Taters

I watched the Lord of the Rings Trilogy for the first time maybe 6 months ago.  I was very apprehensive, I don't really know why, I just didn't think I would like it.  In all actuality, I thought they would be scary and I hate scary movies.  Devin insisted I watch them.  Well, I sort of agreed to it.  It was really more of a compromise.  One LOTR movie for one Twilight movie.  I am thinking I can bargain Breaking Dawn Part I for The Hobbit.  I am a little nervous about what I am going to have to watch for Part II since we are out of LOTR.  

Point of the story.  Quite often when I think of potatoes, I hear Samwise Gamgee say "What we need is a few good taters" and then Gollum replies "What is taters, precious? What is taters?"  Then Sam yells "PO-TAY-TOES!"  I frequently say "tater" like I had been raised on the Shire.  I also laugh extremely hard (read: way too hard) at LOTR jokes because I never got them before.  I guess I feel like I am making up for all of the lost time.  I think I am going to read the books.  I need a new series to read.

Last night we had taters.  Sweet taters to be exact.  This is a (highly modified) recipe that Kevin and Jenny introduced to me last year.  It is from Smitten Kitchen and the original recipe is for Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat Cheese.  I changed up this recipe quite a bit.  First off, I used white sweet potatoes because I couldn't find the normal(?) kind at Whole Foods.  They were very tasty.  Maybe not quite as sweet as a normal one.  Speaking of finding sweet potatoes.  I cannot figure out (or ever remember) the difference between a sweet potato and a yam.  And a jewel yam.  I know they are different, they are not really even closely related, but they look alike, and I think can be used interchangeably???  All I know is that I can only ever find yams and I am scared to use a yam in place of a sweet potato.

Other Changes:

I cooked up the celery and shallot for the topping, keeping a little crunch.  I toasted the pecans.  I used balsamic in place of the red wine vinegar and yellow mustard in place of the dijon.  Last, I used feta instead of goat cheese.  Devin had an unfortunate goat cheese incident about a year ago and now we do not speak of goat cheese.  It's a bummer too, because I love it!  I think the feta works nice here though.  I prefer the crumble of feta for this dish to the creaminess of most goat cheeses.

I made a quick salad on the side with some Good Seasons Italian Dressing.  This is by far my favorite dressing in the world.  I grew up on it.  One of my absolute favorite things to eat is "Chics and Cukes" (chic peas and cucumbers) with Good Seasons.  My Dad would leave out the chics and add in fresh tomato and onion, but I like my version better.  Either way, its all Good (Seasons).

Here is the deconstructed meal:

Here is the constructed meal:

I swear there are potato medallions under there.  It was probably too much (tasty, tasty) topping.

On another note, I am getting geared up for my Fried Chicken/Apple Pie day tomorrow.  There are a lot of steps that go into making a pie.  A lot of "do it and then wait for 3 hours to do the next one" steps.  Good thing I read through the instructions today and didn't try to start making the pie at 4 p.m. tomorrow.  Good thing I get up at the ass crack of dawn and can get this started nice and early.  I also need to get my chicken swimming in buttermilk pretty early.  Maybe I should make a checklist.  I know I am going to forget something.  Also on the menu: roasted asparagus and twice baked taters.  Oops, potatoes!

So Long!