Older Bolder Life

Stronger | Leaner | Sharper | Longer - From Older Bolder Fitness

sweet potato

The Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Clay’s Potato Salad

By

For the first time in over four years as we’ve traveled the low carb and nutritional ketosis roads, and for several reasons, we’ve dug out an old family favorite recipe for the best damn potato salad we’ve ever tasted – Clay’s Potato Salad.

Quite frankly, we’ve not eaten potatoes of the non-sweet potato variety in years, and sweet potatoes rarely when the need for a carb-refeed arose, so this indeed is a departure for us.

For those eating along classic Primal or Paleo paths, and pending both your activity levels and carb tolerance, dabbling now and again with potatoes certainly isn’t verboten, though your neighborhood keto police might disagree.

We’ve dug this recipe out (and cleaned it up) mainly because it tastes so damn good, and has been part of our family food lexicon for years and years. It’s probably so delicious in part due to the inclusion of bacon and even incorporating a bit of the bacon drippings into the salad (trust me on this, it’s magical).

I’m also back into training for Masters level track and field events now that the COVID-19 embargo on events is nearing the end, and find myself lagging from a performance standpoint a bit on my leanest carb days. Finally, cooked and cooled potatoes are a great source of resistant starch, which we’ve been experimenting with a bit around our camp of late, and appear to be the form my wife best tolerates.

My lovely wife and I first tasted this recipe now nearly 40 years ago. We were living in San Antonio as I finished grad school; only during our most affluent weeks did we have two nickels to rub together. We lived in a tiny apartment, survived on a food budget of less than $40/week, tromped all over San Antonio for free entertainment and were happy as could be.

A young couple we knew, fellow paupers in grad school downtown, lucked into house sitting for one of her professors one summer. They had a charming old English tudor at their disposal with a gourmet kitchen and an exquisitely landscaped pool in the backyard.

It was there on a hot summer day that we first tasted this brawny, classic potato salad recipe. Bacon was a splurge for us back then; it was nothing short of ambrosial that afternoon. We stole the leftovers and rationed them out over the next week.

Like all great recipes that foodies hoard, we’ve tweaked this one around the edges and definitely lean toward a tart, spicy, full-of-crunchy-vegetables mix, and have changed out the old for healthier dressing ingredients to align with a primal/paleo palate. That said, the nuts and bolts of the recipe remain the same.

Finally, like all salads of this sort, this recipe is ultimately customizable to suit your family’s tastes and what’s in the fridge and pantry; amounts shown in the ingredient list below are to be considered rough guidelines.

And a word to the wise – don’t skimp on either the mustard or the pickle juice.

2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch slices
8-10 small to medium new red potatoes, halved if bigger
1 pound thick-sliced bacon in 1-inch pieces, crisped and drained, reserve drippings

1 large sweet onion, small to medium dice (more as desired)
6-8 stalks celery with tender leaves, chopped
1 red bell or Mediterraneo Dulce pepper, seeded and diced
1 cup chopped kosher dill pickles

1 tbsp seasoned salt



1/2 cup avocado oil mayo (see below)
1/2 cup full-fat Greek yogurt (see below)

1/4 to 1/2 cup prepared yellow mustard (see below)
Pickle juice to taste (see below)
Paprika

Optional
4 boiled eggs, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup sliced pickled jalapeños
1/2 cup chopped green onion, white and green parts
1/2 cup sliced green olives
Mustard, whole grain

Boil the scrubbed and trimmed spuds until fork tender, rinse under cool water until you can handle, then dice medium. Place in a large bowl.

If you’ve not already done so, fry the bacon crisp and set aside to drain well. Pour the hot bacon drippings over the spuds and make sure to scrape all the brown, crusty goodness out of the pan. Crumble the bacon when cooled and set aside.

Chop and dice the sweet onion, green onion, celery, bell or other pepper, dill pickles, and other optional goodies from the list to the potato bowl. Add half the crumbled bacon.

Sprinkle the growing mixture with the seasoned salt. Start by stirring in at least 1/2 cup each of the mayonnaise and yogurt and 1/4 cup yellow mustard, knowing full well that it won’t be enough.

At this point we like to stir in the pickle juice (our tradition calls for using quite a bit to add a punchy vinegar bite to the salad), we add a couple of big spoons of whole grain mustard and then add more mustard and mayo/yogurt to get it to the consistency desired. How much you’ll eventually need will depend on personal taste and how soft your spuds are.

