My Holiday Bowl
When I moved to the Pacific Northwest a few years ago, I was amazed at what people would do in the rain. When I vocalized my wonderment, the response was always the same: If we waited for it to stop raining, we’d never do anything.
Now I’m in the desert and we have our own version here – the heat! Our’s goes like this though: If we waited for it to cool off, we’d never cook anything. Although it seemed that we were finally getting a whisper of autumn, the mercury rebounded this week. The big food holidays are coming though, and I like to start thinking about my menus. You’ve likely heard of “fantasy football” leagues. Well, I enjoy “fantasy menus,” but unlike the sports version, mine can go from fantasy to reality! jump to recipe
As soon as the autumn vegetables start appearing, I start planning. So far on my list to try are hasselback butternut squash, an irresistible sliced and roasted preparation, and cauliflower stuffing. I can’t wait to see if I like the stuffing, because there are so many people avoiding carbs and wheat these days. When you live to feed, you want to be able to feed everyone!
Of course, dessert is an important part of any holiday meal, so I like to get a jump on that too. With the purple sweet potatoes still available at my co-op, it was hard to not want to make “royal” sweet potato pie – except that it was hot again, which can mean crust is tricky to make and work with. Enter puff pastry! Not only can it be wrangled pretty quickly when the kitchen is warm, it also cuts easily into little the squares with which I created my “pie-ettes.” Say that with an exaggerated French accent to impress your guests, as needed.
I’m fond of serving mini pies for a holiday meal, because I hate having to choose one, when there are several – pardon my voracity, but I doubt that I’m alone. I loved my royal mini pies because they fulfill that autumn-theme requisite, and let’s face it, they’re purple!
With the fantasy menu I was working up, pumpkin pound cake would counter the sweet potatoes quite nicely, especially if served with a caramel accoutrement of some sort. For the trifecta, I am working on a dairy-free lemon curd for possible aquafaba meringue nests. Uh huh! I can only assume my sense of satisfaction at settling on the dessert options was something like landing a legendary QB on your fantasy football league. My “holiday bowl” will be epic…
I garnished these with pecans because I'm not making pecan pie, but you can finish yours as you like. A little more maple syrup can also be drizzled just before serving. I can't always find purple sweet potatoes, and so I have some steamed and frozen to make sure I can have these for the big day, not that there's anything wrong with regular orange sweet potatoes.
I steam the purple variety because it helps retain the amazing color, which boiling can diminish.
Ingredients
- 1 sheet puff pastry, rolled out slightly
- About 2 cups steamed sweet potato*
- 4-6 Tbsp. maple syrup
- 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted
- 2 Tbsp. milk of choice
- 2 tsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1-2 tsp. ground ginger
- Several grates fresh nutmeg
- Pinch salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°c).
- Cut the puff pastry into 3" squares, and tuck into mini muffin pan, then chill 15 minutes.
- Bake for aout 12 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp. Let cool.
- In a food processor, combine remaining ingredients and puree until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning. Add a little more milk to thin mixture as needed.
- When ready to serve, pipe or spoon into prepared shells and garnish as desired.
Notes
*If using regular sweet potatoes you can simply boil chopped potato, because they won't lose their color.
