Cooking Through “The Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook” – Hot (Sweet) Potato!

Hot (Sweet) Potato! from page 242

I have a tendency to buy more than we eat of some things, like sweet potatoes, then I scramble to make something to use them up before they go bad. No one likes to waste food…or money.

This particular day, I had 1 sweet potato, 1 yam, 1 mango. Since I tend to read my cookbooks over and over, I remembered seeing something in The Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook that would work. Talk about perfect. This recipe for Hot (Sweet) Potato! had all the ingredients that I wanted to use up and the rest I already had on hand. It was meant to be.

I will admit, I was a bit leery about adding fruit to a hot dish. I normally don’t like fruit in my food. But…I figured, why not. Might as well try it. Nothing to lose, right?

First, I baked the potatoes. With the oven at 350F, the sweet potato took about 45 minutes, the yam took about 70 minutes.

While the potatoes were in the oven, I chopped up the rest of the ingredients. Boy, mangoes are messy to cut to cut up for a dish.

We always have various beans on hand, and one that we always have is black beans. I occasionally make them from dry in my Instant Pot, but when we purchase canned beans, we prefer Goya.

Verdict….not bad. A little messy to eat with the potato just cut in half. It wasn’t bad with the mango, but not my favorite. I would have enjoyed it much better without the mango. Honesty, I think this is just an idea to jump off. You can add any veggies you like to this and it would be good. Broccoli is my favorite and would be great in this dish.

Prep to cut the fruit and veggies was only about 10 minutes (because of that messy mango), but that didn’t add anything to the total time since I did that while the potatoes baked.

Add in 5 minutes to assemble, the total time to bring this together is 45 minutes for the sweet potato and 75 minutes for the yam. But, your time will be determined by the size of your yams.

NOTES:

• Chop up sweet potato first. This will make it easier eat.
• If you bake the potatoes first, this dish comes together in a snap.
• I would rather just eat the mango plain for breakfast or a snack.
• Great additions to this would be broccoli, greens, and different beans.
• Potatoes can be microwaved rather than baked. Would save time.
• I use parsley instead of cilantro.

Cooking Through “The Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook” – Georgie’s Soup

Georgie’s Soup from page 87

I have to say, this soup has quickly become a favorite in our house. I have made it three times already and I’m about to make it again.

Anytime a recipe calls for red lentils, I get excited. Although, this soup does not have a lot of red lentils, it’s still really tasty. Unlike brown or green lentils, the red ones fall apart when cooked well. In this soup, they are pretty much undetectable. The just seem to thicken the soup while adding a nice protein hit.

Sorry guys…I couldn’t find the recipe online anywhere.

This soup calls for ingredients that you may not always have on hand, but I promise, it is worth a trip to the market. It’s not often I make a dish calling for sweet potato, leek, fennel and mushrooms all at once, but my, oh my, this is just too good not to try.  Look at this deliciousness.  Can’t you just taste it?

Don’t let the fennel make you nervous. While raw fennel does have that beautiful anise taste that I love, it mellows out considerably in the soup and adds a depth of flavor to the soup that is just remarkable. While I often do sub out ingredients in a recipe based on what I have on hand, I don’t think it would be wise to skip the fennel in this dish.

The recipe calls for a pound of mushrooms, but does not specify which type. I take this to mean that you can use what you like. I am sure you could even leave them out if you didn’t like them. One time I used all cremini, another time I used a mixture of cremini and shitake, and the last time was all shitake.  I like to use shitake mushrooms when I can since they are a medicinal mushroom and are used in Chinese medicine to support the immune system.

The recipe also calls sweet potatoes, but you could use what you have. Sweet potatoes obviously make the soup sweet, but I’ve also used a mixture of sweet and red potatoes because, well, you guessed it, that’s what I had on hand.

As in many of the PRHD recipes, it calls for cilantro. I have just used a bunch of spinach and it was lovely. I just added the spinach to the pot after the soup was done cooking and voila.

