Updated Forecast: In Excess of 8" of Snow, Plus Wind
Federal Govt. Closed Tuesday
And Now, 10-20 Inches
Morning Roundup: After the Snowfall Edition
Dish of the Week: Sweet potato casserole
Thanksgiving... foodie holiday... blah blah blah. But of course, it is my favorite holiday, not just because of the food, but because of the focus on family. My mother is a fantastic cook. She makes the best scallion pancakes. Her technique is so flawless that family members can tell the difference between the pancakes she rolls out and the ones my aunts roll.
But sometimes my mom likes to "experiment." Now there's experimentation within reason, substituting brown sugar for white sugar, adding a touch of almond extract to a dessert that doesn't call for it. And then there's her special brand of experimentation. She's done fun things like adding hazelnut coffee syrup to chicken stir fry, and dried cranberries in sushi rolls. (We were lucky we got away without that same sushi featuring large chunks of walnuts.)
So what does this have to do with sweet potatoes? As you might have guessed, my mom is not one for "recipes" and tends to wing making sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. That usually meant additions like orange juice, and lots of burned marshmallows. It also meant that I grew up hating sweet potatoes. Though we all know they're really just a vehicle for toasted marshmallows.
Luckily, I've discovered a recipe from my sister's mother-in-law that I love. It eschews the usual marshmallows for a streusel-like pecan topping. And the half cup of butter helps.
Share with us your favorite Thanksgiving dishes, "experiments" and disasters with us in the comments.
Sweet Potato Casserole
29 oz Canned Sweet Potatoes, Mashed
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 Cup Butter, Melted
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
Topping:
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Flour
4 Tbsp Butter, Melted
1/8 tsp Allspice
1/8 tsp Cinnamon
1 Cup Chopped Pecans
1. Mix yams, sugar and salt. Add 1/2 cup butter and vanilla blending well. Pour into greased 1 1/2 qt baking dish.
2. Mix brown sugar, flour, butter, allspice, cinnamon and pecans. Spread over yam mixture.
3. Bake 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the top is a golden brown.
Small Bites
RIS real soon
The long touted RIS from Ris Lacoste that's been anticipated for the past several years is coming much closer to fruition. According to Zagat, the restaurant should open by November 30. Check the restaurant's Twitter for more updated details.
Cupcakes Moving In
Just when we thought maybe the cupcakes would slow down, we're seeing even more in town. First up is food truck Curbside Cupcake, which is making one last stop before Thanksgiving at Capitol South. You can follow their future whereabouts on Twitter.
Also New York's Crumbs Bake Shop will be getting in on the D.C. action with shops planned for Georgetown, Cleveland Park, Foggy Bottom, Rockville, Clarendon and Reston. Though this seems like just one more newcomer, a perusal of the web site shows a much larger variety of flavor options than any existing D.C. cupcakeries, including flavors like caramel apple, chocolate pecan pie, and cookie dough. [via WBJ]
DC Diner
Tom Sietsema reports that DC Diner, from Jessie Yan and Vanessa Lim, will be taking over the old Cleveland Park McDonald's space. Even though the main focus will be on traditional American breakfast foods, they say they'll also offer some pan-Asian foods as well. Dim sum-type items please!!
Cup O' Sushi
Everyone mourned the demise of the reasonably priced Sushi Taro lunch specials. But now Kaz Sushi is bringing back affordable lunch sushi starting November 23 through New Year's Eve. For $12 you can choose from the Cup Sushi option of three miniature cups of sushi with California, spicy tuna, salmon tartare, tuna tartare, crunch eel, spicy scallop or seaweed salad toppings. If sushi isn't your thing, you can opt for Hot Pot of miso with pork, daikon radish, carrot, sweet potato, ginger and scallions or the Hot Pot of chicken with tofu, shitake mushrooms, spinach, scallions, glass noodles with ponzu sauce, also $12.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I never outgrew my youthful hatred of sweet potatoes, yams, pumpkins, or the elderly. Just kidding. I like pumpkins just fine.
Do people really go to diners and say, "Wow. I wonder if their dim sum is any good?" More power to them if they can pull it off, but it seems like so many places screw up the diner classics that they'd want to get the meatloaf/roast turkey/burgers/milkshakes right before they start pushing bahn mi. If they want to go all-out asian diner, they should go for a White Dragon-style neon noodle shop, complete with guy saying, "He say you Blade Runner, Mr. Deckard."
I'll have the Corned Beef Hash Banh Mi, please.
Actually, that sounds awesome
Actually, I know two Korean-run carryouts that make respectable bulgogi subs. Got a nice, spicy steak-and-cheese vibe, minus the cheese.
There's a good deli/salad bar place on North Capital NW across from au bon pain (is it named Lucky's???) in a non-descript office building that does a good bulgogi sub. And they have kimchi in the salad bar. I like to buy the bulgogi sub minus cheese & mayo and put kimchi on it.
Kimchi tastes good on everything, especially feet.
Agreed. When shrimping, I insist on a kimchi chaser. Perfect for getting that nasty foot taste out of your mouth.