Smooth the top, dust liberally with paprika and sprinkle with the remainder of the bacon. Note this potato salad is very good after resting in the fridge for 4 hours and great the next day, you want it good and cold for the best flavor and to set those resistant starches.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Curried Roasted Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Salad

By

Like many (if not most) of you, we’ve been looking forward to a turn toward the summer season for a host of reasons this year, given the bizarre journey we’ve all been on for the past three months. Not to mention the simple fact that we all love the fun the summer season brings.

Astrological summer of course doesn’t being for another three weeks, though count me among those who sort of spiritually look at Memorial Day as the advent of summer. During all the time we lived and worked in Montana, as often as not it snowed sometime the last week of May, often in town but almost always in the high country. We’d chuckle at relatives down in Texas complaining of the early advent of summer’s heat, though now that we’re down in North Texas as I write this, with a forecast week of temps pushing 90 or better on the docket, the arrival of summer seems all the more real.

We love the summer (year round really) grilling season around our camp, and are almost always looking for great salads to accompany our favorite proteins off the grill.

I’ve been playing off and on with a roasted sweet potato and cauliflower salad for a few years now; we’ve found several flavor combinations that we resonate with, but I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of roasted and cooled cauliflower from a texture perspective. (Texture matters.)

We have a couple of raw cauliflower salads we often reach for, including this long time family favorite, so recently I stole a page from that recipe and left the cauliflower raw but roasted the sweet potatoes in this Curried Roasted Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Salad, adding in a healthy handful of roasted red peppers, crunchy celery, and red onion, along with a Southwestern themed spice array + good curry.

Leaving the cauliflower raw adds a delightful crunch, as does the celery, and crisp roasting (in a pan) the sweet potatoes adds a bit of caramelization to the equation too. This salad, like any and all you make at home, can be customized to suit your family’s tastes – for instance, in making this batch, my lovely wife had forgotten to grab a red onion on her last shopping excursion, so I just added a sweet onion (Vidalia’s are in!) instead. Next time around, I’ll probably add a tablespoon or two of capers as well….

If your schedule allows, make this an hour or more ahead of time to let the flavors meld, and my clan thinks it’s even better the next day.

1 and 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 and 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 and 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp good curry powder
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne powder

4 cups cauliflower florets, cut into 3/4-inch pieces if needed
2 medium sweet potatoes, trimmed, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 cup roasted red peppers, well-drained, diced
3/4 cup celery, including tender leaves, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, trimmed, julienned
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1/3 cup avocado oil mayo
1/3 cup full fat Greek yogurt
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Good salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Garnishes: 2-3 green onions thinly sliced, more chopped cilantro, more diced red pepper

Trim and cut the sweet potatoes to size, then sauté over medium-high in avocado oil until browned and beginning to caramelize around the edges. Set aside to cool.

In a clean, dry small skillet over medium heat, toast the three seeds until fragrant (keep them moving in the pan). Transfer carefully to a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Transfer to a small dish with the curry and cayenne powders.

Into a large bowl go the toasted spices, diced peppers, celery, onion, cilantro, lemon zest and juice, mayo, yogurt, salt, and pepper; stir to combine well, then add the potatoes and cauliflower and stir until evenly coated. Taste and adjust for salt, pepper, and curry.

Transfer to a serving bowl if desired and garnish using any and/or all of the garnishes.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Tuesday: Crispy Baked Sweet Potatoes with Hot Sauce Butter

By

Chatting with Chef Libby in Austin this week after Thanksgiving, she happened to ask if we’d ever tried her Crispy Baked Sweet Potatoes with Hot Sauce Butter and Pepitas before.

I couldn’t remember ever preparing this easy and damned interesting side before, which incorporates healthy sweet potatoes for those who occasionally incorporate the tuber into their eating plan, along with a big dollop of wonderful grass-fed butter spiced up with the hot sauce of your choice. Granted, not a keto-oriented dish you’d eat every night, but what a great way to add a bit of healthier carb into your rotation for those who need it.

This recipe really couldn’t be simpler, you’re just baking halved (small) sweet potatoes cut-side down on a baking pan until crispy, and slathering with a compound butter you’ve mashed together earlier. The butter does need to be at room temperature to incorporate the hot sauce well, and while Libby’s recipe includes a tablespoon of good honey, it’s not essential given the sweetness of the spuds.

The spiced, light sprinkle of pepitas adds another layer of taste and texture, and the burst of acidity from the lime takes this one over the top.

