Roasted Sweet Potato Pita

I have been contemplating making Naomi's recipe, from Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried, for Sweet Potato Pita's for some time. Naomi has several versions of her pita bread recipe, first there is the roasted sweet potato, dark coconut and teff. Timing always seemed to be a challenge, but this weekend turned out to be the perfect for trying my hand at making pita bread.

The recipe is very easy to make and very versatile with the various types of flavors that you can use to make them. My first batch of pita, I used the white Jersey sweet potato. They had a light and delicate sweet potato flavor. For the second batch, I used the Garnet sweet potato and the bread had a delectable sweetness and a beautiful orange color.

My first batch made a fabulous flat bread, although none of them puffed up. I did better with my second batch, with about half of them puffing up. We filled these with a light salad of shredded collard greens, radishes, cucumber and celeriac with a light vinaigrette.

This is a fun and very versatile recipe and my family thoroughly enjoyed them. My children thought they made for great snack food. My husband's favorite version was filled with roasted chicken, swiss chard and tomatoes and some wasabi mayonnaise.

Naomi is my adopted gluten free blogger, for the Adopt A Gluten Free Blogger event created by Sea of the Book of Yum. This month Adopt a GF Blogger is being hosted by Rachel at Wheat-Free, Meat-Free.

Kronans Kaka (The Crown's Reward)

We were recently given a copy of the book, "Things Swedish," by Mari Hemming (Albert Bonniers Forlag, 2001) that had a few recipes that I wanted to try making for us. The first recipe I tried was Swedish meatballs and they turned out so well my family has been talking about them ever since. Then there were cookie, cinnamon bun and cake recipes that were tantalizing me, however it was the Kronans kaka ( The Crown's Reward) was enticing me into the kitchen.

Made with almonds, potatoes, sugar and butter, Kronans kaka sounded delightfully rich. However, I would need to change out a few problem ingredients for those that don't get our allergies going. I switched out the potatoes for Jersey sweet potatoes, halved the required butter with vegetable shortening and replaced the sugar with agave syrup. Next I added some psyllium (plantago) seed meal to hold the cake together.

Mild in flavor, the Jersey sweet potato is less sweet than orange fleshed sweet potatoes and their flesh is drier. They share the same nutrient profile as the orange fleshed varieties making then high in calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and betaine. The yellow fleshed Jersey sweet potato worked beautifully in this recipe and kept the cake mild in flavor.

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed this cake and had a slice for breakfast over the weekend. My children weren't fond of the dark crust that this cake developed while baking, but enjoyed it once I removed the crust for them. This cake tasted the best several days after I made it, when all the flavors had fully melded together. This recipe is a keeper and destined to be made again soon.

This recipe is being submitted to the Gluten Free Teatime Treats baking event hosted by Naomi of Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried.

Recipe

Cake

1 cup (150 g) ground almonds
1 cup (150 g) butter or 1/2 cup butter & 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2/3 cup agave syrup or 3/4 cup cane sugar
4 eggs
2/3 cup Jersey sweet potatoes (yellow fleshed), baked & mashed
2 Tb psyllium (plantago) seed meal

Almond Glaze

1/8 tsp almond extract
1 cup (200 ml) powdered sugar
1 - 2 Tb almond milk

1. Line an 8 inch spring form pan with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. In a medium bowl, stir butter, vegetable shortening until creamed. Slowly add the agave syrup and stir together.

3. Plop in one egg yolk at a time and stir well. Then dump in the almond meal, psyllium seed meal and mashed potatoes.

4. Whisk the egg whites until they hold a firm peak and then gently fold them into the cake mixture.

5. Spread mixture in the springform pan. Bake in lower part of the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Note: The cake will be slightly sticky. Allow to cool before glazing the top.

6. In a small bowl, dump in the powdered sugar, almond extract and almond milk. Stir together and work out any clumps of powdered sugar with the back of the spoon. Then spread the glaze on the top of the cake and sprinkle with chopped almonds. Serves 8.

Chestnut and Celeriac Soup

Rich and hearty soups are staple fare at my home when fall weather arrives. Warming you from the inside out, these types of soups can chase the chill from your body just like a toasty radiator. I'm always looking for ways to stay warm when chilly weather hits and new soups for us to try.

While I was at the vegetable stand, I picked up a celeriac, some parsley roots and sweet potatoes that I thought would be wonderful together in a soup. After looking through my collection of cookbooks, I was inspired by a recipe for sweet potato and celeriac soup in Vegetables: from Amaranth to Zucchini by Elizabeth Schneider. I used celeriac, parsley root, sweet potatoes, shallots, celery and chestnuts to create a delightful fall soup.

Recipe

2 cups chopped celeriac
1/2 cup chopped parsley root
1 cup chopped celery
2 cups chopped sweet potato
1/2 cup chopped shallot
3/4 cup chopped roasted chestnuts
1 quart vegetable broth
2 1/4 cups water
2 tsp sea salt
dash black pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1. In a stock pot, pour in the first ten ingredients. Cook until the vegetables are tender.

