A sweet but savory treat

Sun photographer John Wright, my husband, came home raving about a sweet but savory treat he sampled at the closing day of the Paducah Farmer's Market. He had sampled a dish called Sweet Potato Won-Tons and got the recipe from the Master Foods Volunteer, Riff Turner pictured above.

I'll share it with you below, just in time for late fall meals.

Sweet Potato Won-Tons
3 cups sweet potatoes, cubed, approximately 1 pound raw
1/2 cup chopped onion
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (kosher or sea)
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons olive oil
Peanut oil for deep frying
Won-ton skins (found in the vegetarian dairy section)
Water for sealing skin


Prepare sweet potato (wash and boil with skin until fork tender). Drain and remove skin. Mash until smooth. Heat oil in nonstick skillet on medium high heat. Saute onions and garlic, approximately four minutes, add mustard and curry powder and saute for two minutes. Add salt, pepper and onion mixture to sweet potatoes and mix well. Let cool. Heat cooking oil for deep frying. Separate skins a few at a time. 1 1/2 skins make for an easier bite. Place 1/2 teaspoon of potato mixture on the won-ton, wet the edges of the skin and fold and seal. Drop into oil for 15 seconds. Don't overcook.

Who takes cookies to a crime scene, anyway?

Today was one of those days.

After working in the feature side of the house of the newspaper for 13 years, some restructuring has shifted all of our jobs around. As a result, I'm back to covering hard news. Today was one of those days when I had to do my least favorite thing -- go to a crime scene and pry information out of the police. I'd never met the Kentucky State Police spokesman Dean Patterson until today, so I figured I'd try the sweetness approach. I bought two bags of cookies and brownies from our in-office United Way bake sale for 50 cents a bag and took them with me to the crime scene.

After I finished talking to Patterson and was chit-chatting at the barricade, I pulled out the bags of cookies and offered them to him. Murray Ledger & Times reporter Tom Berry immediately pulled out his camera to document a bribe. OK, so it wasn't really a bribe, but I thought it would be nice to start out on the right foot with the investigators. After all, I would spend my entire day watching them work.

A few hours later, as we talked with another investigator, we told him about the cookies and found out that Dean hadn't shared them yet. The guys all seemed pleased to have some home-baked treats.

I guess it's true about winning friends with chocolate.

It's all about the marketing, part II

Now I'm in trouble with my mother ... She read the blog entry about the bake sale marketing and took every word to heart.

"I just spent an hour and a half in my favorite retail establishment," she complained into the phone, asking if I knew how hard it is to find decorative plastic wrap.

She apparently cruised up and down every aisle of the Arkansas-based megaretailer and couldn't find the elusive plastic wrap or a single roll of curly ribbon. She wanted to make her bake sale goodies stand out from the crowd on Friday when her parish holds a sale. She finally approached the manager and asked him, only to be greeted with a chuckle. I guess this has happened before.

Oops. I usually buy the plastic treat bags for bake sale goodies at the office, and that feat alone took me an hour Monday night at the aforementioned not-so favorite retailer. I wasn't too happy about that after a long day at the office. And then the store-bought cookies that some of the guys here bought for our bake sale didn't fit into the bags. Double AARRGGHH!

I had a stash of colored plastic wrap in my drawer so no, I didn't know how hard it is to find plastic wrap. So for all of you who cruised the store looking for colored wrap, let me apologize. I do know that the stores have cute treat bags right now and cupcake liners.

And now Mom has asked for a collection of colored plastic wrap for her Christmas present. If you happen to see any before Christmas, please let me know so that I can be released from the Daughter Hall of Shame.

Time for chili

The weather spirits must have been smiling down on the Sun staff yesterday. Cooler weather finally arrived in time for our annual Chili Cookoff to benefit the local United Way. Winners were Lisa O'Rourke, best overall; Sarah Bozone, hottest; Kendra Payne, meatiest; Dusty Luthy, beaniest, and John Wright, most unusual.

The cookoff always creates a spirit of competition in our office and particularly in my kitchen at home. John begins working on his chili recipe the night after the cookoff for the following year. Last year, he concocted a completely new recipe that involved grilling a beef tenderloin outside before adding it the tomato and bean mixture. I can't give away all of his secret ingredients.

