Spiralized Spooky Purple Sweet Potatoes

Soooo ... I got a box of vegetables from my friends at Frieda's Specialty Produce to have some fun with, and the one thing I'd been thinking about when I found out what was coming was the purple sweet potatoes.

They're delicious and so ... purple. 

My first effort didn't work exactly as I planned, but I was determined to spiralize those potatoes and use them for something. Because I thought they'd look crazy fun.

For my second effort, I decided to do something simple, and even more important, I wanted to make sure they wouldn't fall apart. Not everything you spiralize will turn into noodles, people. It's not magic, it's just a different way of cutting.

As a side note, I used the new Kitchenaid spiralizer attachment. Which I did not get for free, so this is not a sponsored post for them. But I have to tell you about it! It's really cool! It works like the hand-crank spiralizer, but you don't have to crank, and it's mostly metal, so it's super-sturdy.

It has two slicing blades - the same thickness, but different-sized cores. And then two spiralize blades for different thicknesses of the cuts. I've only used the smaller one so far. And it also has a peeler attachment, so you could use it to peel things. It worked really well to peel and slice apples all at once.

So anyway, this was super-simple, but fun. The result is tasty. And ... depending on how you serve them, this could be spooky or not. Call them curly shoestring purple sweet potato fries and they're not scary at all. Call them something ... scary ... and they'd fit very appropriately on a Halloween table.

I mean, imagine a nest of these potatoes with a pair of eyes (radish slice for the whites an olive half for the pupil) in the middle. Right? Right? Or arrange the spiraly potato pieces around a meatball to make a spider. Or ... I'm sure you can think of plenty of other things.

Spiralized Spooky Purple Sweet Potatoes

Purple sweet potato(es), as needed
Olive oil, just enough to coat the potatoes
Salt, to taste

Heat the oven to 375 degrees while you prep your potato(es). The oven temperature can be flexible if you've got something else in the oven that requires a precise temperature - like if you're baking a cake or a pie.

Peel and spiralize the potato using whatever spiralizer gadget you have.

Place the spiralized potatoes on a baking sheet in a somewhat even arrangement. You can line the baking sheet with a silicone baking mat for easier cleanup if you like. A few bits of potato might stick, but it's not a dealbreaker if you don't use the mat.

Drizzle olive oil on the potatoes. You need enough to coat them, but you needn't get carried away. Add a sprinkle of salt. Add pepper, too, if you like, or other seasonings.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked through, stirring once or twice during the cooking time to rearrange them to make sure they cook evenly. The ones at the edges of the pan will cook faster, or if you've got some super-tight spiral or they're piled on top of each other, they'll take a little longer. It's fine if some bits get a little crisp. I actually like the crisp edges and bits, but watch to make sure they don't completely dry out or they're a little tough on the teeth!

Serve hot or at room temperature.

I loved the purple sweet potatoes cooked this way, but decided to add more color to the plate - I added a kohlrabi and a yellow beet to another batch cooked the same way.

It was an interesting mix and really good!

Unbury the undead ... it's all about chocolate cutout cookies!

The great thing about decorating Halloween foods is that it's perfectly fine to be a little messy. If you're decorating angels and elves for Christmas, you want them to look pretty.

But it doesn't matter if your Halloween ghosts and gremlins are a little lop-sided.

I had a lot of fun assembling these coffin cookies. Since I didn't want bright white "mortar" holding the coffins together, I tinted the royal icing with food coloring (and a little bit of cocoa, too) for the portion I used to build the coffins. For the hands, I left some of the icing plain white. Spooooky.

The nice thing about the coffin cookies is that you can fill them with even more goodies. How about some chocolate mousse? I attached the lids, but it would be fine if it was un-attached, too.

I use black cocoa quite often, and it's what I used in these cookies. It's sold under quite a few names, depending on the seller, but it's a distinctive and very dark cocoa. If you don't have it, you can use regular cocoa. The cookies won't be quite as dark, but they'll still be good.

Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies

3 ounces chocolate chips
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened black cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Royal icing (recipe here)

Put the chips in a microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup and heat in 30-second intervals, stirring in between, until they're melted. They don't need to be hot - just softened and melted and smooth. Set aside until it has cooled to room temperature.

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk or stir until they're well combined. Set aside.

Here;s the cutter I used,

In your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or with an electric mixer, beat the butter until it's smooth. Add the sugar, and beat until it's light. Add the egg and beat until it's incorporated. Add the melted chocolate chips and the vanilla. Beat until they are incorporated.

Add the flour mixture (you might want to add in several additions to keep it from flying around when you start the mixer) until the flour is incorporated. You don't need to beat it any further once it's mixed together.

Place the dough in a zip-top bag and flatten it. Refrigerate for at least four hours, or up to a few days.

When you're ready to bake, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it warm up just a little bit. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a few baking sheets with parchment paper.

