Sweet Potato Biscuits

Happy Birthday to me! As has become tradition, I celebrated my birthday ( and entry into a new decade) this month with a Birthday Brunch for a bunch of girlfriends. I give guests a strictly enforced dress code (cute; on-trend; Instagram-ready) and expectations for a filling morning of heavy snacks and cool drinks.

Two must-haves for any party: fresh flowers and lots of candles. I bought a pretty bouquet from Trader Joe’s, which I split apart and used to fill a dozen white milk glass vases around the house. Many of my wedding gifts came out as I needed all the platters and serving dishes I could find: Fresh fruit salad with limoncello, phyllo-baked brie with almonds and apricots, curried chicken strudels, soppressata and Gruyere puffs, edamame hummus, lox with cream cheese and capers, salsa fresca, guacamole and the centerpiece: mango-ginger glazed ham sliders with cheddar & chive biscuits and sweet potato biscuits. Check my Instagram feed (@thewritegal) for more pics.

Finding a smoked spiral-sliced ham proved difficult in this holiday off-season, but I won’t bore you with the details. The net result is I got my ham, and now have plenty for leftovers (split-pea soup with ham is simmering on the stove as we speak!)

The cheddar and chive biscuits will be featured on a future post, but I want to highlight these sweet potato biscuits, the recipe for which my friend and neighbor Molly gave me. It’s a simple biscuit recipe with cooked sweet potatoes providing much of the “wet” ingredients. I served the biscuits with Dijon mustard and a sweet cinnamon butter that I whipped up. My favorite combination was the sweet potato biscuit with cinnamon butter and smoked ham. Yum!

These are an obvious choice for brunch, or really any breakfast. I love the sweet biscuits with the salty/smoky ham. They are also good alone, with honey butter or cinnamon butter.

Thanks for the recipe, Molly!

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• Heaping 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• 5 tbsp chilled shortening
• 1/2 – 1 cup thoroughly mashed, riced, or pureed cold, cooked sweet potato (two medium sweet potatoes for me, which I cooked in the microwave and scooped out)

Preheat oven to 500.

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add in the shortening, cutting it into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or your fingers. Add in your mashed sweet potato and just enough cold milk to get the dough to the right consistency (mine was roughly 1/4-1/2 c. milk). Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly, about 10 strokes. Roll out dough to about 1/2 – 3/4 inch thick. Cut into rounds and place on parchment-lined cookie sheet.

Bake for approximately 8 minutes, until golden. The dough can get very heavy when re-rolled, so work scraps as little as possible.

Once baked, slice in half with a serrated knife if you are making sliders.

Best served warm, or cool completely and store in air-tight container.

Enjoy, friends! xoxo

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Sweet potato ravioli

One evening at the office, I quietly ate leftovers at my desk while finishing up some projects. Not five minutes later, I heard my boss yell from her office, “What smells so good?” and then the girls on the other side of the cube echoed her question.

“It’s just me and my sweet-potato ravioli with browned butter and sage sauce!”

One thing lead to another and I was soon promising to post the recipe for everyone.

I first ate this at the Pretentious Thanksgiving party. I normally hate sweet potatoes, but they are soooo good wrapped inside wanton wrappers and then drizzled with a sauce of nutty butter, earthy sage, a pinch of pepper flakes, pine nuts and fried shallots. What can’t be good with that combination of flavors? One thing everybody says is that the red pepper flakes add a nice balance to the sweetness of the sweet potato, so don’t leave those out. Also, fried shallots and toasted pine nuts are good on about anything.

Every time I make these, they take a bit of a struggle. I recommend making the ravioli the day before and then freezing them. Drop the frozen bundles into boiling water as you would any ravioli and lightly boil until done. Other than that, the sauce and fried shallots are easy.

Also, the ravioli stick together easily, so don’t cry if they tear. It will still taste wonderful. And don’t crowd the boiling water with them or they will most certainly seal together.

Taken from Epicurious, here it is:

Sweet potato ravioli with a browned-butter and sage sauce:

Ravioli

• 2 1-pound red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams)
• 2 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, room temperature

• 1 12-ounce package wonton wrappers
• 1 large egg, beaten to blend

Fried shallots and sauce

• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large shallots, cut crosswise into thin rounds, separated into rings
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter
• 8 large fresh sage leaves, thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

For ravioli:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Place foil on a rimmed baking sheet. Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise; place cut side down on baking sheet. Roast until tender, about 35 minutes; cool. Scoop potato pulp out of skins into small bowl. Spoon 11/3 cups pulp into medium bowl. (Reserve any remaining potato pulp for another use.) Add sugar and butter; mash well. Season filling with salt and pepper.

Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Place wonton wrappers on work surface. Using pastry brush, brush wrappers with beaten egg. Place 1/2 tablespoon sweet-potato filling in center of each. Fold each wrapper diagonally over filling, forming triangle. Seal edges. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheet. Let stand at room temperature while preparing fried shallots and sauce. (Can be made up to 5 days ahead. Freeze, then cover and keep frozen. Do not thaw before cooking.)

For fried shallots and sauce:
Heat vegetable oil in heavy small saucepan over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches, fry shallots until crisp and dark brown, about 2 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer shallots to paper-towel-lined plate to drain. Cook butter in large pot over medium heat until beginning to brown, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Add sage and red pepper.

Meanwhile, working in batches, cook ravioli in pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain well. Add ravioli to pot with butter sauce; toss to coat. Transfer to plates, drizzling any sauce from pot over ravioli. Top with fried shallots and pine nuts; serve immediately.

Enjoy, friends! xoxo