2. Puree the soup in a food processor and then return it to the stock pot to keep warm.

3. Add the nutmeg then stir. Garnish with celery leaves and chopped roasted chestnuts.

What did my family think about the soup? My husband and I thought it was delicious. My children didn't really enjoy it, but they said it wasn't too bad. My husband and I enjoyed it for lunch the next day with toasted ham and cheese open faced sandwiches.

Sweet Potato Cake with Maple Glaze - Gluten Free

The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is a treasure trove of culinary delights. Every part of the plant can be eaten from the swollen roots to the greens. The indigenous people of South America have been eating sweet potatoes for over 5000 years and the International Potato Center in Peru has recorded over 4000 accessions. It contains a wide variety of nutrients including calcium, beta carotene, vitamin C and ranges in color from red to purple and white. Like all vegetables, the sweet potato is gluten free.

The uses for sweet potato can range from baked to butter or a crunchy appetizer, a fried dessert croquette and stir fried greens. The sweet potato has taken on a more prominent role in our home, due to my daughter's nightshade allergy. I've found many ways to incorporate the sweet potato into our diet that I hadn't tried before her diagnosis. Before that time I must admit to cooking sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving, which is pretty sad for a Southerner, especially after seeing all the unique ways to put a sweet potato to good use at the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission and the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission.

My Southern Living Cook Book has a wonderful recipe for a Sweet Potato Cake that I have wanted to try for quite a while. It sounded simply delicious and decadent with a wonderful array of spices. I worked up a gluten free version of this recipe and added a maple syrup glaze to it. I decided not to use a binding agent (i.e. xanthan gum, guar gum) and see how the cake turned out. This is what I did...


Recipe

Cake

1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup cane sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup cooked sweet potato, mashed
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 Tb cocoa
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup sour milk or buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Optional:
3/4 cup raisins
1 cup chopped pecans

Maple Glaze

3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 Tb milk
2 Tb Maple Syrup

1. Preheat oven to 325 deg F and line a 7-inch tube pan with parchment paper.

2. In a small bowl, pour in the four flours, soda, salt, cocoa and spices. Stir together.

3. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and then add the sugar. Blend together. Then add the egg yolks, continue to blend. Plop in the sweet potato and vanilla, then mix together.

4. Alternating between the dry ingredients and the buttermilk, adding a little at a time to the sweet potato mixture until it is all blended together.

5. In another mixing bowl, plop in the two egg whites. Beat on high speed until the egg whites form stiff peaks.

6. Add the egg whites to the sweet potato mixture and fold together with a spatula.

7. Pour the cake batter into the tube pan and spread out it out evenly.

8. Bake for 1 hour or until a pick comes out clean. Allow to cool before glazing.

Maple Glaze

1. In a medium sized bowl, pour in the powdered sugar, milk and maple syrup. Stir together. Work out any powdered sugar lumps by pressing the lump between the side of the bowl and the back of the spoon.

2. Pour over the top of the cake.

Note: If you double this recipe it will fit into a 10-inch tube pan.

How did it taste? Simply divine and gone in two days. This recipe received two thumbs up from all of us. Did it hold together with out a binding agent? Yes, it did. The sweet potatoes turned out to be a strong enough binder that it didn't need the addition of a binder like xanthan gum or kudzu powder.

Sweet Potato Biscuits - Gluten Free

We have been enjoying the lovely Virginia weather for the last few days. Springtime here is beautiful, full of blooming trees and azaleas. Our hotel is nestled in a copse of old trees and the property is liberally sprinkled with blooming trees. The walkways are lined with azaleas, pansies and tulips. Morning is a wonderful time to enjoy a cup of coffee and a biscuit while admiring the scenery. Today, we enjoyed a warm gluten free sweet potato biscuits, juice and coffee.

Since the sweet potato is a staple at our house, I try to use it in as many different ways as I can. My inspiration my biscuits came from a recipe by Emeril Lagasse of the Food Network. I began by choosing my flours and selecting which binder I would use.

Recipe

3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup Cream Hill Estates oat flour
1/4 cup + 1 Tb arrowroot starch
1/4 cup + 1 Tb sweet rice flour
1 Tb almond meal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp Turbinado sugar
12 Tb cold butter
1 cup mashed baked sweet potato
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup whipping cream
2 tsp kudzu powder, dissolved in the whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and set out silicone baking cups on a cookie sheet.

In a mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and blend. Add the butter to the dry mixture and cut it in until the mixture looks like crumbs. Then add the sweet potato and pecans. Last slowly add the whipping cream and kudzu mixture and blend. Using a spoon, scoop balls of dough into the silicone baking cups. Place in the oven and bake for 25 to 28 minutes or until golden brown.

The biscuits turned out beautifully, warm and buttery with a slight taste of sweet potato. My family enjoyed these biscuits for breakfast and thought they tasted great. They tasted wonderful with maple butter too.

Sweet Potatoes With Onions & Rosemary

The humble sweet potato is a staple food at my house. They have many wonderful culinary uses, such as in bread, custard, pie, and as a vegetable. One of our favorite varieties, the Red Garnet, has a mellow sweetness when you eat it. Best of all, sweet potatoes are gluten-free.