A corned beef hash banh mi isn't that far from a Maid-Rite loose meat sandwich, in itself a sloppy joe minus the Manwich sauce, which is pretty f**king diner-ey. It's also diarrhea-ey, but that goes without saying.
speaking of diners, capital city diner announced that they got another bit of construction approved by the city this week, and they're getting much closer to finally opening.
I will reserve judgement until I've sampled their Corned Beef Hash Banh Mi and steak-&-cheese dim sum.
Cheesesteak Eggroll from The Continental in Philly
Cupcakes have now reached such a high level of passé that even Tony Kornheiser thinks they're "in" (topic of conversation on his show all week)
We're of Italian extraction and don't have any interest in the typical American Thanksgiving fare. But we're pretty into cooking so lately we've gotten bored with the same old italian dishes and have started doing different stuff. A lot of it is constrained by the requirement that every dish must contain at least one home-grown foodstuff. This year's dinner will feature, among other things, my brother's vegetable tempura, followed by my cousin's vichysoisse and then bulgogi that I will hopefully do a good job with. It's hard to please fourteen different (adventureous yet picky!) people, so making a lot of not huge dishes works well.
What exactly is the "Cup Sushi" option? I go to Kaz all the time for lunch (at least 2 times per week) and this sounds promising but the description doesn't make any sense. Any help?
It's sushi rice with toppings on it in a bowl. It's nicely arranged, and some of them have a little bit vegetable as well.
How is this different from chirashi? Or is it?
Same idea, but only one type of topping and mini-sized.
Thanks!
Jamie, that's really similar to a recipe I've been using for my sweet taters for a few years (not accusing you of poaching...hell, I got it from a book), and every single year, it's a hit. Actually had a friend of mine tell me he wanted to "dry it out, cut it and snort it". It's a fantastic take on yams...it's practically dessert, but it's potatoes, so we can justify it being a side :) I highly recommend it to the commentati, even if you're not into sweet potatoes...
Oh totally. I got this recipe from my sister's mother-in-law, and I'm betting she probably got it out of a book. Would love to credit it to someone.
Agreed. It's easy to veganize this sucker and even that version goes over well.
wow 6 posts and so far no one has done the token "yams aren't sweet potatoes" arguement.
Another of my favorites is a cranberry salsa that I make in place of a chutney type or super syrupy cran sauce. Basically, get all the ingredients you would get for making homemade salsa fresca (onion, cilantro, jalapeno, etc.), but instead of tomatoes, use cranberries...throw that sumbitch in a food processor with some sugar and about 2 tsp of lime juice, and let it sit for at least two hours...better overnight. Money.
You know what I hate about Thanksgiving? Ma Stamberg's Goddamned F**king Cranberry Relish Recipe. If I have to hear that $h!t one more f**king time I'm going to go down to NPR HQ, find Susan Stamberg's office, leap on her desk, drop trou, and scream, "Welcome to Borracho, honey!"
That recipe sounds absolutely vile. I think I'd rather eat Nickles, gammy leg and all.
There are a handful of recipes that merit the Worse-than-Hitler Award. There's Cakelove's cupcakes. There's the beefaroni at Rockledge Elementary School. There's Eva Braun's Knüdel Kaboodle. And there's Ma Stamberg's Goddamned F**king Cranberry Relish Recipe. I'd just as soon eat a cold bowl of raw chitlins with the $h!t still in them.
You know, my family has a bizarre/disturbing pea salad recipe that involves Miracle Whip and Velveeta. It terrifies most of my friends and associates. Maybe I should get a job at NPR so I can hoist my food weirdness on the rest of the world and get paid for it to boot.
That's a pretty tasty salad, actually, in small doses. I think it actually comes off the Velveeta or Miracle Whip packaging (or maybe both, since they're both Kraft products) . . .
With the onions and pickle in it? I've never met anyone else who would admit to eating it, let alone liking it!
Is there a picture available of the finished product for the recipe of sweet potato casserole? Thanks!
http://www.yesyoucancook.com/img/sweet%20potato%20casserole.jpg
Like posters before me, I make this every year... nuthin' but raves. I add 2 eggs to the sweet potato mixture... I use dark brown sugar... and make sure the flour is self rising.
No flour in my take, but I take all the topping ingredients and heat them up in a saucepan to caramelize the sugar so it gets all kinds of gooey before spreading it out onto the taters. Then when it bakes, the topping almost becomes like a praline-y toffee-y slab of sweet nutty awesome.
I like the flour idea though...makes it more of an actual crust. May have to try that next weekend.
"I yam what I yam and tha's all I yam."
Thank you, Jesus' Dad.
That's me; Mr. Religion.
Best sweet potatoes ever:
Wash 'em
Quarter 'em
Olive oil
Sea salt
Roast 'em
I don't get the whole overly sweet, dessert-y sweet potato thing. Isn't that what pumpkin pie is for?
This, too, is delicious. And, from experience, hold tight with the olive oil. There's nothing wrong with using, say, peanut oil, but it tastes a little odd. Also, if you burn them slightly, more deliciousness ensues.
That's also my favorite preparation for sweet potatoes, but I grill them rather than roast them and I thinly slice them lengthwise.