded 2,429 games to come, but the very arrival of spring itself.

Fortunately, I was distracted by eggplant parmesan, jellybeans, and other bunny-related items. There was no time to acknowledge Opening Day, which was fortuitous. Otherwise, I may have been subjected to the same tornado of emotions that arises every baseball season: cautious optimism darkened by an overarching sense of impending doom.

You see, I am a Mets fan.

Yes, Cubs fans have had it harder, and it was no picnic rooting for Boston up until 2004. And I should probably shut up about a big market team making over 40 bajillion dollars per annum. And David Wright is really cute.

But you gotta understand: being a Mets fan doesn’t mean decades of oppression. It means dreams, deferred. It means wild hopes, crushed at the last possible second. It means rooting for the underdog, only to have that beloved pet contract untreatable canine syphilis 20 seconds after it qualifies for Westminster. It’s …

…leading your division by seven games with two weeks left, going 5-12, and being eliminated from the playoffs on the final day of the season.

…doing it again the following year. (WHAT ARE THE ODDS, PEOPLE?)

…knowing you have a fantastic team on April 5th, having them all on the DL by May 18th, and not recognizing anyone by the All-Star break.

…depending on late inning reliever Armando *freaking* Benitez, who, during the late ‘90s, reached levels of choke never before seen in nature.

(Sometimes, when I’m walking home from the subway at night, I’ll stop mid-block, raise my fist to the sky and shout, “BENITEZ!” at the heavens. It makes me feel better, and the local crackheads are afraid to go near the crazy person.)

Fortunately, it IS spring, and a cornucopia of blossoming green vegetables makes up for the pain. Foremost among those is asparagus, which I tend to buy weekly through April and May. By the time peak season is over, we’re happy to wave it goodbye for nine or ten months.

Until then, we pack it into almost every dinner, like Whole Wheat Pasta with Asparagus and Turkey Sausage. The recipe highlights the fresh, crisp springiness of the vegetable, which plays beautifully off the nutty pasta. Tomatoes round it out, and the late addition of parmesan makes everything feel a little richer. Also? 30 minutes to make. Maybe less. Bonus!

So, this baseball season, when you're trying to console your favorite Mets fan, offer her a plate of this. It'll make her very, very happy, if only until September.

~~~
If you like this recipe, you might also quite enjoy:

• Asparagus, Mushroom, and Parmesan Frittata
• Pasta with Asparagus and Mushrooms
• Spaghetti with Asparagus, Egg, and Parmesan

~~~

Whole Wheat Pasta with Asparagus and Turkey Sausage
Serves 3 or 4.
Adapted from My Kitchen Snippets.

8 ounces whole wheat rotini or penne
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil
10 ounces (3 links) sweet Italian turkey sausage, removed from casing
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 pound thin asparagus, ends snapped off, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated parmesan

1) Cook pasta in salted water until al dente. Drain, reserving a little pasta water. Set aside.

2) In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium high heat. Add turkey sausage and brown, 5 to 8 minutes, breaking it up into bite-sized pieces as you go along. Spoon meat on to a plate and set aside.

3) Add remaining 1 teaspoon olive oil to skillet. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook 30 to 60 seconds, until fragrant, stirring frequently.

4) Add asparagus and cook 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5) Pour in tomatoes and cooked sausage. Heat through, 1 or 2 minutes. Kill heat. Salt and pepper to taste.

6) Add pasta and stir to combine. If a little dry, add some reserved pasta water.

7) Spoon pasta into bowls, sprinkle 1 or 2 tablespoons parmesan over each.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, and Price Per Serving
3 servings: 591 calories, 20 g fat, 8.7 g fiber, $2.15
4 servings: 443 calories, 15 g fat, 6.5 g fiber, $1.61

Calculations
8 ounces whole wheat pasta: 793 calories, 3.2 g fat, 18.9 g fiber, $0.50
4 teaspoons olive oil: 158 calories, 17.9 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.16
10 ounces sweet Italian turkey sausage: 420 calories, 24 g fat, 0 g fiber, $1.45
3 large cloves garlic, minced: 13 calories, 0 g fat, 0.2 g fiber, $0.02
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $0.15
1 pound thin asparagus: 91 calories, 0.5 g fat, 0.5 g fiber, $1.99
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained: 82 calories, 0 g fat, 6.5 g fiber, $0.75
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $0.02
1/2 cup grated parmesan: 216 calories, 14.3 g fat, 0 g fiber, $1.40
TOTAL: 1773 calories, 59.9 g fat, 26.1 g fiber, $6.44
PER SERVING (TOTAL/3): 591 calories, 20 g fat, 8.7 g fiber, $2.15
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 443 calories, 15 g fat, 6.5 g fiber, $1.61

Top Ten Links of the Week: 3/26/10 – 4/1/10

Sweet readers, hope y’all enjoyed Leigh’s April Fools joke from yesterday. Just to confirm: her 19-year vegetarian streak is still going strong. Not even bacon can break her resolve. God knows I’ve tried.