There is a little bit of prep work here. Cube the potatoes, chop the veggies. It’s all so therapeutic to me, all that chopping. I don’t mind. The one veggie I don’t like chopping is mushrooms, so I splurge here and buy the already sliced mushrooms.

The recipe says that it serves 6 to 8. We got about 6 large servings.

Prep time was about 20 minutes. Total cooking time was about 30 minutes – 10 minutes sautéing and 30 minutes simmering.

NOTES:

• Instead of cilantro you can use parsley, spinach, collards, chard, etc.
• Fresh or dry thyme works here. I’ll use fresh when I can grow it.
• Add more red lentils for a heartier soup.
• You can peel the potatoes…I do not.
• The recipe calls for 1 TBSP of balsamic. I do not use my Grand Reserve for this. I just use the regular balsamic from the grocery store.
• The recipe calls for shredded carrots. I used them the first time and forgot the second time. We didn’t miss them. They didn’t seem to add anything special to the soup.
• The soup was even better the next day.
• This can easily be served with rice or quinoa to stretch it out if need be.
• This was so flavorful that I did not add any salt at all.
• I made this on top of the stove, but this can easily be made it the Instant Pot.

Cooking Through “The Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook” – Enlightened Dr. Seuss Stacked Polenta and Cannellini Bean Sauce

Enlightened Dr. Seuss Stacked Polenta from page 130 and Cannellini Bean Sauce from page 110

This recipe took a few steps to pre-make several parts of the recipe prior to assembly.

You will need to make Cannellini Bean Sauce from page 110 for this. When you do make the sauce, make double so you have leftovers to use on rice cakes, sammies, taters, or just for dipping your chips or veggies.

This sauce comes together easy, peasy. And with only 3 ingredients, you can always have what you need to whip this baby up. My guess is that you probably already have what you need to make this. This recipe lends itself well to modification. Don’t have tamari, use Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. Don’t have that, use a little salt. Don’t want any sodium at all, don’t use it?

You can add some roasted red pepper, or some spinach…whatever your imagination can dream up.

This sauce reminded me of a creamier, lighter version of a hummus. Add a little more water, you have a thinner sauce. Add less water, you have a dip.

Add some vinegar or lemon and you have a salad dressing.

Honestly, try this one. It’s a great basic sauce. You just can’t go wrong.

NOTES:

• Requires a food processor or blender.
• Many uses…as a dip, on the Enlightened Dr. Seuss Stacked Polenta, over veggies, over potatoes. Anywhere you would use a sauce or a dip.
• Would be great as a dip for crudité.

Now, on to the polenta stacks.  I’ve never really thought about using polenta in this way. The combination of polenta, bean sauce, sweet potatoes and tomatoes was amazing.

While the finished dish did look a little to fufu for us, it was absolutely wonderful. I even ate the leftovers cold!

The key here is to use top notch tomatoes. Vine-ripened Jersey tomatoes are perfect for this…after all, we do have the best tomatoes, don’t we? I can’t wait to make this again when I have tomatoes from the CSA in the summer.

The finishing touch to this dish was some basil and lemon mixed together in the food processer and then dressed with balsamic. While it did make the dish pretty, the basil really didn’t add anything to the finished results. The balsamic, on the other hand, pulled the entire meal together. I use this low acidic balsamic from Napa Valley Naturals. Yes…there is a huge difference.

We liked this a lot more than we thought we would. Served alongside a green salad or some veggies, and this is a perfect, filling meal.  We will most definitely make this again…most likely in the summer when we can get awesome tomatoes.

This recipe took about 1.5 hours from start to finish. 10 minutes cutting, 60 minutes baking, 5 minutes to make the sauce, 5 minutes to prepare the basil, and 10 minutes for assembly.

NOTES:

• Be sure to slice all of the ingredients the same thickness.
• This would be lovely to serve to company. Perhaps a first course for a dinner party.
• Next time, I will omit the basil and lemon. Not worth the time.
• Top notch tomatoes MUST be used with this.
• I used Napa Valley Naturals Grand Reserve Balsamic Vinegar. Worth every red cent that I paid for it.