No, I’m not talking about keeping food fresh.
For me, staying interested in something can sometimes be a struggle. For me it is important to keep things fresh and new in order to hold my interest. That sounds odd coming from a blog about tradition as it relates to food. Yes, I want to follow wise traditions in my cooking, but for me that means learning new things (we’ve been too familiar with unwise traditions).
So how do I do it? Well, I don’t always succeed, but I have a simple technique for keeping things fresh. My family isn’t too thrilled about it because they are not adventuresome when it comes to food. But I attempt to try making 1 new thing per week, or at least every other week. If we decide we don’t like it, I don’t make it again. If we do, it gets added to my repertoire.
Last week I tried whipped sweet potatoes. These are essentially mashed potatoes with sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes. I threw in some salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and milk and I really liked them. Nobody else did and so I probably won’t keep them in my repertoire.
Mmmm, it sounds good to me! It reminds me of my squash - I make it with lots of butter and a little maple syrup along with sea salt and pepper and it’s dreamy!
It’s always tough to cook for other people, isn’t it? Especially when you go through extra trouble AND you try to make it interesting AND you like it–but noone else does.
I’ve been going through a similar struggle cooking up the meat from last fall’s bulk beef purchase. Noone likes my roasts much, beef stew is not well received, and the only thing my husband likes from ground beef is hamburgers. They still eat the food, but I wish I could find something they like.
Whipped Sweet Potatoes are one of my family’s favorites. If short of time, we just steam the sweet potatoes and can have them in 20 minutes, but baking always is better. I just found this site, I find it very interesting - I liked the flour grinder posts. My wife and I are just planning on buying some land, moving to the country and starting a self-sustaing farm food wise, while I teach during the winter to pay for taxes and utilities. Looking forward to reading the rest of your insights.
I love mashed sweet potatoes! Remember that kids need repeated exposure to foods before they can “like” them. No one likes new food, there’s too much chance that new food is really poison
You could also try going savory instead of sweet and add garlic and ginger instead of cinnamon and nutmeg. I also love to make my leftover mashed vegetables (or cooked grains or vegetables) into fritters or pancakes by mixing it with an egg and a little flour and then frying in a cast iron. YUM!! Keep up the adventuresomeness (is that a word?) and keep dragging your kids along. They’ll thank you for it some day 