Have a wonderful, jellybean-filled Easter weekend, and we'll see you back here Monday. In the meantime, the links!

1) MSN Smart Spending: Store- vs. name-brand cereal - What kids think
Guest poster Len Penzo rounded up the neighborhood kids for a six-cereal taste test. Name brands win by a small margin, but generics put up a good fight. And? The price difference is enough to endorse generics. Off to find some Tiny Frosted Wheat Squares!

2) Jezebel: Jennifer Hudson’s Pitch Perfect Weight Watchers Campaign
Oh, wow. This is nothing but win: the Oscar winner is pitching for WW these days, and nowhere in either of her TV spots does she mention the actual amount of weight she’s lost. Both ads focus entirely on feeling healthier and setting a good example. And I am telling you, I like it. And YOU, and YOU, and YOU, you’re gonna love it (too).

3) Urlesque: The Best Peep Dioramas of All Time
Yo, other sites. I’m really happy for you, and Imma let you finish the rest of your posts, but Urlesque has some of the best peep dioramas of all time! Seriously! They’re really cute! Peep “Up” will just about kill you.

4) To Your Brain, Bacon And Chocolate Are Sort Of Like Cocaine
No surprise: Rats ate crappy food. Rats became obese.
Surprise: Rats’ brain wiring changed in the process, making more food necessary to maintain the same rush. Later, rats ignored electric shock to get to their stashes. Now, people are not rats, but you could extrapolate some pretty stunning conclusions from this.

5) Slashfood: Seafood Buyers Get Scammed
Yikes! Think twice about buying fish from a supermarket, sweet readers. Many are including water weight in their official measures, meaning y’all “may be paying up to $23 a pound for ice.” Mmm … tilapiapops.

6) Casual Kitchen: Eight Myths About Vegetarians and Vegetarian Food
Dan goes mythbusting. And while nothing explodes or is dropped from a tall building, his conclusions are nonetheless informative, riveting, and pro-vegetarianism. It ain’t just for Deadheads anymore.

7) New York Times: Bill on School Lunch is Scaled Back; Abuse of School Lunch Isn’t
Parents, heed the call! It was gonna happen: with all these food reforms, the school cafeteria has finally, justifiably come under fire. This post is a nice summary of the issues at hand, and should be perused if your kids don’t pack their lunches.

8) Neatorama: Shove a Stick Up … Your Food?
This post proves the, uh, long unproven: you can slam ANY food on a stick, up to and including: meatballs, pie, bacon, tempura octopus, and scorpions. That last word is not a misprint.

9) The Simple Dollar: Low-Calorie Food and Long Term Costs
Preach, brother.

10) BlogHer: 10 Tips to Help Reduce the Psychological Toll of Childhood Obesity
Depression and being bullied are pretty common among overweight kids. If you know a victim, employing these caring, thoughtful strategies might ease the burden.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Chow: April Fool’s Headlines

No links here, but Chow’s 4/1 headlines had to be mentioned. A few prime examples:
Knife Skills for All Ages – Little Fingers, Big Blades
Make Your Own Partially Hydrogenated Trans Fat
Man Feels Emasculated by Brie
Guy Fieri Wins Peabody
10 Ways to Go Green That Don't Involve Personal Sacrifice

Culinate: Chicken Soup, Eight Ways
Noodles got you down? There’s life in variety. (And more noodles.)

Jezebel: The First and Last Time We Will Acknowledge Kitchenistas
Some of my more fashionable fellow New Yorkers are turning their cabinets into shoe racks. Gag me with a freakin’ Manolo.

The Kitchn: Pulled Pork Shoulder – Ways to Use it All Week Long
Slow cook it once, pull from it Monday through Friday.

Lifehacker: Consider Maple Syrup as a Healthier Sweetener
It comes from trees! It’s practically a vegetable! Well, maybe not, but it could be a healthy alternative to high fructose corn slop.

NY Daily News: Corporate Accountability International poll shows Ronald McDonald contributes to obesity epidemic
One woman claimed, "He is a deep-fried Joe Camel for the 21st century.” Did not mention, “completely terrifying.”

Scordo: The Scordo Pasta Challenge – Vincenzo Eats His Way Through Every Known Pasta Shape
In which the author attempts to eat all 158 (scratch that - 310) kinds of pasta before 2014. Genius or insanity? Only time and the search for pagliaioni will tell.

Serious Eats: Kitchen Hack - Use Your Toaster to Heat Taco Shells
This is brilliant. What else can you stick in there? (Note: not forks.)

