Feeding Friendship: Peppermint

This time around, in honor of the Christmas season and its flavors, I chose peppermint as our featured ingredient.

While there are several killer cocktails out there involving peppermint flavor, I decided right away on the candy classic: peppermint bark. It's easy, involves few ingredients, is highly gift-able and has the added bonus of involving 2 kinds of peppermint: candy canes and extract. I decided to make a big batch and my original recipe called for:

2 lbs. white chocolate baking pieces
1 cup crushed candy canes
peppermint extract

Once I got out the peppermint extract, there was another recipe for peppermint bark on the box. It only called for 16oz of baking pieces, but helpfully gives an amount of extract- 1 tsp - as well as suggesting using food coloring to make red or green swirls in the chocolate. Sooo, I ended up with this final recipe cobbled from the two above:

2lbs white chocolate
~1/2 cup crushed candy candy (1 c is too much, maybe 6 canes will do it)
1 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
~10 drops red food coloring

Start the process by unwrapping your candy canes if necessary, putting them in a baggie and smashing them to a size you'd be comfortable eating on top of candy. You may want to use a rolling pin or something less angular than my friend the hammer here, since I ended up with some fairly serious gashes in my baggie. This may just be the hazard of working with sharp candy, so crush cautiously.

crushing candy canes

I bought my 'canes in bulk

Next, you'll need to melt the chocolate pieces by using a double boiler or using a metal bowl on top of a pot of boiling water or microwaving in 30 second intervals and stirring in between. Sorry for the plethora of options there, but everyone's equipment is different. I used the bowl on a pot method and added the pieces gradually, stirring with something heat-proof to help the new pieces melt.

my crude but effective setup- won't burn your chocolate!

stir occasionally while it melts

While the chocolate is melting, get out a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides) and cover it with wax paper or parchment paper. Once your chocolate has achieved a smooth, creamy state, remove from heat and add your extract. The extract is clear, so I'm not including a photo here of adding something clear to something white. Yawn.

ready to pour

When you've stirred in your extract completely, pour the chocolate out onto the cookie sheet you prepared. Spread the chocolate with a spatula until it's around 1/4 inch thick.

spreading out the chocolate- 2lbs makes most of a pan

Next came the only part I found at all tricky. The McCormick directions said to dot the chocolate with the food coloring and spread with a wooden skewer- I chose a toothpick, being fresh out of skewers. I found the spreading of the color to be a bit tricky and hard to achieve an appealing overall effect. Observe:

dotting the food coloring, per the directions

hmmm

spreading the cheer 

If this was a pan of those cheesecake brownies, I would be seriously irritated. However peppermint bark gets broken up into smallish pieces, so it's not a big deal if your color is not distributed evenly and beautifully over the surface of the chocolate. You can even skip the food coloring step, and I'm certain your bark will still appear plenty festive. I just happened to have some red food coloring burning a hole in my pantry after a recent foray into red velvet cake pops. Once your color is spread to your satisfaction (or the best of your ability before the chocolate sets up), sprinkle on the candy cane pieces you previously smashed. Lovely. You may want to press them down into the chocolate a bit to help with candy retention during the breaking phase.

sprinkle and pat down your pieces

Then, into the refrigerator goes you pan for 45 minutes or until the chocolate sets up completely. I'm sure you can cheat by using the freezer if you're in a hurry.

chilling out

Once it's set, get your pan out and break into bite-sized chunks. I ended up using a knife for this, because darn it, candy canes are sticky! I would just pick an area and slowly lean on the knife until it created a fault line and then cut pieces down from there. No need to be perfect or form squares!

breaking up the bark

Tah-dah! Now you have peppermint bark to snack on or share. George asked for seconds, and I thought it was just minty enough without being overkill. Go forth and make bark!

Feeding Friendship: Sweet Potato

This time around Ellie picked the sweet potato for our ingredient.

Now, I'm not wild about sweet potatoes- you won't catch me ordering sweet potato fries instead of regular- but I have eaten one sweet potato dish that won me over. A couple years ago, my sister-in-law Stephanie's mother graciously hosted George & I for Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of the family. I tried her sweet potato casserole, and it was amazing. I've been thinking about trying to re-create it since then, but I hadn't given it a try until now. Now, a smart person would just ask Stephanie if her mom could give me the recipe, but I didn't do that. I reviewed all the sweet potato casserole/souffle recipes and decided that I would try out the one that seemed the most standard, but omit the nut topping and replace it with marshmallows like the one I liked.

Ingredients:
3 cups mashed sweet potato (3 to 4 large potatoes)
1/3 cup butter (I used unsalted)
3/4 cup white sugar (cut it to half a cup if you like it less sweet)
1 tsp vanilla extract
cinnamon to taste
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten (or egg beaters)
~1 cup small marshmallows

The original recipe is here if you want to check out the nut topping.

I started by boiling the potatoes for around 23 minutes until a fork stuck in them came out easily.

Once I got them out of the boiling water and let them sit just a little bit, I worked on removing the skin. It's easiest to do it while they're still warm, but be really careful since those suckers are pretty hot coming out of that pot. I actually used a dishwashing glove on one hand to protect from the heat and grip the skin better. (btw, True Blue makes the BEST gloves ever. They are fabric-lined and very sturdy) 

The method I had the best success with was to use a regular fork to remove the very tip of both ends (which were a little bit funky anyway) and then run one tine of the fork under the skin for the length of the potato skin like a scalpel. The skin should tear easily and then you can grab the "closed" side and pull the whole thing off. 

Once your potatoes are skinless, put them in a large bowl and add the butter and sugar. 

Mash the potatoes with the butter and sugar until smooth. Then add the milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and eggs. 

I just kept using my masher to combine the wet ingredients as well. Potatoes can't be too silky, in my opinion. Once it's all well combined, put it into an oven-proof casserole dish. A size around 2 quarts should do it. 

Next add your marshmallows on top. I made mine cover the whole surface pretty thoroughly, but obviously you can use your own preferred marshmallow density. 

Then it's into the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes. You'll want to check on it a few minutes early with a convection oven. Take it out when the marshmallows start to turn golden.. like this!

done! 

mmm, marshmallows 

The final result was pretty tasty! It might not have been quite as good as the original dish, but butter, cinnamon, and sugar definitely succeeded in making something palatable that I would rather not eat.