Pretty Eats

Cooking and eating my way through life. Lover of crudo, avocados, strength training, and barre/pilates.

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Post #ambitiousathletics breakfast of peashoots and herbs scrambled in ghee w eggs tucked into sprouted grain pita + mashed avo... Annnnddd I added leftover bison to mine #yummmm #breakfast #organic #healthy #strong #grassfed #pastured #pita

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So Yammy!

When I was little, I would sit at the kitchen counter watching my mom pack our family’s lunches.  I think they consisted mostly of tuna salad on squishy whole wheat honey bread, a piece of fruit, and sometimes a treat, like a Capri Sun or prepackaged peanut butter crackers.  The tuna salad almost immediately turned the bread into a paste.  However, soggy bread was not the biggest of my problems.  Lunchtime in a school cafeteria for me, from third grade until high school graduation, was always a bit like that scene in Mean Girls where there are various cliques that have colonized the cafeteria tables and you have to claw your way into the “right” one, or at least find someone to sit with so you don't look sad/lost/alone/pretty much everything you feel at one time or another as a kid.

In my middle school, there was a table where the cool girls, who had new clothes from Gap and Old Navy, sat.  At that point, I was just growing out of the hand me downs my mom had procured from the approximately five other Korean families who lived in Austin at the time.  I was dyingggg to go to JC Penney and get a cool plaid Bongo vest so I could look the part.  (In retrospect, what was I thinking?)  In any case, I was lucky because I was tangentially connected to the cool group after taking up the oh-so-Texan pastime of cheerleading.  This helped spare me from total humiliation.  But still, lunch was awkward and stressful.  There was always too many girls jostling to exist at the cool table, so we’d have to share seats.  Those seats were orange and round and about 12 inches in diameter.  We would have to wedge our bums onto the seats, one cheek precariously clinging onto that orange silicone for dear life.  So, all of this emotional trauma and energy devoted to seat-getting might explain a lot of why I do not remember what I ate for lunch from age 8 to 17.  

What I do remember, however, is my dad’s lunches.  Mostly because I thought they were SO WEIRD.  My dad was inexplicably into those mushy tuna sandwiches for a while, but he was mostly and always into Japanese sweet potatoes—those beautiful, sweet, starchy, fleshy whitish-yellow tubers that you now see all over Whole Foods.  His typical lunch was a huge sweet potato and an apple (preferably Fiji).  I remember him buying bucketfuls of gnarled sweet potatoes from the Korean grocery store (which was possibly the only Asian grocery store in Austin in the late-eighties).  I remember that store for its overwhelming kimchi-anchovy smell, rows of Korean drama videocassettes, and the mattress tucked away behind the register where the owner’s kid would play and nap.  My dad always put his sweet potatoes in the bottom right crisper drawer of our fridge.  They were strange and purple and frankly I thought they were a waste of space.  Sometimes, my dad would microwave a sweet potato and cut it up for everyone to eat, and I would munch on a small piece, but I never really gave them a chance.  Instead, I fetishized Nacho-cheese Doritos and baked Russet potatoes with sour cream and oh my god the Little Debbie prepackaged brownies I could buy for ninety cents in the cafeteria.

At some point (much later), sweet potatoes and yams* became a “thing.”  Nowadays:

-Even girls who “don’t eat potatoes,” eat sweet potatoes.

-I distinctly remember Matthew Morrison from Glee telling a magazine about how he ate sweet potatoes for three! days! straight! in order to prep and tighten his abs for the cover shoot. 

This intensive People-magazine research I have conducted shows that sweet potatoes are a "thing."  

Meanwhile, there was my dad, still munching on his sweet potatoes, and even feeding them to our dogs (who love them).  He still makes them the same way; in the microwave, always cutting them so that they resemble hedgehogs, and letting them cool (without a plate, usually on a paper napkin pilfered from a take-out joint) on the counter.  His sweet potato love still runs so deep that he brings whole cooked one along with him (to accompany a thermos of cold almond milk) to eat during his daily 18-hole golf game, and he regularly cooks up another one post-yoga.  (Answer to what you are all wondering: Yes, he is quite enlightened and fit, and duh retirement is awesome.)  It is also common to find half of a cooked sweet potato in a random corner of his house.   I often wonder how my dad has so much energy, and I think sweet potatoes (and salmon, but that’s a different story) could be part of his secret. 

