One Potato Too Good

 One of the easiest Monday meals to make is air fryer sweet potatoes. These are a longish cook  but so worth it. The result is a filling , quick meal that's good for you and good tasting.

It starts with any kind of sweet potato  and an air fryer.

Sweet potatoes are like regular potatoes .They do take a lot  of time. I had one that was short and squat while the other looked like a typical tuber. Yet they both needed the same amount of time to cook.I set the temperature at 400 as was suggested in a AI overview. It should be half an hour but I added five extra minutes to get a crispy skin. Cook these at twenty minutes , then fifteen.,

Prep is easy>I brushed them all over with Lidl olive oil and then they were coated on sea salt and freshly ground pepper. This not only produced a crackly , crisp skin but also a tasty one too.The skin should be well coated with e salt and pepper mix.

The end result was this. Yes I put a huge blobs of I Can't Beleive I'ts Not Butter which took the crackliness away from the skin. Yet it was delicious and perfect for a quick dinner but also nutritious. They help with strengthening the immune system thanks to them being loaded with Vitamins A and C along with much needed potassium.They  also has manganese and copper in them as well.

One sweet potato is the perfect meal.It's light but heavy in good minerals. It's tasty and bright, a perfect light on a dark winter's night. Make them for dinner and enjoy their goodness!!!

A Very Vegan Thanksgiving

 Whether you;re a vegan or a non vegan, hopefully you had a day full of turkey stuffing, gravy sides and pie.

Apart froma thawing out glitch this was the tofurkey during its' thaw.

After an hour and fifteen minutes in the oven it turned out to be a crisoy, crunchy flavorful bite.

Did everyone have a delcious holiday , full of good food and good cheer? Nothing beats a full plate and good conversation. It's the best.

Tattooed Chef's Vegan Two Cheese Pizza

 Trying to find a vegan pizza is hard. Most pizzerias don't offer it or you'd have to find one miles and miles away. Not to worry anymore. Tattooed Chef has a great vegan one that's loaded with non dairy cheese and the much desired thin crust.

I love Tattooed Chef's products.I'mm a big fan of their baked  mac and cauliflower .Now I've tried their two cheese pizza and it's a winner. Forget Blaze and my local pizzeria This is the pizza to get.

I just doctored it up a little bit with a good sprinkle of oregano  which I  love on pizza and a drizzle of olive oil.

It was just popping it into a 450 degree Farenheit oven for ten minutes. The baked oie was a gooey , delicoius slice with a super crispy crust  - always a plus.Its' crispiness comes from the mix of cauliflower and rice flour and starch along with chia flour. The cheese is a mix of  soycheddar and soy mozzarella I am definitely going to try their vegetable and plant based pepperoni versions. It really is the perfect pie.

Forget going to the local pizzeria. Get the Tattooed Chef's pizza for a delicious vegan treat. It; has every pizza lover's requirements , ac heesey top and super crispy crust. That more could you ask for? It;'s just pure yummy.

Vegan Reheat

 What can you do with a vegan holiday dinner? Reheat it and serve it up in a tastier manner.Vegan ham from tofurky can lend itself to a variety of different recipes from ham salad to treating it  like Taylor ham. Try the latter for a quick, tasty repurposing.

That's exactly what I did. I sliced my holiday loaf from Christmas Day dinner into medium thick  slices,

Some pieces were easier to carve than other bu they produced smaller bits that yielded crunchy morsels when fried.

I decided to fry them up on my griddle using my leftover vegan butter Melt that was also used in my holiday cookies. It was a generous knob.

It was then cooking and flipping the slices as if they were Taylor ham. The edges should flip up like a sombrero's . This usually takes anywhere from five to ten minutes.

Some pieces will cook up faster than others. Let them. This provides crisp pieces sort of like bacon.

I had mine with leftover string bean salad but the slices would also be good in a vegan Eggs Benedict  using Just Eggs or an omelet using the egg sub in.I also made a sandwich of one on rye bread. It would be delicious in savory vegetarian cheese egg strata for brunch too.

The possibilities are endless with leftover Tofurky ham loaf.  You can slice it, cube it, mince it.It's tasty fried, but you can air fry it too. Be creative with your vegan holiday leftovers. It's amazing what you can make with it.

