A sweet, savory, buttery, green and healthy food blog by Sanura Weathers
At the last minute, I decided to enter North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission Inc.’s “No More ‘Mallows! Blogger Recipe Contest,” which ends today–March 31, 2012. Sweet potatoes are one of my favorite comfort food ingredients. My first taste was Aunt Anne’s candied dish to adore. As a Brownie in the Girl Scouts, someone brought a pureed sweet potato dish topped with marshmallows to a potluck event. That’s when my true love for sweet potatoes was realized. The marshmallows won me over. Read more
Brooklyn’s BedStuy neighborhood has quite a few new restaurants opening or in development. Recently opened Beso, meaning “Kiss” in Spanish, is a pan-Latin American restaurant featuring dishes from Central and South America, Cuba and Mexico. It opened late last year, and it’s positioning itself to be a festive Summer hot spot offering live salsa music and dancing, comedy nights, a garden opening in late Spring or early Summer, and a brunch menu starting April 1st. Personally, I’m looking forward to their Tasty Tuesdays with seven dollar appetizers & cocktails. From their list of coctails, I ordered a Caiprinha de Tangerina, a drink made with muddled tangerines and brown sugar along with the Brazilian rum, cachaça. Bartender Roberto explains unlike other rums distilled from molasses, cachaça is distilled from sugarcane. Read more
A promise was made to my boyfriend to never cook lamb chops again because of his ethical beliefs against eating red meat. Out of respect, my compromise is eating lamb chops when dining with girlfriends. It’s an expensive dish on most menus, but the price is pretty fair when cooking them at home. Recently, he started working on a major Broadway play. His rehearsals are on Sundays, our sit-down dinnertime. Out of all the promises and compromises we’ve made to each other, his good fortune is being celebrated by breaking the ‘no lamb chop in the house’ rule for my lonely Sunday dinners. Read more
There’s an incredible depth of toffee richness in Medjool datess. They have a crinkly paper-thin skin similar to a sugar glaze. They’re dark honey brown with an oblong shape. The succulent flesh oozes sugar. It’s a fruit tasting like cake soaked in maple syrup. In this salad, dates are classically paired with oranges, and they’re tossed with creamy Gorgonzola cheese, shredded dried coconut, pine nuts and citrus vinaigrette.
The inspiration for this recipe comes from Thai chicken skewers served with peanut sauce. Instead of bite-sized chicken chucks on a stick, a whole chicken is roasted in a similar sauce. With peanut butter being rich in oil, the result of this Asian-inspired roast chicken and vegetables is a sweet, savory and juicy flavor. Set aside a small proportion of marinade for use as a dipping sauce, too. In addition, since vegetables are roasted with the chicken, a majority of dinner is done. Serve a crispy Red Cabbage and Snow Pea Salad with an Asian-inspired vinaigrette to complete the meal. Read more