Purple + orange = green.

Remember preschool, when you learned about adding one color to another to make yet a third? It was pretty damn magical when you could mix red paint and blue paint and get a lovely shade of purple (or, um, poo-brown, if you were bad with proportions). Tonight I learned another color combination: purply blue + orange = green.

Craptastic stovetop photos ftw!

Yeah, you always thought green came from blue and yellow. WRONG, suckas! I don’t know if that picture quite conveys the vivid green that my water turned as I boiled up potatoes in preparation for dinner, but let me tell you – when I drained that pot, the water was green as the Grinch. Craziness.

Last week at the Madison farmer’s market I made some fun purchases: a crusty, satisfying loaf of spelt bread, a jar of cherry-rhubarb jam, and a kale plant for my garden plot at work (!). But I was most excited to discover organic blue potatoes (really more purple than blue), a variety of tater I’d read about but never personally eaten. I purchased three but didn’t use them ’til tonight, when I boiled up two blue potatoes and one sweet potato before sauteeing that shizz up to make a surprisingly wonderful potato hash.

I want to eat this photo.

Perhaps it’s not the most beautiful creation, but this was one of the most satisfying dishes I’ve had in a week or so, and that’s sayin’ something – I’ve had some pretty darn good food lately. It was so simple, too – I sauteed up some garlic and some onion flakes (in lieu of real onions; I inherited onion flakes from our college house’s pantry last year and always sneered at them until I had need of them tonight). With a little salt, pepper, and cayenne, this was so delicious. The blue potatoes were tastier and less starchy than your average Idaho, and the organic sweet potatoes were truly heavenly. And all those little burnt bits from the bottom of the pan? Freakin’ amazing.

Maybe I’m a cretin for covering this heavenly hash (heh heh) with ketchup, but I love Muir Glen’s organic ketchup alongside potatoes… such a fantastic flavor juxtaposition. It took a whole lotta willpower to save some of this hash, but I thought I might appreciate it for breakfast in the morn. Rest assured, I’ll devour those leftovers without hesitation tomorrow morning before a busy day of thrift-couch-shopping. Yeehaw!

So, what is your favorite naturally fun-colored food?

Sweet Potato Muffin Love

In an act of crazy VeganMoFo intertextuality, tonight I made the Maple-Kissed Sweet Potato Muffins posted on Happy Herbivore earlier today. Because this day has been quite chilly and autumnal, I figured that firing up the oven to bake a batch of hearty muffins would be the perfect way to warm up the house and fill up my tummy.

(Sorry for the cruddy photo quality!)

I’m glad to report that my hunch was correct – these are wonderful autumn muffins. They’re sweet and slightly spicy and wonderfully rich. My only complaint was that they came out just the teensiest bit gummy; perhaps I should have baked them longer. Overall, though, they’re a fabulous stand-in for the traditional pumpkin muffin, and I enjoyed using a few more of the locally-grown sweet potatoes we picked up a week or so ago.

Now I’m off to grab another muffin and plop myself in front of the telly – it’s Office night!

Sweet Potato, Corn, & Black Bean Burritos

Apples weren’t the only produce we took home when we hit up the orchard/farm a few days ago. We also bought a couple pounds of sweet potatoes, and I’ve been itching to use them since then. To be honest, I used to dislike (read: hate) sweet taters. I know, I know. But I have issues when foods that I expect to be savory are actually sweet, and the idea of a sweet potato never really did it for me. Add in my aversion to oddly textured foods (I’m a freak, I know) and sweet potatoes were low on my list of likes.

However, in the interest of fairness, last spring I decided to give sweet potatoes another chance. I started with oven-baked sweet potato “fries” and discovered that they were actually pretty darn tasty. I cautiously raised my acceptance level from “get that crap away from me” to “I suppose I could try some.” After oh-so-bravely trying plain ol’ baked sweet potatoes (loaded with cinnamon, of course), I realized that my childhood aversion to the pretty orange tubers was just silly.

Still, though, I can’t help but harbor a secret well of distrust for using sweet potatoes in certain situations, and sweet potato burritos were definitely high on that list of dubious delicacies. But since I knew I couldn’t use those beautiful local sweet taters for anything less than an exciting, explorative dish, I knew I had to face my fears one last time. So last night I came up with a sweet potato burrito recipe that surprised and delighted me. Now my sweet potato rating has rocketed from “yeah, these are good” to “GIMME MOAR PLZ!” Take a look at these little lovelies, pre-oven.

Okay, I realize that they look like plain Jane burritos right there, but trust me – these were bursting with a delightful blend of flavors. I absolutely loved the textural contrast, too; I saw one recipe online that recommended mashing the potatoes and the beans, but that just seems silly to me. The whole beans and corn kernels work to give your mouth a little textural surprise in each bite. Not to toot my own horn, but this super-easy recipe is definitely a winner!

(Mom’s photo, again!)

Sweet Potato, Corn, & Black Bean Burritos
Ingredients
2-3 sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
1 ear corn, de-kerneled (you know what I mean!)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 yellow onion, roughly chopped
1/2 T minced garlic
Cumin
Chili powder
Cayenne pepper powder
Salsa (I used some of my dad’s homemade salsa)
4 whole wheat tortillas

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Cook and mash your sweet potatoes using method of your choice. I nuked mine (for convenience reasons) and that worked just fine. While your potatoes are cooking, heat a bit of olive oil in a pan and add onion and garlic. When they’ve begun to brown, throw in your corn kernels and black beans. Reduce heat, add spices to taste, and let the mixture sit for a bit while you mash your potatoes.

Once your beans and corn are nice and warm, lightly heat your tortillas. Spread a couple of spoonfuls of the mashed sweet potatoes on a tortilla and cover with the bean and corn mixture. Top with salsa if desired and fold burrito-style. Be careful not to overfill! If necessary, use toothpicks to secure the burritos. Arrange them in a lightly sprayed pan – I used an 8 x 8″ pan and packed them fairly close together – and place in oven. Cook for about 12 minutes, remove from oven, and let cool for a minute or two. At this point, you can slice them diagonally down the middle and garnish as desired.