6 small sweet potatoes, scrubbed clean, halved lengthwise
1/3 cup avocado or extra-virgin olive oil
Liberal sprinkle of kosher salt

1/4 cup unsalted, grass-fed butter, room temperature
2-3 tbsp hot sauce of your choice (we like it with Valentina)
1-2 tsp fresh lime zest
1 tbsp good honey (optional)

1/4 cup raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
2 tsp ground cumin OR 1 tbsp ground coriander
Another sprinkle of good salt (a flaky sea salt shines here)
Lime wedges for serving

Preheat your trusty oven to 425; toss the prepared sweet potatoes onto a baking sheet, drizzle with 1/4 cup of your oil of choice, and rub to coat all sides. Sprinkle liberally with kosher salt. Align the sweet potatoes cut side down on the baking sheet, and bake for 28-30 minutes (test by inserting a sharp knife – it should slide in easily, and you want some crispy color on the cut sides).

While the spuds are in the oven, mash the hot sauce into the butter one tablespoon at a time (use a fork) until evenly incorporated; now mash in the lime zest and honey if using, and season to taste with more salt. Set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in small saucepan over medium heat and toast the pepitas until crispy and brown (3-5 minutes); keep them moving so they don’t burn. Remove from the heat, season with the cumin or coriander and a sprinkle of kosher salt.

When the sweet potatoes are done, artfully arrange on a platter, slather with the spicy butter, spoon the toasted pepitas over, and salt to taste. Serve with lime wedges on the side – the little bit of citrus acidity really plays well here.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Sweet Potato and Chorizo Hash with Spicy Aioli

By

Last weekend our kids in Montana (Livingston and Missoula, though the Missoula-based daughter was working a gig in Australia at the time) saw the first genuine snow-storm of the season roll down from Canada.

Our son and his wife in Livingston, at least during the cooler months of fall and spring and during the heart of winter, often make a “throw everything in” hash for brunch on their carb-refeed weekend day.

It’s still much more like summer than fall here in North Texas, but I’ve broken out some of our favorite hash recipes lately too, including this new favorite Sweet Potato and Chorizo Hash with Aioli.

Our friend Chef Libby sent a Bon Appetite link for a recipe very similar to this one recently, along with a list of the modifications she’s made to align the recipe more to the Texas-biased catering clientele she serves down in Austin. Libby has an amazing palate, and is immersed in the eclectic, Tex-Mex fusion food world that’s been simmering in Austin for some time now.

Using the drained chorizo (or sausage) drippings to flavor up a quick aioli is sheer genius; she favors the immersion blender method for making up a quick aioli (as do we); she most often blends in some chopped cilantro (perhaps some lime juice as well) when making a big batch, and said this dish, topped with a poached egg or two, with an interesting yet simple salad on the side is one of the most popular requests in her entire fall menu lineup.

2 pounds sweet potatoes, cut into 1 inch slices
Kosher salt

1/4 C + 1/2 C avocado oil (olive oil works well here, see note above)
1 pound fresh ground chorizo (or spicy Italian sausage)
1 medium onion (your choice, I like red here)
1 pepper of your choice (poblano, red bell, several jalapeños, etc), diced
1-3 tsp ancho chile powder
1 tsp cumin

For the aioli
1 large egg yolk
1 garlic clove, finely grated
2 tsp fresh lemon juice (ACV in a pinch)
Reserved chorizo oil mixture
Salt to taste
Optional: 1-3 tbsp chopped cilantro

To serve
3-4 green onions, sliced on a steep diagonal
More ancho chile powder to sprinkle
Your favorite table salsa or hot sauce
Consider topping with a poached egg or two as well

Prep and slice the sweet potatoes, then parboil for 10-12 minutes until relatively easily pierced with a fork, drain, set aside to cool. When cool, cut the slices in half or quarters pending size.

While the sweet potatoes are cooling, heat 1/4 cup of avocado oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat; now sauté the onion and pepper of choice for 3-4 minutes until they being to soften. Add the chorizo (or sausage), the ancho chile powder, and the cumin, then cook until browned and cooked through.

Now, for an unusual step – remove the skillet contents to a metal fine-mesh sieve set over a measuring cup; drain the chorizo thoroughly. You’re looking to harvest roughly a 1/4 cup of chorizo oil; when that much has collected, add another 1/2 cup to make 3/4 cup total.

Now it’s time to make the chorizo (or sausage) aioli. I’ll always use this technique to make aioli (or mayo); you can also do this by hand drizzling in the oil slowly. Otherwise, throw all the aioli ingredients into a tall, narrow container (yep, including the oil), and use your trusty immersion blender to stir up a smooth, beautiful chorizo aioli in seconds.

Now reheat the original skillet you used previously (add a tsp or two more oil if needed) and toss the chopped sweet potato pieces in, cooking with an occasional shake and turn until they’re beginning to crisp and brown.

