Eat Your Vegetables (But Make Them Sexy First)

Plus: Late Latkes, Christmas Gougères, and Overnight Oats with Pecans.

Jan 02, 2023

Happy New Year, everyone!

I spent New Year’s Eve at a party packed to the gills because it was pouring outside, so everyone crammed into a house, and it was hard not to think of it as a Covid petri dish. That said, we drank champagne (really nice champagne that Craig got as a gift last year that we never opened) and counted down randomly from ten because no one knew exactly what time it was. For all I know, it’s still 2022, but I’m still going with the “happy new year” theme.

In the spirit of starting the year out on the right foot with vegetables, I want to tell you about a hash I made the other day with old sweet potatoes and cauliflower that I bought before we went to Washington for Christmas.

I wasn’t following a recipe: I was winging it! To start, I cut three small sweet potatoes into 1/2-inch cubes and a cauliflower into florets. Then I poured a layer of Canola oil into a large cast iron skillet — let’s say 1/2 a cup? you need a bit of fat to make a hash — and cranked up the heat until a sweet potato sizzled when I dropped it in.

The sweet potatoes made their appearance first. I seasoned them with salt as they hit the skillet then left them alone until they took on some color. After a few minutes, I stirred them around and added the cauliflower. And then it was just a waiting game: letting everything sizzle for a few minutes, then stirring with a metal spatula, continuing to go and go until everything was deeply caramelized and almost cooked through.

Then came the exciting part: I added a mixture of gochujang (Korean chili paste), about a tablespoon of it, with a tablespoon of miso, and some lime juice — stirred together until it made a paste.

What a transformation! As you can see, everything got even more of a personality and the whole thing looked dangerous, which is how you want your vegetables. I tasted to adjust for salt and lime juice and then served everything with a fried egg on top. A triumphant start to the new year!

But wait, we’re not done frying vegetables. I also made latkes after Hanukkah was over which was a bit weird, and not particularly timely in terms of creating food content, but here’s a TikTok video I just posted of the experience:

@amateurgourmet It’s never to late to make latkes! 🥔 ✡️ #latkes #jewishfood #jewishtiktok #fryingfood #potatoes #foodtok #potato #foodtiktok

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So that’s my Jewish food contribution to this week’s newsletter.

Now for the Christmas portion: here’s what I contributed to this year’s Christmas celebration with Craig’s family in Bellingham….

Gougères! I followed Renee Erickson’s recipe only instead of making giant ones, I made them smaller using a small ice cream scoop, and just baked them until they were golden brown all over (about 30 minutes, if I remember correctly).

In case you’re not familiar, gougères are French cheese puffs and I made them with cheddar, but you can also make them with Gruyere and probably other cheeses too. Hot out of the oven, they’re a perfect pairing for wintery cocktails.

Don’t those look good? Share this post!

I’m starting this new year less delusionally than I have in the past. No, I’m not rejoining my gym this year, no plans to run a marathon, no vows to give up carbs or sugar. But I am vowing to eat more chia seeds, so I made these overnight oats last night…

I used the homemade applesauce that I made following Samantha Seneviratne’s recipe in The New York Times; then I toasted some pecans and chopped them. Finally I mixed together yogurt, oat milk, a bunch of old-fashioned oats, and a tablespoon of chia seeds with some maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt until it was sludgy and flavorful. Then I layered everything into a jar and this morning I woke up to this (this was the 2nd jar, the first jar is packed tight).