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” – Picadilly Bowl

Picadilly Bowl from page 243

I had some ingredients in the fridge that I needed to use up, like a half bag of broccoli flowerets, some kale and a bell pepper. The recipe with the funny name, Picadilly Bowl, fit the bill perfectly.

I found the recipe online here.

It took me about 20 minutes to chop and slice all the veggies. I didn’t do this prior to starting the recipe, so I felt a bit rushed in my prep work. It would have been much better to do the prep work first, and then start cooking…but I was hungry.  LOL!

I toasted the oats as the recipe says, but I’m not sure what that actually accomplishes and if that changed the taste at all. I probably would skip that step next time. I chopped the onion…and cried. Boy, was that a strong onion! While the onion was sautéing in a bit of veggie broth, I cleaned and sliced the mushrooms. The recipe doesn’t state which type of mushrooms, so I chose Cremini mushrooms. I usually save time by purchasing my ‘shrooms already sliced, but I wanted to use Cremini and they didn’t have them already sliced.

The recipe says to sauté the ‘shrooms and garlic for 1-2 minutes, but I like mine a bit more cooked, so I let them go for about 10 minutes. Once they got going, I did not need to add more veggie broth.

Once I added the rest of the ingredients and brought it up to the boil, the recipe stated to cover and simmer for 25 minutes. I had to add another 5 minutes to the cooking time since there was still too much liquid that was not absorbed. Once that was done, I added the corn, covered, and let sit for a few minutes to heat the corn through.

Wow! I was really surprised with how delicious this dish was. The sweetness from the corn, the earthiness from the mushrooms, the creaminess from the oats, the cheesiness from the nooch….oh my…like heaven in a bowl.

This held up really well for leftovers. The first time we didn’t add any hot sauce, but the second time we did add our favorite Sriracha. I liked it both ways.  Chris preferred it with the hot sauce.

Prep work 20 minutes, sautéing 15 minutes, cooking 35. Total from start to finish 70 minutes. I’m sure I could cut this time down if I do all prep ahead of time. The recipe states 4 servings, but we got 5. I probably added more broccoli and corn, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

I will definitely make this again.

NOTES:

• Have everything chopped up before you begin. Makes pulling this dish together that much easier.
• We don’t like mushy broccoli, so I didn’t chop the flowers. This allowed them to stay firm even through reheating the leftovers.
• Leftovers hold up really well. Good dish for batch cooking.
• Satisfying meal that stayed with us for hours.
• You won’t even know you are eating oats. They disappear and make the dish creamy and delicious.

Cooking Through “The Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease Cookbook” – Oberlin Corn and Shallot Chowder

Oberlin Corn and Shallot Chowder from page 89

I decided to try this recipe just because I had all the ingredients on hand and I figured, hey, it’s simple enough. If it’s good, I have a quick soup up my sleeve for those times that there is not much in the fridge and I need to pull a quick lunch or dinner together.

You can find the recipe here.

The recipe says that it serves 4. I guess it could be 4 if you were serving a little cup of soup as part of a meal, but we wanted a real bowl of soup. I got about 2 decent servings.

Prep time was about literally 2 minutes since all I had to do was chop the shallot and the celery and toss everything else in a pot. Total cooking time was about 10 minutes. 5 minutes to process to a smooth consistency.

I have to say, I had high hopes for this soup that it did not live up to. I really did want to love this soup.  I did use organic frozen sweet corn, but I use that all the time in dished and we really like it. Maybe it would have turned out better with fresh corn, but I won’t be the one to try it. Definitely not a keeper in my book.

I was so underwhelmed with this one, I didn’t even take a picture.  Sorry about that.

NOTES:

• I used an immersion blender. I should have used the Vitamix to make the soup smoother.
• I had to add quite a bit of salt to make this taste decent.
• I did not use the wine. I used veggie broth.