Divide the dough into several pieces to make it easier to work with. Flour your work space lightlyt - you don't want to add too much flour to the cookies, so be gentle. Roll the dough to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick - smaller cookies are best if they're rolled thinner, while larger cookies are easier to work with if they're a little thicker.

Cut the cookies with cookie cutters as desired. I used a 3D coffin cookie cutter.

Transfer the cookies to your prepared baking sheets, leaving a little space between them. These don't spread a lot, but they do grow a little.

If you're baking cooking that are different sizes - like the 3D cookies I made that has smaller pieces for the sides and larger pieces for the top and bottom - put the smaller pieces in the center of the baking sheet and the larger pieces along the edges of the sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cookies are firm on top and slightly darker around the edges. Since these are pretty dark to begin with, it's sort of hard to see browning, but if you look, you'll see a slight difference - about 12 minutes.

Let the cookies cool for a minute or two on the baking sheets before moving them to a rack to cool completely.

Decorate the cookies as desired.

12 things you might not know about Nadia G ... And lots of RECIPES!!!

As a food blogger, sometimes you get ... interesting opportunities. Like a chance to chat with Nadia G host of Nadia G's Bitchn' Kitchen and Bite This with Nadia G.

Possibly the quirkiest of the cooks on the network, I was curious what strange turns the conversation might take.

We were supposed to be talking about Halloween cocktails and appetizers she created for a company called Once Upon a Vine. It's a wine company, so the drinks are wine-related. The other recipes are just fun.

But of course, I bounced her off-track a number of times to make the conversation more interesting.

Things you might not know are that:

• Both of her parents are Italian.
• She was (and still is. Ha!) an only child.
• She got her cooking-show start on YouTube in 2007.
• She prefers white wine to red.
• She once dressed as a "prom zombie" for Halloween.
• Her favorite Halloween candy is ... chocolate. Maybe that's too easy. 
• Her second favorite is what she described as a pressed-powder candy that is sweet and tart.
• She started a cooking show on Canadian TV in 2010 and started on the Cooking Channel in 2011.
• She thinks Montreal bagels are the best in the world. They're smaller and fluffier and more delicate than American bagels, she says.
• For Halloween, her mom once dressed her in a potato sack and cowboy hat, with big red dots on her cheeks - she still doesn't know what that costume was supposed to be.
• She doesn't bake a lot of yeast breads, but she does bake sweet breads. A recent one was and apple bread with home made caramel.
• This year for Halloween, she's going to dress as "dead and rotting Martha Stewart."

Yeah, that last one's going to get me some weird search traffic. For sure.

In any case, we talked about her family, and her career and her recipes. And of course I slipped in the fact that I've got a cookbook coming out next month *Pats self on back*

I stopped just short of offering her a cookbook, because that would have been weird. But now that we're besties, maybe she'll buy one.

Speaking of recipes, I've got a whole lot of her recipes, just for you. I haven't tried any of them yet, but they look pretty good. Or creepy. Or good. Whatever.

The food recipes are below, and wine cocktail recipes are available from The Wine Bar. Click on over. Glug, glug.

One wine-cocktail recipe that sounded pretty good to me was something she called The Witch's Brew. It included pear nectar, which is a little unusual, but not terribly hard to find, as well as some white wine and some thyme.

She said that when creating wine cocktails, you need to make sure the drinks are balanced and that the other flavors don't overwhelm the wine. That makes sense.

Her comment about Halloween food, though, really made me love her. She said that some Halloween food tastes as scary as it looks, with way too much food coloring and sugar. She likes food that tastes good, but still looks creepy.

The one that we talked about a bit - it fits her Italian heritage, and it sounded delicious, and it probably looks super-creepy - is her bocconcini eyeballs. It's cheese, olives, and prosciutto. That sounds tasty, right?

Nadia said that she prefers throwing Halloween parties rather than going out to bars where there are "twits in polyester costumes." Then she admitted that there could be some of those polyester-dressed twits at your own party, but at least they're your friends.

As far as her costume this year, it will involve a pastel sweater, too-high mom pants, and lots of blood and gore. That'll be perfectly appropriate when she's serving these:


Bocconcini Eyeballs with Blood Salsa
Recipe courtesy of Nadia G

For the bocconcini eyeballs:
8 large green olives stuffed with pimento
16 Bocconcini cheese balls
8 slices Prosciutto di Parma

For the blood salsa:
1 can whole San Marzano tomatoes
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon aged balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red onion, minced
1 handful fresh flat parsley, finely chopped
1 handful fresh basil, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried Greek oregano
1/4 teaspoon hot chili flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
Freshly cracked pepper

Plus:
Crostini

Making the eyeballs: slice olives into 1/4-inch discs. Place an olive disc in the center of a bocconcini and trace around it with a sharp paring knife. Carve out a 1/2-inch piece of cheese from the outline and place olive slice in the hole. Wrap a slice of prosciutto around the bocconcini eyeball.