Remove from the heat, quickly stir in the chorizo mixture and roughly half the aioli; mix well. Plate, top with the chopped green onions and what ever else you wish, drizzle with the remaining aioli and go to it.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Low and Slow Roasted Gochujang Chicken Thighs and More

By

When a recipe similar to this one popped in Bon Appetite’s email feed recently my gojuchang alarm bells went off.

We’ve been increasingly more adamant fans of gojuchang, the earthy, deep red, umami-bomb Korean fermented chile paste; I posted this Grilled Gochujang Skirt Steak recipe last summer (it’s damned good) and wrote a bit more about some things to watch for when shopping for gochujang.

As we move closer to astrological fall (it’s been full on summer in our neck of the woods even this week) we’re at least thinking more about slow roasted meats and fall-ish vegetables slowly making magic in the oven.

Low and slow is of course a term stolen from the real-deal barbecue and smoked proteins world, though it applies here, giving the rich gochujang slather time to deeply flavor the chicken thighs (use breasts or a whole chicken if you want, just adjust the cooking times), slowly rendering the schmaltz (the chicken fat) – which makes the most unbelievable pan sauce when combined with the gochujang and garlic here.

You can also, of course, sub in whatever root vegetables that roast well you want; we happen to love roasted cauliflower and sweet potatoes around our camp, hence their inclusion here.

Give this one a spin, it’s amazingly tasty and a nifty one to slip into your fall rotation.

3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 tsp kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper

6 tbsp gochujang
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp EVOO or avocado oil
2 full heads garlic
2 inch nob of ginger, trimmed, peeled, minced or grated

1 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets
1-2 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed, cut into 1.5-inch pieces
5-6 green onions, thinly sliced on a diagonal
1 lime, halved, one half cut into quarters

Optional
2-3 tsp good honey

Preheat oven to 300. Whisk together the gojuchang, 1/4 cup oil, the grated/minced ginger, and three grated garlic cloves. Halve the remaining heads of garlic.

Place the cauliflower florets, the sweet potato pieces, and the garlic head halves into a medium bowl, then add 2 tbsp of the oil of your choice and half the gojuchang mixture. Stir to coat well, and pour into a 12-inch cast iron skillet (or a glass baking dish).

Pat chicken thighs dry with paper towels, trim if needed, then salt and pepper generously. Using the remaining gojuchang mixture, “paint” the chicken thighs on both sides using a pasty brush, and layer the chicken over the vegetables in the skillet.

Into the oven it goes for 90 minutes; you don’t have to, but I like to turn the chicken thighs every thirty minutes. At 90 minutes, check the internal temperature of the thickest thigh – you’re looking for 165 here, yours may need a few minutes longer.

When done, remove the chicken to a plate, stir the honey into the pan juices if using, along with the juice of the intact lime half. Make sure the vegetables are all coated with the pan juices; replace the chicken, and sprinkle the cut onions over. Serve with the lime wedges on the side and go to it.

Enjoy.

the Older Bolder Life Salad Wednesday: Grilled Sweet Potato, Onion, and Chile Salad

By

Since late May I’ve been personally pushing my fitness levels fairly hard; starting my fitness and health recovery journey a little over two years ago I never imagined I’d be sprinting and dialing in some pretty danged specific training to compete next spring in Masters track and field events. (I’ve been telling people lately that back then I was a 412 pound weakling; thankfully that’s now very nearly 200 pounds and lightyears of fitness ago…)

Having been in nutritional ketosis for more or less the past 16 months (probably 95% of the time or better) I have noted that my performance did begin to lag on my leanest carb intake days, prompting some experimentation with carb cycling and adjusting my carb targets on my hardest work days.

One of the ways we’ve done that is incorporate sweet potatoes into the rotation a bit more often. Back in our pre-primal/pre-paleo days we had several grilled potato salads we enjoyed, so that set me to playing with several recipes featuring grilled sweet potatoes.

This Grilled Sweet Potato, Onion, and Chile Salad is one that we keep coming back to again and again; we love the Asian-inspired flavor profile in the dressing, the sweetness of the grilled onions, and the herbal tones from the basil added to finish it off. This salad (or side dish if you prefer) is even damned pretty on the platter or plate too.

You can serve it warm just as it’s finished, at room temp, or chilled – my wife prefers it chilled, but it’s good any way you dish it up.

Approx. 2 pounds sweet potatoes, sliced cross-wise into 3/4-inch thick discs
1/3 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup EVOO or avocado oil
1 large or 2 smaller red onion(s)
3 garlic cloves, grated
2 cups basil leaves, torn if large
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Dressing
2/3 cup rice vinegar (unseasoned)
3 red Fresno or jalapeño chiles, thinly sliced
3 tbsp EVOO or avocado oil
1-3 tbsp good fish sauce
1 tbsp honey (optional)

Cover the sliced sweet potatoes with water in a large sauce pan; add the salt and stir to combine. Bring to a healthy simmer, reduce heat to medium and simmer gently until the potato slices are just tender (use a fork or paring knife to check) – this will take 9-10 minutes pending how thick your slices are. Remove from the water and drain.