I know, I know, it's a vegetable...but I still get a kick out of saying it. On certain days, I find that it's important to remember all the things I can eat, rather than focusing on the things I can't. It helps to remember these things when you begin to feel that shopping for food has become a gluten war zone. I start imagining that space ships are zooming through the air shooting gluten globules at my van trying to stop me keep me from goal of finding gluten-free food.

The holidays are particularly bad for creating this effect on me. For both my husband and myself our family tradition was for holiday meals to be a special family celebration. With the Easter holiday coming up, I've been thinking about menus that we can have and these thoughts were on my mind while we were in Virginia last week. Since we moved to New York a few years ago, living here has created an expectation that there will be a certain amount of gluten-free food available for the Jewish holiday, Passover. I thought of this while I was shopping with the kids in McLean and I saw a bakery with a sign out front stating that they had all the Passover bakery items that you need. Wow, could it mean that they would have gluten-free Passover foods? My kids and I decided to take the chance and scope out their food. When we didn't find anything, so I asked the young lady behind the counter if they had anything that was wheat or gluten-free. She looked at me rather confused and asked me, "What's that?" I guess they don't do anything gluten-free for Passover.

Which brings me back to my dusty pile of Red Garnet sweet potatoes and I remember they are gluten-free. They are versatile, nourishing and healthy. The tuber will yield a scrumptious sweetness that feeds my southern soul and make me forget the world of gluten.

Recipe

1 lb Red Garnet Sweet Potatoes, quartered
6 Tb Olive Oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
½ yellow onion, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon dried rosemary

Preheat oven to 425 deg. F. Pour olive oil into an oven proof baking dish (6 x 10). Then add the sweet potatoes, onions and sprinkle the spices over the top. Using your hands evenly coat the vegetables in the spices and olive oil. Place into the oven to roast for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes to ensure even browning. Serves 6.

My children would have preferred to have me leave the rosemary off the sweet potatoes, but my husband and I loved this recipe. It's a keeper.

Sweet Potato Hash - Gluten Free

I love sweet potatoes! There are so many beautiful varieties of sweet potatoes at the grocery store right now, I couldn't resist. This recipe for gluten-free Sweet Potato Hash is made with the small organic Ruby sweet potatoes that I found at Trader Joe's.

Potato hash is down home Southern fare for us. The variation to sweet potatoes makes a wonderful addition to our breakfast menu, plus it's nightshade free.

(Note: Three cheers for anyone who guessed that I photographed the hash on a Pikachu plate.)

Recipe

6 small Ruby sweet potatoes
1 onion, halved and sliced
1/2 bell pepper, halved and sliced
coconut oil
salt and pepper to taste

Wash, peel and cube the sweet potatoes. Put a pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil. Add the sweet potatoes and cook until tender. While the potatoes are cooking, put a tablespoon of coconut oil in a skillet and cook the onion until it is clear. Add the bell pepper and cook for a few more minutes. Remove the potatoes from the water and add to the onions and bell pepper. Cook long enough to blend the flavors together approximately 5 to 8 minutes.

My food critics had mixed reviews about the sweet potato hash. First, my husband and I loved this recipe. This is warm and homey food. My kids only liked the sweet potatoes. They didn't like the onions. The kids tested the hash without the bell pepper, since my daughter has a slight nightshade allergy. I cooked the bell pepper in a separate skillet and added it to the hash once the kids were served.

Sweet Potato Bread - Gluten-Free

Fall is almost upon us. I'm finding I have a need for a gluten-free pumpkin bread. These cool mornings have been making me crave a slice of a warm batter bread and a hot cup of hot coffee.

I haven't tried making pumpkin or sweet potato bread since I had a major gluten free baking disaster last year. I was trying to explore beyond the gluten free recipes I'd tried when I first went gluten free and it was a well...a disaster. I tried making gluten free pumpkin bread in my bread maker. Lessons learned from that experiment were that the bread maker cooks too hot, the middle of the batter bread will never cook and the burning food smell will take a week to get out of your house. So, cook batter breads the traditional way...in the oven.

I had a monster of a baked sweet potato sitting in the fridge that looked like it had more than enough flesh to make a loaf of bread. Next, I was off to work on a recipe. Here's how it turned out:

Sweet Potato Bread

6 Tb of melted butter
1 tsp kuzu powder
1 cup of sugar
2 beaten eggs
1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potato or yams
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup millet flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
4 tsp flax meal
1/3 cup milk
Optional: 1/2 cup ground nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 4 x 8 loaf pan with parchment paper.

Dissolve the kuzu powder in the melted butter. Add the sugar and blend. Then add the beaten eggs and the mashed sweet potato. In another bowl sift together the cloves, salt soda, nutmeg, flours, meal, baking powder and cinnamon. Then slowly add it to the sweet potato mixture. Next slowly add the milk to the mixture.

Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake for 1 hour. Cover and bake until a tooth pick comes out clean. (My bread took 1 hour and 30 minutes to cook all the way through.)

All four of us voted this one a keeper. Unfortunately, there isn't much left to have for breakfast.