AND ALSO

Snippet & Ink Inspiration Boards
Um ... so, I'm, uh, getting married this year, and I, uh, spent about 47 hours browsing this cavalcade of awesome. Ladies, you will not be disappointed. You either, dudes.

Thank you so much for visiting Cheap Healthy Good! (We appreciate it muchly). If you’d like to further support CHG, subscribe to our RSS feed! Or become a Facebook friend! Or check out our Twitter! Or buy something inexpensive, yet fulfilling via that Amazon store (on the left)! Bookmarking sites and links are nice, too. Viva la France!

Veggie Might: UNCLE! You Win, Fried Chicken.

Penned by the effervescent Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about the wide world of Vegetarianism.

Y’all, it’s been a crazy week. Kris and I had our names in proverbial lights, and I had a crisis of faith like none I could have ever expected. After reading all your amazing comments from last week’s VM column, I realized something that I thought I’d long suppressed.

I miss fried chicken.

As long-time readers have gleaned, I come from a Midwestern mom and a Southern dad and lived equally in both places before moving to the Big City. Family lore goes, the first thing my dad taught my mom to cook after they married was Great-Grandma Fisher’s Southern fried chicken. Sunday after church, Mom would fry up a batch of flour-dredged goodness with sides of rice and gravy, green beans, and corn—in the summer, the veggies were fresh from a neighbor’s garden.

Fried chicken holds all those memories of golden childhood that, as of this weekend, I just couldn’t resist any longer. But I said to myself, Leigh, if you’re going to jump, you gotta go off the high dive.

Let me reassure you that I didn’t abandon all my values over the weekend. My move to the move to meat was going to be the right way. Sonny, my local butcher, was sure surprised to see me darken his door on Saturday. I pass his shop every day while walking my dog, and we always wave and exchange pleasantries, but in 14 years, I’ve never been in his shop.

I took a deep breath and asked Sonny for a locally and humanely raised chicken. The smell of freshly cut steaks and chops filled my nostrils. I was transported back to my youth, shopping at Farmer Brown’s with my mother and siblings. Sonny was thrilled to oblige my request and asked about my dog, who he calls Pee-Wee, though that’s not his name.

There, on the spot, emboldened by adventure, I asked Sonny if he had any pork skin he could sell me. I remembered my dad talking about a Paula Deen episode in which she made her own pork rinds, and I figured I’d make my own too. He wrapped up a couple of pounds along with my two-pound fryer.

Back home with my quarry, I set to making my nostalgic dreams come true. This quest called for a spirit guide, so I called my dad. He was so happy to hear I was coming back to the omni fold I thought he might cry, even if I wasn’t planning to make Grandma Fisher’s recipe exactly.

Years ago, during the height of the Atkins diet craze, I read about Pork-Rind-Coated Fried Chicken. The recipe made the rounds on the Weight Watchers’ vegetarian messageboards, and we all had a good laugh about the “healthiness” of dredging chicken in egg and fried pig skins before a dunk in boiling oil.

Well, healthy or not, it’s unbelievably delicious and the perfect recipe to bring myself out of vegetarianism—or meat retirement as I’ve started calling it.

My Charming Dinner Guest was surprised to smell fried chicken coming from my apartment when he arrived for dinner, but happily joined me for heaping plates of pork-rind fried chicken with all the Angel family sides.

My apartment smelled just like I the Sundays I remember. Biting into the crunchy skin (still the best part!), I let the juice run down my chin—just once—before I grabbed a napkin. The deep-fried experience was everything I dreamed it would be, and, I dare say, it was worth giving up 19 years of vegetarianism for the pleasure.

You win, fried chicken.

Pork Rind Crusted Fried Chicken
Serves 4
Note: My picture wasn't the greatest, so this is provided by Ms. Paula Deen herself.

2 lb fryer chicken, cut into pieces
2 cups pork rinds
2–3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 cups vegetable oil

1) Rinse and pat dry chicken pieces.

2) Beat eggs in a wide, shallow bowl. Crush pork rinds and spread on a baking sheet or large platter.

3) Dip each chicken piece in egg and dredge through pork rinds until completely coated. Set aside until all pieces are coated.

4) Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet.

5) Carefully lower a few chicken pieces into hot oil. On each side, cover and cook over medium high heat for 5–7 minutes, then remove the lid and cook for 10 minutes. When both sides are cooked, give each side another 2–3 minutes to brown the crust. Repeat until all the chicken is cooked.

6) Drain excess oil on paper towels.

7) Make gravy with the drippings and serve with rice, green beans, corn, and, for dessert, a big ol’ Southern-fried APRIL FOOL! Mmmwah!

(American Chicken Room photo courtesy of Flickr member Badger 23.)