This year he returned to his old standby, an unusual creation of a white chili. But this is not a chicken based white chili. When he first told me that he wanted to combine Great Northern Beans with ham, I thought it would be the most disgusting thing on the planet. When he first made it, the mixture turned out kinda brown, definitely not appetizing. As he continued to add cheese and sour cream, the mixture turned beige and gave off a nice aroma. His version of white chili certainly is different. Even our picky 7 1/2-year-old will eat it.

And before you ask for his recipe, sorry. It's like Duke, the Bush's bean dog. I'm not talking. The secret has to remain a secret. Also, I wouldn't begin to know exactly what all he puts into it. He won't let me go to the grocery with him, and I'm usually not in the kitchen for his creation.

P.S. - I did ask for Lisa's recipe. It's actually from her sister. When I get it, I'll post it.

It's all about the marketing

I wrote in Wednesday's Sun about a humorous exchange I had with my mother last weekend. Notoriously not known for her baking skills, she asked me to make brownies and pumpkin bread for a bake sale at Hart College during Murray State University's Homecoming celebration last weekend. Both came from mixes, so it wasn't like rocket science, but she couldn't believe how easily I whipped those treats up as she worked to put all the dinner dishes away. Once the brownies finished baking, I asked her where her decorative bags were.

She looked puzzled. Doesn't everyone keep decorative bags or at least plastic wrap and curly ribbon in their pantries?

"Mom, it's all about the marketing," I said, as the tempting smell of fresh brownies wafted in front of me.

"Marketing," she asked. Remember, this is a woman who holds a master's and Ph.D., but obviously not in bake sale success.

"Yes, marketing," I said. "You have to put the brownies in decorative bags or wrap them in colored plastic wrap and tie them with a curly ribbon. You want your treats to stand out when people come to the table to decide. A plain bag won't sell. Even if it's store-bought, you have to take that extra step to make your goodies stand out from the rest."

She shook her head, still refusing to believe that making the brownies look oh-so-cute would lure people to plunk down their quarter.

When she arrived at Tent City the next morning, she found that even her college students knew the secret to bake sale success. Emily W. baked blueberry and chocolate muffins and wrapped each with plastic wrap topped with a decorative ribbon. Another student decorated her plain zippered bags with "Go Racers! Happy Homecoming." Another student had bought decorative bags with a Halloween theme.

"How do people know about this," she asked me at one point.

"It's instinct," I replied, still not understanding how she didn't get the concept of making her goodies look better or the concept of display with cute signs.

But by the end of the bake sale, she had the last laugh. Guess which goodies sold out?

Easy Bean Soup Recipe

With cooler weather forecast this week, I decided to try a recipe from the back of a package of dried beans. The 15-Bean package included Cajun seasoning, which provided the right amount of zing. My family enjoyed the soup, and best of all, I let it stew in the slow cooker all day while my son and his friend regaled me with stories of "Star Wars" and popular video games. Best of all, with the economic slowdown, this recipe probably cost less than $5 and will feed an army of hungry boys. Pair this with corn meal muffins (36 cents for the Jiffy brand) and it's an easy meal that you don't have to worry about since the soup cooks while you're at work (or at play with the kids).

Here's the recipe:
1 package 15-bean dried beans
1 onion, chopped (or use frozen onions)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 22-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1/2 roll of sausage, browned and drained
Salt and pepper to taste
Package of Cajun seasoning

Soak beans overnight, drain and rinse. Place tomatoes in bottom of slow cooker, add beans. Brown sausage, onions and garlic in skillet and add to mixture. Stir in seasoning package. Add salt and pepper to taste. I also added a couple of dashes of cayenne peppers harvested from my garden earlier this summer, but my family likes spicy food. I also added a fourth of a tomato can of water so that the mixture doesn't get too thick. Simmer in the slow cooker for six hours.

P.S. - I had some ham leftover from the night before, so I tossed a couple of slices (chopped) in for extra flavor. The original recipe called for Italian sausage, but I didn't have any of that on hand so I improvised with regular bulk pork sausage. No one here complained. Because of the high fiber count, this soup is very filling. You'll have plenty of leftovers for lunches to take to the office or even to freeze for busier nights down the road.

Reader suggestion

Last week on the Taste page, I wrote about a person who ordered 10 pounds (yes, 10) of mutton from a Barbecue on the River vendor to ship to a friend in Washington, D.C. A reader called and commented that she had bought too much mutton at the festival and ended up using the mutton in place of ground beef in a pot of chili. Now that's an unusual use of using what's on hand. Interesting.


Has anyone else tried any strange substitutions that actually worked?