Sweet Potato Spoonbread with Goat Cheese

From Witchin in the Kitchen via Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking.

I made this in a cast iron pan. They are not kidding about the butter.

sweet potato spoon bread
adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking

3 medium-large red-fleshed sweet potatoes or yams
1/3 cup unsalted butter (yes, really. don’t skimp.)
4 large shallots or 2 small onions, sliced into thin rounds
6 ounces goat cheese
¾ cup flour
1 t. salt, pinch of pepper
1 cup boiling water
3 large eggs
apple butter or grated parmesan, if desired

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Butter a 2-quart casserole dish.

2. Prick each sweet potato with a fork a few times, then wrap in foil.  Prick the foiled potatoes, this time to allow steam to escape.  Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until the sweet potatoes are fork-tender.  Cool until they can be handled.  (You can do this first baking step ahead of time, even a couple days in advance, and just stick the baking potatoes in the fridge until you’re ready to use them.)  Use a big, wide spoon to scoop the flesh into a bowl.  Increase the oven temperature to 425.

3. Heat the butter in a skillet over medium heat, and add the shallots.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the shallots are golden and the butter has browned, about 10 minutes.

4. Whisk or blend the goat cheese with a fork until fluffy and light; you may need to add 1 or 2 T of water if the cheese is on the dry side.  In a large bowl, combine the flour, s&p.  Add a splash of the boiling water to the flour mixture and stir to make a paste.  Continue adding the water a bit at a time until it is all incorporated, and don’t worry if the batter is a bit lumpy.  Add 3 cups of the sweet potatoes and blend with a hand mixer.  Stir in the sauteed shallots and all of the butter in the pan, then stir in the eggs one at a time.

5. Put two-thirds of the sweet potato mixture in the prepared casserole dish and top with dollops of the whipped goat cheese.  Finish with dollops of the remaining sweet potato mixture.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the goat cheese begins to color and the potatoes have set.  Top with a scoop of apple butter or freshly shaved parmesan.

Pumpkin Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thanks so much to My Baking Addiction Blog. I accidentally made some other version of this last week and was like wth? But then realized that I needed to get back to this recipe. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies YIELD: 16 large cookies INGREDIENTS: 1 cup canned pumpkin 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 egg 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon milk 1 tablespoon vanilla paste (extract will work just fine) 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips DIRECTIONS: 1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. 2. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well. 3. Add vanilla and chocolate chips. 4. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm. (I baked these at 360°F for 12 minutes) adapted from allrecipes

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

From Phil Adams: Pound cake in the oven. Memories of Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House. Am I ever glad that we bought that cookbook, even just for that one recipe. So simple! Three sticks of butter, 8 oz. cream cheese, six eggs, I T. vanilla, 3 C. sugar, 3 C. cake flour. bake in an non-preheated 300 degrees oven for two hours. No peeking, or it falls!

Chicken Happiness Soup

Once back when I was in graduate school, I made Nigella Lawson's Happiness Soup. It was pretty good, but it didn't seem grounded exactly, so I made some additions. Here's the recipe: Meat from one whole roasted chicken Zest and juice from one lemon 3T olive oil 2-3 yellow squash not peeled but minced 1t tumeric half a teaspoon cumin half a cup of Basmati rice 4+ cups chicken stock salt to taste Heat the oil in a pan on medium. Add the zest and the squash. Let cook for five minutes until soft. Add the spices and lemon juice and stock. Let simmer for a minute. Add rice and let simmer for 10-20 minutes until the rice is cooked through. Done! It's so good to eat it room temperature. I highly recommend that.

Homemade Chicken Suizas

Oh. Man.

 I'm moving away so I had to think about how to re-create my favorite dish at Mexico in Atlantic City: The Chicken Enchildas Verde aka Chicken Suizas. I saw some very elaborate recipes. Here's the one I came up with. It's gluten free, hormone free, soy free.

1 large roasted chicken breast (organic) shredded (or veggie burgers inside, or black beans)
a package sprouted corn Ezekial corn tortillas
one package Applegate Farms Monteray Jack Cheese slices
one large jar green salsa or green enchiladas verde sauce (somehow I like the salsa better than the Frontera green chile sauce, but it's totally fine too).

 Heat oven to 350F Pour some of the sauce in a glass pie plate.

Roll some shredded chicken and part of a slice of the cheese in a tortilla.
Put it seam side down in the plate. Make six total.
Pour the rest of the salsa/sauce over the rolled up tortillas.
Put the remaining cheese over the top. (I think somehow that particular package of Monteray Jack is the exact right amount of cheese. Last night I tried a 12 ounce package of shredded Monteray Jack--"Hormone Free"--and it's a bit saltier and well, it's just too much cheese.)

Put the plate in the oven for 30 minutes. Let cool for 10.

I ate this for dinner. Then I ate the rest for lunch. Good with beans and rice, or eat a salad for Pete's sake.

Thyroid Sources

A Gluten-Free diet made my antibodies go way down, very quickly, after I was officially diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Better Batter flour is the best alternaflour I've found. I buy it off amazon.com. Kale salad is pretty tasty. Actually, I just steam organic kale, throw it in a bowl, put some Celtic Salt on it, lemon and olive oil and some of the dried kale powder from the health food store. Makes me feel good! Read this and I like what it says about adrenals being connected to the thyroid. Restoration and self-care are good ideas too. Another thing to think about is the ecology of your digestive system. If you take anti-biotics pretty regularly, it just doesn't help your digestion. I drink kefir almost every day (no sugar) over fruit or with some nuts in it. That's what I got for now. I'll post more as soon as I come up with something tasty.

Chicken and Kale in Tomato Sauce alla Pappligna

1-2 grilled chicken breasts in lemon and olive oil, diced (or a can of garbanzos)
half a head of organic kale, ripped into bite sized pieces and washed
1 24 oz can tomatoes chopped
one small onion, diced
olive oil
bay leaf
basil
pinch of sugar
pinch of Celtic salt/regular salt

Organic brown rice

Now that I'm on this infernal thyroid health diet, I've had to get clever. And what is annoying is that I'm having an allergic reaction to this meal, but I usually eat all of these things with no effect except I've never eaten this organic rice before. Gah.

Brown the onion in a generous amount of olive oil (3T) until clear.
Add the can of tomatoes, the juice from the can, the bay leaf, the basil, pinch of sugar and pinch of salt.
Let stew for a while.

Add the chicken (or can of garbanzos) and let it all cook down for about 20 minutes.

When you are about two minutes from eating, add the kale and let it wilt a bit until it's bright green and soft.

Serve over brown rice. This is really tasty. I wolfed it down when I was feeling really bad. Now I feel good, but itchy.