Sweet Potato Oven Fries
This recipe makes nice tender baked sweet potato fries with good browning. We grow three types of sweet potatoes most years, Japanese Murasaki with purple skins and white interior, Bonita with white skin and white flesh, and Orleans Orange, the classic deep orange inside and out. You can find them at the farm stores or markets to get a sampler of them to bake up and taste side by side. Oven fries are especially good for making a tasting, as the ingredients are so simple and you can taste each flavor.
Ingredients:
Sweet Potatoes
Olive Oil
Coconut oil (optional)
Salt
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice up however many sweet potatoes you want to eat into big chunky fries, all of similar thickness, for even cooking. Toss in a bowl, with enough olive oil to coat, and a little salt.
If you have coconut oil, I like to put a tablespoon or two on a baking sheet and set it in the oven for a minute to melt. Then spread the oil around the pan for a good coating. You could oil the pan with another high heat oil. I think the oil on the bottom gets them to brown better.
Spread the sweet potatoes across the pan so none are piled on top of each other, and each has good contact with the pan. Cover the pan with tin foil. Put in the oven and bake until sweet potatoes are tender, about a 1/2 hr.
Then remove the foil, and put the pan back in the oven to brown. Don’t stir, as this will mess up the browning. Scope the fries out periodically as they bake until you get the level of browning you want.
Serve with ketchup or dipped in a spicy mayo spiked with RFF hot sauce ;).
Oven Roasted Parsnip Fries
One of the most delicious spring things is here! Roots hidden underground all winter gathering sweetness from the frosty cold. We just harvested these and baked the first batch – spring-dug parsnips! Fall and winter parsnips have lots of great flavor for this dish also, though the spring-dug ‘nips are the next level of sweetness. I love to roast them in the oven this way…
Ingredients:
Parsnips – as many as you’d like
Coconut oil (or other higher heat oil)
Salt
Preheat the oven to 400, while you wash and chop the parsnips into fries. Put a couple tablespoons worth of coconut oil on the baking pan and set in the oven to melt a minute. Take pan out and stir the parsnips around in the oil to get some coating, then cover with tin foil to roast for about a half hour until parsnips are very soft to tines of a fork.
Then uncover and roast more until you get that awesome caramelizing of the natural sweetness. Sprinkle with kosher salt or other coarser grind salt, serve hot.
Also excellent dipped in a spicy mayo spiked with RFF hot sauce ;).
Parsnip Coconut Rice
2 cups uncooked rice
2 T butter or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, diced
1 pound parsnips (about 3-4), diced
1/2 t turmeric
2 t curry powder
3 c veggie stock or water
1 apple, diced
1 can coconut milk
Heat pan with butter or oil. Place the rice in the pan and stir to coat. Add water and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and add all ingredients. Cover and simmer until rice is done (about 40 minutes for brown).
Salt and pepper to taste.
Roasted Winter Roots
From Sarah Voiland, 2010
When I was in college, I had what someone called a “root bake” for the first time, and it was so good!
The general idea is chop up all kinds of roots into similar sized chunks, coat/toss with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake in the oven at about 400 until all items are soft to the tines of a fork. Stir after about a half hour. Herbs generally do better added part way in to cooking. To steam faster, cover fully with tin foil for a half hour, then remove the foil to allow browning.
Things you can include:
Parsnips, Rutabagas, Beets, Turnips, Daikon, Sweet Potatoes, Potatoes, Onions, Garlic, Carrots, Herbs, Celeriac, Kohlrabi, and anything else I’m forgetting.
Variations could include adding any of the following: soy sauce, sesame oil and sesame seeds, honey mustard, hot pepper flakes, making a cilantro or tahini dressing to pour over them, serving with ketchup or hot sauce with mayo, and who knows what else.
Raw Parsnip Winter Salad
Sarah makes this for fall and winter feasts. Parsnips are amazing raw.
3 cups shredded raw parsnip
1 and 1/2 lemons, juiced (if organic, include some zest)
3/4 cup currants
1 cup whole milk yogurt
honey to taste
pinch of salt to taste
Grate parsnips, unpeeled is fine as long as they’re good and cleaned of dirt.
Just grate down to the inner core, which is tougher, and you can tell when you get there. Then mix with the other ingredients and taste. If you let it marinate a little while before serving, the flavors meld more.
You can use dates or other dried fruit instead of currants, or a mix.
