I’ve mentioned the amazing NYC-based food blog Smitten Kitchen before on this blog, when I made her outstanding asparagus and pancetta hash.  So good, and a recipe that I’ve made/adapted more than twice since.

What makes her blog so special is not only the beautiful photos and the inspiration she provides for all of us cooking in tiny kitchens, but her recipes are so simple and super delicious.  She’s wonderful.

I’ve made her Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat’s Cheese a number of times now.  Once before Christmas with a Moroccan lamb stew, another time as a lunch time snack and last week as a main course when we had our vegetarian friend Valerie over for din dins.

What you need for Smitten Kitchen’s Sweet Potatoes (Serves 3 as a main, 5/6 as a side)

*You may notice in the pic above that there is a definitive lack of pecans in the pick.  I totally forgot to put them in when I made them that time for lunch.  It was still good, but the toasted pecans take it to a whole other level so don’t be a ninny like me and remember to put them in to the salad.

2 sweet potatoes, washed and cut into 2cm rings – circles rather than chunks

A good handful of toasted and cooled pecan halves, finely chopped

1 shallot, finely diced

2 stalks of celery, finely diced

2 tablespoons of flat-leaf parsely, finely chopped

About 150g of hard goat’s cheese, although the lovely soft spreadable type will do fine too

2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

Olive Oil

Salt and pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 220 degrees C / gas mark 7.

Start by giving your potatoes a wee scrub and cutting them into rings.  Place on an oiled baking sheet/roasting dish and season with salt and pepper.  Make sure each side is equally coated in a little oil.

Pop in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes, until bottoms of sweet ps have browned.  Take them out, and flip them over for another 10 minutes until you get the nice browned effect on the other side.

Meanwhile, make your salad.  Mix the chopped shallots, celery, parsley, pecans in a bowl with the vinegar, mustard and 4 tablespoons of good olive oil.

SK suggests that you either crumble the goat’s cheese in among the salad, but I put a dollop/slice of it on top of the cooked sweet ps and then sprinkled the salad on top of that.

For the vegetarian dinner, I made some cous cous with roasted tomatoes and courgettes, and we had a lovely green salad with Jamie Oliver’s avocado and sour cream salad dressing.  It was kicking!  If I do say so myself.

Roasted vegetable cous cous, green salad with avocado dressing and our sweet potato centre-piece.

And Valerie brought over the most delicious chocolate mousse for dessert, using  some Bonne Maman jam jars to serve them in, isn’t she clever?!  I love this idea and will not be ashamed to steal it in future.  So cute.

TUNE

Have a listen to our dinner guest Valerie’s beautiful track Punches from her album Slow Dynamo (buy). The video below was directed by the brillo-box Eoghan Kidney.

Categories: Dinner, Lunch