Eat Your Vegetables (But Make Them Sexy First)

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

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:

@amateurgourmetIt’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.

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).

A great way to start the day… and the new year!

Finally, for those who are wondering what happened to my podcast, I’m revamping! Coming next week, get ready for my new podcast vision…

More soon!

Now for all of the links I’ve been storing up since the end of 2022:

• The Best and Worst of the Year I Ate New York (NY Magazine);

• The 12 Most Loved Restaurant Dishes of 2022 (LA Times);

• Stanley Tucci says his Searching for Italy show is cancelled (Grub Street);

• Dwight Garner on the food in Cormac McCarthy’s novels (NY Times);

• All of the books Luisa read in 2022 (Letter from Berlin);

• Ryan Sutton’s Best NY Restaurants of 2022 (Eater NY).

That’s all for this week, folks.

See you back here on Thursday. Well, those of you who are paid subscribers!

Have a great start to your 2023…

Your friend,
Adam