Scallions Decorative And Tasty

Want to add color and zest to any savory meal? Then think scallions. These emerald green stalks are wildly popular in Chinese cuisine but  they can also be added to any other recipe. Try them  - for some zing and oomph!

Scallions are part of the allium family, and are first cousins with bulb onions and second cousins to garlic,leeks and chives. They're sometimes called green onion, spring onion and salad onion. Due to their age, they not to have a  fully developed bulb at the end of their stalks. The stalks themselves are round, hollow and tubular, growing from a small knob. They originated in far eastern Europe and the name for it came from the Greek word ashkelon which is also where the word shallot derived from. There are about seven different types. The ones we see in supermarket is the Welsh variety and it is also used quite often in Asia. The other type, A cepa is also sold here. The onion is divided into two parts, the white which has  a sweeter, more flavorful taste than the green section. Most professional and home chefs use the green part a lot , simply for color. You can use these instead of chives ,especially on baked potatoes. They will definitely give them more flavor. Peak season is usually Spring and summer but they can be bought all year long. Scallions are always sold in bunches . Do not buy if the white part is yellowed or if they look wilted.

One of the most famous and most delicious recipes is scallion pancake from China. This is an easy cook at home.It's a simple flour pancake with an entire bunch of chopped green scallions added. They then fried in peanut or vegetable oil until crispy and brown . Each pancake receives about a tablespoon of the greens. They're usually served with soy sauce or a sweet sauce, made from soy sauce, ginger root and brown sugar.Scallions add zing too,  to hot and sour soup, giving it a nice fresh flavor after all the heat and tang. Slice them very thin and toss  them into a fennel salad . They give the usually mild salad green some zing and zest. They do this for other recipes such as cauliflower fritters and seared salmon.They can be added to bland mashed potatoes for color and dash along with being deep fried in corn flour and bread crumbs.  The Chinese are not the only ones who love scallions. The Mexicans often incorporate them in tortillas and even guacamole.

Scallions are a great way to enhance any savory dish. Try them n classic Chinese pancakes, salads, or guacamole. They are sharp and tasty, a perfect way to add  excitement to lunch or dinner.

Sensual Cooking

A good dinner is a feast for the eyes and the palate. However to make that dish happen all five senses need to be employed.It may be sensuous but more than that it's necessary to create the perfect meal.

Julia Moskin wrote about this method in today's New York Times Food section.It's based on ASMR  or autonomous sensory meridian response.It is a newly defined sensory state that is a kind of pleasurable shivering or tingling that spreads along the scalp, upper back and shoulders in response to soothing repetitive sounds.Originally it  included  soft whispering, pages turning, or having one's hair brushed but now it has expanded to food. There are even videos that cater to this such as Silently Cooking and Peaceful Cuisine have no sounds - no how to voiceovers so home chefs can listen to "cooking sounds" like a knife's rasp against chocolate, a whisk whipping egg whites and the glug glug of olive oil being poured. Blind home chefs have been relying on this along with taste and texture.They know the difference between a boil and a hard boil along with the different feels of a rare and well done steaks. The mouth feel of pasta is important because it signifies when it's half cooked or done.Sadly there is nothing to help those with impaired taste and smell problems or anosmia.

How can we sharpen our senses to make for better cooking and baking? Ms Moskin gives a sidebar of tips that can home a home chef's senses. Notice the steady sizzle of  frying food in a skillet. Popping or uneven sounds mean's the heat's turned up too high. Practice picking up a teaspoon of salt in your fingertips so  you can accurately measure without measuring spoons.Listen to liquids as they cook to differentiate between what  simmering , boiling and hard boiling sound like.Also listen to cakes baking as famed Southern chef, Edna Lewis recommends Cakes make little bubbling and ticking sounds when they're in the process of being baked. Cookies need the sense of touch to determine if they're done. Touch their tops. They should feel crispy and crusty  - and not soft and dought. Silence means they're completely done.Use the blade of a small sharp knife to gauge when a fish is cooked. Slide it gently into the flesh and then press against your lips.It should feel pleasantly hot like a hot shower - not warm - and not scalding. Touch is very important when it comes to making a salad. Toss greens with your hands to make sure they're fluffy and cool. Any limp leaves should go back to the fridge for refreshing with a damp paper towel.

Cooking should be a sensual experience . To make that happen use all the senses - not just taste and smell. Listen. Touch . It'll make for a much better tasting meal.