Cooking with Sister

My sister and I sometimes have flashes of culinary ambition that prompt us to pull out the big guns. We like to scour the internet for recipes, and cook things we've never even heard of, let alone eaten. Yuki is studying in Germany this summer, so our time at home only overlapped by about two weeks, but we managed to get some cooking time in between our smoothie guzzling and beach outings.

While she was here, highlights included:

quinoa patties 

and sweet potato spinach balls



Yuki has been trying to cut down on meat recently, so apparently while I was away this semester, my house was all about salads and occasionally some fish. While salads are awesome, and we are masterful salad creators (more on that later), there are so many other creative options as far as vegetarian cuisine, and I feel like we omnivores tend to forget that a lot. Both of the recipes in this entry are vegetarian, and the sweet potato balls even qualify as vegan. So whether you're feeding people with special dietary needs, or you're like me and just dig veg food, these are a fun and easy way to add some variety to your repertoire.

Quinoa Patties
As I mentioned in my Oregon entry, I'm a huge fan of quinoa (superfood, texture, etc. etc.) and luckily so is my family. Usually we make it into a salad like the one I made with Brittany, or just put it on top of regular lettuce salad, but it's actually really versatile. You can use it as a rice substitute, stuff peppers with it, or even make it into veggie burgers, which is what we did. The original recipe can be found here on Eating Well, Living Thin. We made a few modifications, and you can definitely change up your veggies to fit your own tastes.


You'll need:
1 cup uncooked quinoa, prepared according to instructions on the package
3/4 cup shredded cheese, we grated some cheddar
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 medium carrot, finely grated 
1/2 red onion, diced
2-3 green onions
3 eggs
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
olive oil for frying


After cooking the quinoa, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl.

Heat a skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil on medium. Get some flour on your hands and shape the mixture into patties about 1/2 inch thick, and put them in the pan. You want the patties to be pretty tightly packed so they'll hold together while they're cooking. Once they were in there, I used a spatula to compress them even more. 

Cook on medium heat until golden-brown underneath, then flip. The main idea here is to get the egg to set, so once you form that firm crust on both sides, you're good to go.

We ate ours with avocado and some of our mom's homemade yogurt on top, and with oven-roasted beets, cauliflower, broccoli, and fennel (not a great photo, but the food was delicious). You could also easily toast up some buns, throw on some lettuce/tomato/onion and have yourself a lovely veggie burger.

Sweet Potato Spinach Balls
When I'm in Virginia, and cooking from a much more meager selection than the Costco paradise that is my home pantry, what I cook is usually determined by which ingredients I already have on hand. At home, the same rule holds (albeit with more variety). For example, one night we were trying to decide on what to cook, and we found some purple sweet potatoes in the fruit bowl. We grew up eating these, Mom would steam them a lot. But I've found recently that a lot of people have never had them, especially people I've met in Virginia. Did some research, and apparently they're native to Okinawa (island in southern Japan), which would explain both their prominence in my childhood (Japanese ancestry), and the shortage of them in the American Southeast. Anyway, they're delicious, and we decided to sub them in for regular potatoes in this recipe that I found on Instructables. 
Sidenote: If you're not familiar with Instructables, you should definitely check it out. It's basically a community of people who want to teach each other to make stuff. Food, electronics, clothing, you name it.


You'll need:
3 large sweet potatoes
3 cups of spinach (fresh or frozen is fine, we used fresh)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp basil
2 tbsp green onions
1/2 tbsp mint1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp curry powder2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
3 tbsp white wine (optional)


Preheat oven to 450º


First you need to boil your potatoes. Cut them up into big chunks (no need to peel, skin is good for you!), and put them in a pot with enough water so they're covered by about an inch. Bring to a boil, and then turn down to medium-high heat and let them cook for about 25 minutes. Check with a fork occasionally. You want them to be stabbable, but still firm--they're going to cook more in the oven. 

Next, chop up your spinach. Nothing fancy, doesn't need to be too small. Cook it in a big pan with the garlic and wine (we actually subbed water for the wine at this part) until soft. Chop up all your herbs, and mix/mash up everything in a big bowl. You want it to be well-combined, but not overworked. If you mash the potatoes too much they'll be a weird, goopy consistency.

Once it's all mixed up, use your hands to shape balls. Ours were about the size of meatballs, but I'm sure you could go bigger if you wanted. Put them on a greased cookie sheet, and pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes. Here they are pre-baking...

...and after the oven. Ideally they should be crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

We thought they looked like they could use some sauce, but weren't sure what would customarily be paired with sweet potato spinach balls. Our mom has a natural flair for improvisation. She's really good at knowing which flavors will go well together, and while I was away at school, I discovered that I'm getting a little better at it. But Yuki seems to have it down. She thought a curry sauce would be best because there's already curry in the recipe, and I thought we should make something citrusy/tangy. We compromised, and ended up concocting a sweet yogurt-based sauce, throwing in spices based on smell, and tasting frequently.

You'll need:

plain yogurt

sour cream

curry powder

ground ginger

turmeric powder

honey

lemon juice

Sorry, you're kind of on your own with proportions... but don't worry, just have fun with it and tweak it until it tastes right. Here's a picture of ours to give you an idea.

Combine well, and drizzle over your sweet potato balls. Our sauce actually ended up being kind of thick, more suited to dunking than drizzling, but it tasted light and delicious, and it was a perfect complement to the sweet/curry flavors.