Sweetpotato Biscuits

I love sweetpotato; boiled, mashed, or roasted. So why not biscuits?

I found a recipe in the Culinary Arts Institute cookbook that I thought would be interesting to try and it didn't have a lot of ingredients either. Might I add that I still need to figure out the lighting in my place, but I'm a bit lazy – sorry :)

I gathered up all the ingredients, boiled and mashed the sweetpotatoes and set them aside to cool. 

I mixed up the flour, salt, and baking powder and set the oven to preheat. I 'cut' in the shortening using the tips of my fingers until it looked like coarse corn meal. For some reason I find this very satisfying and I like the feel of the flour and shortening at this stage, it makes me want to run my fingers through it. Sadly, it will melt the shortening or butter if I give in to that temptation :)

I mixed the milk with the mashed potatoes and was rightfully skeptical, it's a wee (by wee I mean A LOT) gloppy - that's my technical term for goopy runny mess.

I added the orange goop to the flour mixture and stirred quickly as the directions indicated. With the baking powder it became airy, but very sticky.  I think the recipe really needs more flour. I scraped it out onto the counter with a lot of flour. I think I must of added at least another 1/2 a cup or more. before I could pat it out enough to cut and not have it stick to everything. Kneading wasn't really a priority or feasible.

I used a cute little cup that I had purchased at Ikea years ago to cut the dough. I think it was a kids cup and came in a package of three. I loved them because of the little round bubbles encircling the bottom. I never use them really, they sit in my cupboard until I need something like this. I drink out of coffee cups all the time instead of glasses, go figure?! A few times when I've needed tea candle holders I have used the little cups and they worked great. So they weren't a total waste of money, Ha ha ha!

 I think the recipe as written needs some adjusting. I checked online and similar recipes start off with 2 cups of flour and the same amount of milk and sweetpotato, so I think this one just slipped by without product testing. 

They look pretty sad getting ready to go in the oven. :(

But...they baked up better than I hoped and puffed up slightly. Taste wise, hrmmm.. I think the batter would go amazingly well as dumplings cooked on the top of a stew, but they are nothing special as a biscuit.

90 - 95  calories / 5 grams of fat each - give or take :)



Sweetpotato Biscuits
Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook - 1950 (pg 158)

 INGREDIENTS

• 1.5 cups all purpose flour 
• 2 Tbsp baking powder 
• 3/4 tsp salt 
• 1/2 cup shortening (cold) 
• 1.5 cups sweet potato (mashed)
• 1 cup milk

DIRECTIONS

1. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together
2. Cut in shortening.
3. Combine milk and sweetpotatoes.
4. Add to first mixture and stir quickly.
5. Knead lightly, using as little flour as possible on board.
6. Roll out to 1/2" thickness, cut with floured cutter.
7. Place on greased baking sheet and bake in hot oven (425 F) for 12-15 minutes

Makes 25 biscuits.

Potato Carrot Mold with Tomato Sauce

Happy New Year!  I wish you all the love that can fill your heart, laughter that makes you pee your pants, and happiness that causes your cheeks to hurt!

The holidays are mostly over, I say mostly because I still have my Christmas tree up :) Who knows, I might keep it up until the snow melts!

I had a nice quiet dinner with my mom on Christmas day. We had Turkey and all the fixings. It was nice. I didn't know what to get her - there isn't much a person with terminal cancer needs except a miracle and more time, neither of which I can provide. My sister had a good suggestion, so I went with all the Christmas treats my mom loves (sardines, oysters, crackers, roasted nuts, etc) and put them all together in a gift tray. She seemed to like it :)

I worked between Christmas and New Years and I spent a bit more time crocheting. I'm addicted to it lately. I feel so old! haha - but I did make and sell 2 hats and a doggie jacket without trying and sent off 2 hats/2 headbands to Ontario. Seriously...I need a life ;)

Now, knowing I have no life, I decided it was time to make something from the cookbooks that was simple and would get me back to the crochet hook quicker. Just kidding...haha, I had a lot of potatoes to get rid of.

