My mother mentioned to me once or twice that she had clipped a recipe that involved wrapping a sweet potato roll in ground beef. She had never tried the recipe, she said, but she wanted to. Who knows why she didn't try it. Perhaps she lost track of the recipe, or maybe trying such a recipe just didn't fit h
er routine. But I came across the recipe again last week, and since I found myself with sweet potatoes I need to bake and plenty of ground m
eat in the freezer, I decided to give it a try.
The recipe calls for two cups of mashed sweet potatoes, 1 ½ tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, 2 tbsp butter, and 3 tbsp milk. I can tell you now it's too much salt. Just ½ tsp would be enough, I think. After mashing the sweet potatoes, I used my mixer to blend the ingredients. I found it fairly easy to make the sweet potato roll, which I wrapped in waxed paper and put in the refrigerator.
I then took a pound of ground meat and mixed with one egg and a t
easpoon of dried minced onion. Sensing I had used too much salt in the sweet potatoes, I cut back the salt in the meat to ½ tsp. Since I was using a pound instead of 1 ½ pounds of ground meat, I didn't have enough meat to wrap over the ends. It worked out okay anyway. I removed it from the oven after 30 minutes at 350, but Mike and I agreed it wasn't done. So I turned the heat to 375 and baked for another 15 minutes.
Now that I've tried the recipe, I wouldn't hesitate to do so again. I'd cut way back on the salt and maybe even dress up the meat with more onion and barbecue sauce.
Having served a meal built around sweet potato, I wouldn't normally choose to make a pumpkin dessert, but I had a cup of canned pumpkin that needed to be used, so I made a pumpkin ice cream dessert. I mixed the pumpkin with sugar and spices and then blended it with softened vanilla ice cream. Next I poured the pumpkin ice cream mixture over gingersnap crumbs and put it in the freezer. Or, you could just soften some pumpkin ice cream and pour it over a bed of gingersnap crumbs. Or – you could just eat your pumpkin ice cream with a gingersnap. Just depends on how much you want to fuss. KW
That is quite an interesting idea. It's like an inside-out meat pie! I made cheese grits and ham this last week. It didn't quite strike with Nick, so I had hot breakfast for myself 2 or 3 days in a row! :)
ReplyDeleteWHAT!!!!! Nick doesn't like cheese grits?!!! How did this get past us?
ReplyDeleteI have always thought cheese grits would make a good breakfast food, but Mike doesn't care for it.
Grits are better for breakfast with butter and sugar and eaten like any hot cereal.
ReplyDeleteI didn't quite cook it long enough in the oven because I couldn't wait. Maybe he'd like it better if I did it right. He was being snoody about the Velveeta, though. How dare he!
ReplyDeleteThat was Bennie's recipe. She added a little garlic salt and called them "garlic cheese grits," but I just checked the recipe she wrote out for me, and she didn't list garlic salt.
ReplyDeleteAfter Mike and I were married, I took a small dish of cheese grits to the Easter family dinner. It was gone in a flash and I had requests for the recipe. Becky told me later that she tried it with cheddar cheese and it wasn't the same. She said Velveeta was a must. Eventually I had to triple or quadruple the recipe in order to have enough at extended family gatherings.
But -- it's a done deal now. If Nick doesn't like the family grits, we'll have to overlook it. You'll just have to eat them yourself.
I have made the cheese grits several times and they take forever to get done in the oven but are worth the wait!
ReplyDeleteWhen I bake cheese grits, I cook the grits on the stove for quite a while. First I cook the grits, then I add the cheese little by little and let it melt. By the time I add the eggs, the grits are well-cooked. Baking it is just a matter of letting it set up and to melt the cheese on top.
ReplyDelete