I'm on a quest to eat a healthier more vegetarian diet. Yes, I still eat meat and dairy but a whole lot less of it. My focus is on more of a plant based diet. On my new culinary journey I found a recipe submitted by some guy named Matt on a community website. It called for kale and sounded easy. The reviews were good and I had the necessary ingredients on hand, except for the kale. I did have collard greens though! So I changed up a thing or two and here's the final result.
Here's what you'll need:
2 yams olive oil 1/8 cup toasted pine nuts
salt & pepper 1 onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced 1 bunch of collard greens
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar 2 oz goat cheese
Wash and the yams and dry them well. Cube them, toss them in the oil, about a tablespoon with some salt and pepper. Roast them at 400 for about 25 minutes or until tender. Set them aside and let them cool completely. This can be done in advance.
While the yams are roasting, slice the onion thinly. Put another tablespoon in a large pan on medium heat and cook the onions until they are brown and caramelized. When they are almost done add the garlic so it can cook and caramelize too.
While the onions are doing their thing, trim the collard greens and hand tear them into bite sized pieces.
If your not familiar with collard greens this is what they look like in raw form. I didn't grow up eating them but find I do like them! The have a hard stem which I simply cut out and discard.
Add the collard greens to the onion and garlic once you have that nice golden color on the onions. Cook the greens until they have wilted.
Put this mixture in another container so it can cool completely.
At this point you should have the cooled roasted yams ready to go along with the cooled greens with onions with garlic.
Again while the greens are cooling you can toast the pine nuts. Simply put them in a dry pan on medium heat and toss occasionally. Stay close! They'll only take about five minutes to toast. You'll smell their fragrant aroma when they are ready and you'll find they are lightly toasted on the bottom. Go ahead and remove them from the heat.
When everything is cool mix the cubed yams and collard mixture together and toss with the vinegar. Sprinkled on the cheese and nuts. You now have a colorful, healthful and delicious gourmet salad. Sprinkle some goat cheese on top and dinner is ready!
Plate this beauty alreay!
Using a white plate will make the vibrant colors POP! See what I mean? Toss on the pine nuts and a little goat cheese and dig in!
As an extra bonus, this same recipe can be used with kale in place of the collard greens. Go ahead try them both ways. You have nothing to lose and good health to gain!
As always, your comments and individual results are most welcome!
Here's a question for you: what's the difference between yams and sweet potatoes?
ReplyDeleteSally: This explanation I found on the web from the Library of Congress sums it up nicely:
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?
Answer:
Although yams and sweet potatoes are both angiosperms (flowering plants), they are not related botanically. Yams are a monocot (a plant having one embryonic seed leaf) and from the Dioscoreaceae or Yam family. Sweet Potatoes, often called ‘yams’, are a dicot (a plant having two embryonic seed leaves) and are from the Convolvulacea or morning glory family.
Yams
Yams are closely related to lilies and grasses. Native to Africa and Asia, yams vary in size from that of a small potato to a record 130 pounds (as of 1999). There are over 600 varieties of yams and 95% of these crops are grown in Africa. Compared to sweet potatoes, yams are starchier and drier.
Sweet Potatoes
The many varieties of sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are members of the morning glory family, Convolvulacea. The skin color can range from white to yellow, red, purple or brown. The flesh also ranges in color from white to yellow, orange, or orange-red. Sweet potato varieties are classified as either ‘firm’ or ‘soft’. When cooked, those in the ‘firm’ category remain firm, while ‘soft’ varieties become soft and moist. It is the ‘soft’ varieties that are often labeled as yams in the United States.
Why the confusion?
In the United States, firm varieties of sweet potatoes were produced before soft varieties. When soft varieties were first grown commercially, there was a need to differentiate between the two. African slaves had already been calling the ‘soft’ sweet potatoes ‘yams’ because they resembled the yams in Africa. Thus, ‘soft’ sweet potatoes were referred to as ‘yams’ to distinguish them from the ‘firm’ varieties.
Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato.’ Unless you specifically search for yams, which are usually found in an international market, you are probably eating sweet potatoes!