Making the salsa: pour whole can of San Marzano tomatoes into a bowl. Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, red onion, parsley, basil, Greek oregano, chili flakes, salt, sugar, and lots of freshly cracked pepper. Mix with hands.

Divide eyeballs into pairs and place on individual plates. Add a couple of tablespoons of salsa to each plate. Serve with crostini.

Note from me: There was no photo for this. I'm tempted to make it JUST for the photo. Or you make it and post it and I'll link to it. Please?


Coffin-shaped Grilled Cheese Sandwiches 
with Melted Taleggio Cheese, Caramelized Onions and Apples
Recipe courtesy of Nadia G

For the caramelized onions:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 red onions, sliced in 1/2 inch slices
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

For the sandwiches:
1 large loaf sourdough bread
1 McIntosh apple, sliced thinly
4 wedges Taleggio cheese
Sufficient quantity butter

Making caramelized onions: Heat a non-stick pan on medium. Add olive oil, onions, separate them, and salt. Sauté for 10 minutes, then turn down heat to medium-low and cook for another 35-40 minutes, until onions are deep amber in color.

Making the sandwich: Cut sourdough into 1/2 inch slices, then into coffin shapes. Heat a pan on medium low and melt enough butter to coat the pan. Lay down a slice of bread, a cheese wedge, caramelized onions, 3 apple slices, and top with another slice of bread. Press down and cook for 3 minutes, until golden brown. Flip and cook for another 2 minutes, until cheese is melted.

Remove grilled cheese from pan, and serve.


Milk Chocolate Chip and Maple Syrup Glazed Bacon
Witch Finger Cookies
Recipe courtesy of Nadia G

12 bacon slices, minced
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup unsalted butter, large dice
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Maldon salt, to taste
1 1/2 cup quality milk chocolate, in chip sized chunks
Raw skinless almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Note from me: You'll need witch-finger molds for these, but at this time of year, you can no doubt find them at the grocery store. Off-season, you can probably find them online.

Making the bacon: In a medium frying pan, sauté the bacon until fat has rendered and bacon is crisp. Drain the fat from the pan, and add the maple syrup. Stir to blend, and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes until maple syrup becomes thick. Transfer immediately to a small bowl, and let cool.

Making the batter: With a standing or handheld mixer, blend the butter and sugars for 3 to 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the egg, and beat for 1 minute or until well blended. Add the vanilla, and beat for 30 seconds more. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Add the maple syrup glazed bacon, and chocolate. Stir to combine.

Place almonds into the fingernail part of witch finger molds. Scoop dough into the molds, filling them 3/4 of the way, and bake in the center of oven until golden around the edges (about 9-10 minutes). Remove from oven. Pull the cookies out while still warm and with a paring knife cut off the excess cookies around the finger to shape it. Handle carefully so cookie doesn't break.

Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Spicy Onion Rings
Recipe courtesy of Nadia G

Canola or peanut oil
1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup corn meal
3 large yellow onions, peeled, thinly sliced in rounds

In a high-sided saucepan heat the oil on medium until it reaches a temperature of 350F.

Making the batter: Combine the cayenne, paprika, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil, pepper, and sea salt in a small bowl. Stir to blend.  Set aside.

Making the onion rings: Add the flour and corn meal to a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. Toss the onion rings in the flour mixture to coat.  Deep fry the onion rings in two batches until crispy, and lightly golden (3-5 minutes).  Drain on a paper towel for 1 minute, and then add the onion rings to a large bowl. Add a large pinch of the spice mixture, and toss the onion rings to evenly distribute the seasoning.

Season with salt if desired, and serve immediately.

Crispy Fried Rigatoni “Chips” stuffed Mascarpone 
with Bloody Spicy Raspberry Coulis
Recipe courtesy of Nadia G

For the rigatoni chips:
1/2 lb. rigatoni
Sufficient quantity canola oil
Sea salt

For the filling:
3/4 cup Ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon mint, chopped

For the bloody raspberry coulis: 
1 cup frozen raspberries, thawed
1 red chili pepper, halved, seeds and pith removed
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Making the rigatoni chips: Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until partially cooked (about half the cooking time recommended). Drain. Deep-fry the rigatoni in several batches in 350˚ F canola oil until crisp and golden.  Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a wire rack. Sprinkle with sea salt.

Making the herbed filling: To a bowl, add the ricotta and the mascarpone and, using a rubber spatula, blend until smooth. Transfer filling to a piping bag with a small straight tip. Fill each “chip” with the filling.

Making the raspberry coulis: Puree raspberries and their juices, chili pepper and 2 tbsp brown sugar in a food processor.

Dip the rigatoni chips into the “bloody’ coulis and serve.

Thanks to Nadia G for taking the time to chat with me. I feel like we're BFFs now, so feel free to call any time, Nadia! You've got my number!

For some music for your Halloween party, Nadia recommended Once Upon a Vine's Halloween party station on Pandora.

All photos courtesy of Once Upon a Vine. Recipes courtesy of Nadia G. Used with permission. All rights reserved.