At some point, a thing started where I would email my dad about something delicious and he would write back “Yammy!”  I could not figure out whether or not my dad actually meant to write yammy, but it would make me giggle hysterically and think about his Japanese sweet potato addiction.  To this day, I still get texts from my dad that say YAMMY!

Now, I am super-addicted to sweet potatoes of all kinds.  I just cannot get enough.  My husband is partial to the Japanese sweet potatoes my dad likes because of their sweet flavor and starchy texture.  I gravitate towards orange-fleshed sweet potatoes for the extra beta carotene.  The directions below specify Japanese sweet potatoes they’re a touch starchier than the orange variety and make for a slightly crunchier fry.  But no matter the color, it will still be yammy.

* The terms sweet potato and yam are basically used interchangeably in grocery stores… I won’t get into specifics because they’re all good for you.  Just trust that if you are choosing a sweet potato over a Snickers bar, you are doing a good job.

Japanese Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients:

One large sweet potato (Or a couple petite ones.  Just go with what you're feeling and try not to crowd the pan.)

1 tbsp. ghee or coconut oil

Herbs, either fresh or dried (Rosemary, thyme, or parsley pair especially well with sweet potatoes.)

Sea salt

Cracked black pepper

Optional: sprinkling of cayenne or paprika

Tools:  sheet pan, tongs (or a spatula)

Instructions: 

Preheat the oven to 425° F. 

 Cut the potatoes into matchsticks.  (I do mine approximately 1.5 cm thick, but feel free to go with whatever width makes you happy.)  The most important thing is to make sure to make the matchsticks uniform so they cook at the same rate.

Measure a tablespoon of ghee or coconut oil onto a metal spoon—place this spoon with the fat on it on top of the baking sheet you plan to roast the potatoes in and place the baking sheet + spoon in the oven for around 20 seconds.  Carefully (using oven mitts) remove the baking sheet from the oven—your fat should be melted and will now easily coat your potatoes.  [Do not be like my husband (hi!) and moronically place a spoon coated in coconut oil in the oven without the safety of a baking sheet under it, unless you enjoy oven-cleaning.]

Place the matchsticks in the pan and toss to coat them in the fat.  Arrange the matchsticks in a single layer on the pan.  Sprinkle liberally with sea salt and black pepper.

Roast in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes, checking at the 10 minute mark to make sure the potatoes are not getting too brown.  At this point you should:

Add your desired herbs.  I like to add my herbs in the middle of the cooking process to make sure they don't burn.

Use tongs or a spatula to flip the potatoes.  [Alternatively:  If you are lazy like me,  just leave the potatoes be and they will still be scrumptious, albeit a tad Jersey Shore on one side and anemic on the other. Sometimes when I don't feel like flipping (i.e. I want to watch TV), I turn the temperature down to 400° F or lower and periodically peek at the fries to make sure they’re not too browned.  Your fries will be softer, but we all have to make sacrifices sometimes.]

When your timer goes off, the sides of the potatoes should be browned and slightly puffed.  If not, leave the potatoes in for a couple more minutes and babysit them until they get that puffy look.  Obviously, the thicker you cut your matchsticks, the longer this will take.  

Take the fries out of the oven.  If you want, sprinkle cayenne or paprika on the potatoes for a little extra kick.  If I used fresh herbs, I like to sprinkle a bit more chopped fresh herbs onto the fries for freshness.  Enjoy immediately.  

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Quick #salad I brought to a very boozy #brunch on Sunday. Because it's always nice to get at least some #organic #veg in before stuffing your face 😊. Made a #probiotic #dressing with #miso #tahini #sesameoil #scallions and #acv to accompany it: a+

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Quick #hemp #cinnamon #vanilla #latte #lovemyvitamix #eventhoitssodirty ps if you don't drink coffee or wine you can't be my friend

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Creating my own sunshine on another cold day on the East Coast. #organic #bloodoranges and #minneolas #citrus #vitc random fact: the white pith is actually the most nutritious part #prettyeats

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The star of this #squash #soup is #kabocha squash (my fave!) with supporting roles by other #veg and tons of great #immunityboosting #spices like #tumeric and #ginger #nomnom

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Falling into #carrot #leek #veggie #apple soup with #pepitas and #cumin oil yum!

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#lentils and #herbs

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Beautiful #beets

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#Antioxidant power: #artichokes and #asparagus