While the potatoes are cooling, whisk together the sauce ingredients, adjust for salt, and set aside (you’ll want to whisk again before pouring over the grilled potatoes).

Fire the grill (you only need a medium heat fire here).

Grate the garlic into a large bowl, stir in the 1/4 cup oil, and add the onions which you’ve cut into wedges (6-8 per onion) through the root end (keeps the wedges together on the grill). Toss the cooled potato slices and the onion wedges in the bowl, add a sprinkle of salt.

Now grill the onions and potato slices until well-marked, crispy, and a little charred (10-15 minutes pending your fire). Return to the large bowl (wipe out any excess oil in the bowl first), chopping into bite sized pieces first, toss with the dressing, then gently toss in the basil leaves and sesame seeds, adjusting for added salt one final time.

Can serve warm off the grill, room temp, or chilled – this one’s good any way you take it.

Enjoy.

The Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Sweet Potato Hashbrown Cheeseburger Pie

By

Several weeks ago a friend approached me and asked for help adapting a video recipe she’d seen recently for an upcoming backyard party she was hosting for a group of her daughter’s teen friends.

Apparently they’d discussed doing something “different than the usual burgers and dogs” and wanted a tasty dish that would appeal to teenage palates and yet reasonably accommodate their own recently-adopted paleo/primal food plan.

The video was a fairly uninspired version of this recipe, with store-bought, industrial seed oil-prepared string potato crisps as the bottom layer, devoid of any spice, yet it offered some promise.

We set to experimenting a bit, playing with different versions of sweet potato for the foundation – including crisped up oven fries, sautéed crispy home-style fries (medium dice), though for taste, texture, and interest, finally settling (somewhat to my surprise, I first guessed that homemade oven fries would win out) on this hashbrown version where we essentially made a large sweet potato rosti for the base and then built the cheeseburger “pie” on top of that.

We’ve even served this recently for an informal dinner with friends, where it was a big hit. And as with any burger you can dream up – add whatever tickles your fancy to the stack, like sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, your favorite quick guacamole, pickled onions or jalapeños, and so on…

Don’t be intimidated by making a giant rosti, just pat the grated hash browns out into your largest skillet (preheated with a bit of avocado oil) and cook over medium heat until browned and crispy. Slide the rosti out onto a large cutting board or platter, place another cutting board or platter over and invert, then slide the rosti – uncooked side down – back into the pan to finish. My big skillet is large enough that I needed to cut the rosti in half to fit it onto a sheet pan without overlapping the sides. Easy peasy, and well worth the effort.

2 large organic sweet potatoes, trimmed and grated
1 tsp good salt
2-3 tbsp avocado oil

1/3 pound bacon in 1/4-inch dice
1 medium onion, diced
1 pound grass fed ground beef
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp chile powder
1 tsp good salt

1/3 cup avocado oil mayo (homemade is best!)
1/3 cup homemade Primal ketchup
1/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup dill pickle chips, finely diced
2-3 tbsp dill pickle brine

1/2 to 1 cup grated cheese of choice
Handful of grape or cherry tomatoes
Small head iceberg lettuce, shredded

Clean and trim the sweet potatoes, then grate. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add half the avocado oil, and then spread the grated sweet potatoes in the pan, patting into a firm, even layer. Cook for 5-7 minutes until the bottom begins to brown; lift an edge to peek. You may need to turn the heat down if getting too crispy. When browned, turn the rosti as per the last paragraph above. Cook for another 6-8 minutes until browned, then slide onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet (you may need to cut it in half if you have a big skillet as we do).

Now sauté the diced bacon until crispy, remove to drain, leaving the drippings in the pan. Sauté the onions until softened (6-7 minutes over medium heat), then add the ground beef, cumin, chile powder, and salt. Cook until the meat is browned and crisp, breaking it up as you go; set aside when done.

While the meat is browning, to make the sauce combine the mayo, ketchup, sour cream, pickle chips, and brine; set aside when well mixed. Grate the cheese, rinse and halve the tomatoes, and shred the lettuce.

When ready to assemble, fire the oven broiler, then spread the hamburger mixture over the potato cake, top with the grated cheese, and then the bacon. Slide under the broiler until the cheese has melted. Drizzle with the sauce, top with the shredded lettuce and tomatoes, and go to it.

Enjoy.