At first I figured I would just make the Potato and Carrot mold, foregoing the tomato sauce since it sounds like an odd combination, but really, the potatoes and carrots mashed together are just that, mashed carrots and potatoes and nothing special. But YUM, perhaps I just had a craving for tomatoes or something, but it was SO GOOD with the potatoes and carrots. I couldn't stop eating it! YUM YUM YUM.  I think this is my new way of eating mashed carrots/potatoes! It may not look all that appetizing, but it filled my tummy with love :)

I didn't follow the tomato sauce recipe listed below since I didn't have any canned tomatoes, but I did have a can of tomato sauce (not to be confused with pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, or tomato paste). I sauteed some garlic and then added it with onion flakes, salt and pepper to the sauce. It was simple and lovely.

The recipe calls for 3 medium carrots and 3 medium potatoes. Argg, I hate that. It's so arbitrary and I have no idea what the average medium potato/carrot size was n 1950's. I don't even know what the average is in 2015! So, best guess as shown above. 

I chopped them up nicely and boiled them in salted water until tender. They do look pretty sitting in the pot ready to go :)

I gave away my hand mixer to a guy I dated last year...didn't work out, move on, so I was left with the options of using my kitchenaid (umm...no) or unpacking my food processor (umm...no), so the immersion blender was the only other choice...and I'm happy to say that it works wonderfully for this!

If you don't know the average medium carrot and potato size in 1950, you may want to add more or less warm milk to the mixture as you blend. I added the cup full and it was a bit too much, but really, it only changed the consistency, not the flavour.

I put the mix in two casserole dishes to bake. They came out of the oven looking the same as they went in. There was no browning on top. Possibly due to the extra milk.

Ready for oven

Out of Oven

It's not the most appetizing of foods with the tomato sauce on it, but I recommend giving it a shot.


Potato Carrot Mold
Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook - 1950 (pg 482)

INGREDIENTS

• 3 medium potatoes
• 3 medium carrots
• 1 cup warm milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Pare potatoes and carrots and cook together in boiling salted water until tender; mash.
2. Add milk, butter, salt, and pepper; beat until fluffy.
3. Pour into greased casserole and bake in moderate oven (350 F) 20 minutes, or until browned.
4. Serve with Tomato Sauce.  For 4.

Tomato Sauce
Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook - 1950 (pg 490)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/2 cups canned tomatoes
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 4 cloves, 2 tbsp fat
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook tomatoes, onion, and cloves together for 10 minutes. 
2. Melt fat, add flour, salt, and pepper and blend.
3. Add tomato mixture and cook 2 minutes longer, stirring constantly.
4. Strain.
5. Makes 1 cup sauce.

Birthday Dinner with the family: Potato Triumph

Cooking is like shopping. You get to a point where unless you LOVE (truly LOVE) something and there are no maybes or ifs (maybe it will look good with my green skirt or if I had red shoes to go with this.. hahah, or my if thought- if I lost 10 lbs!) then you buy it - or in the case of cooking - you'll make it again.

But really, there is no point in wasting the time or money on something you don't unconditionally love. (which really is the same for cooking and shopping) I hate throwing out good food that went bad because of a recipe!  This recipe didn't go bad, but I won't make it again.

Potato Triumph - it sounded like a winner to me!

It's from the Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook under the Boiled Potatoes section, which is good to know, since they don't suggest anything in the recipe about which potatoes to use or how they are cooked... so, I had some leeway on the type of potato.

To boil potatoes (as per the book):

In order to retain the fullest food value, cook potatoes in rapidly boiling water, with skins on or scraped off.  Use only enough water to cover.  If skins are to be removed, pare very thin and drop at once into boiling salted water.  Save the drained water in which pared potatoes have been cooked to make gravies, soups, or bread, as it is rich in minerals.

I chose about 25 baby potatoes and boiled them as directed in salted water. Then dumped all the wonderful Triumph ingredients in a pot and let it simmer until the butter had melted.

I didn't have any fresh parsley, so I used dry and I didn't have chives, so I used some sauteed shallots, (which I stole from the Rinktum Ditty). I don't think it affected the flavour at all...maybe it matters, but I don't think I have a refined enough palate for it to make a difference.

The flavour was just ok to me, I found the potatoes too oily and overall a bit bland.  Perhaps if I had made more potatoes since the sauce makes a lot then I could of tasted more flavour and less oil. It was definitely more than what I needed. I was feeding 4, not 14!

The kids seemed to like it ok enough, but perhaps they were being nice. I just didn't like it enough to make it a Keeper.


Potato Triumph
Culinary Arts Institute Cookbook - 1950 (pg 483)

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp chopped chives
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 3 tbsp lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients
2. Pour over potatoes and serve hot.