What a difference a week can make. Last week during our visit to Pennsylvania for the holiday it was 66˚. That’s not normal for PA, or anywhere in the north-east of the U.S., but I was loving every single whacked out degree above normal. Fast forward seven days and I’m back in Michigan and dealing with heavy, wet snow, slush and ice, and all the joyless activities that come with it: wearing ugly winter shoes, shoveling, back pain, slipping, sliding, scraping, having a mental breakdown because I can’t get the snowblower to start, breaking a snow shovel during said mental breakdown, having a friend point out that it’s a dirty spark plug preventing the snowblower from starting, using the snowblower, and knowingly and calmly accepting Wifey’s lecture to me where she points out that she loves me but it’s so not normal to have a complete breakdown and break a shovel (and maybe a piece of siding on the house) because a snowblower won’t start. Point taken.
But as they (mostly the U.S. Sweet Potato Council) say– at least we have sweet potatoes to bring love, peace and harmony to our lives…
Finding comfort after the misery
We were supposed to get rain and freezing rain on Monday night, but instead we got snow, then freezing rain, then rain. This has made things crap-tastic and instead of the ice coming, melting, and leaving clear roads for riding, we now have roads littered with giant piles of wet snow, slush and ice. With that, most of my time “doing stuff” has been, and will be for the days to come, confined to the Stankment™ where I will lift heavy things for no reason and run nowhere fast slow on the treadmill.
I am no fan of winter, but I have learned to deal with it and enjoy time outside doing stuff in the snow. Sadly, the crap wet snow we got Monday night into Tuesday is good for nothing. But I found some comfort in food on Tuesday and that seemed to make everything pretty OK.
First up was my lunch. After I was done snow blowing the driveway and sidewalks I was cold, wet and starving. I came inside to see we didn’t have all that much available for lunch, but I did find some sweet potatoes in the pantry. So I set up making up some Soiled Spicy Sweet Potato Wedges with sriracha mayo on the side.
Sweet, spicy and warm, this is one of my go-to faves. Sadly I don’t make it all that often since for some reason Wifey hates sweet potatoes, and often at lunch time I don’t have the time or patience for the oven to pre heat to 425˚ and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. But as long as there’s time and sweet potatoes in the house, it’s totally worth while.
Aside from the mayo used for the dipping sauce, it’s pretty good for you. But I love me some sriracha mayo (two parts mayo/one part sriracha)! This is why I have a male muffin top and you probably don’t. Jerk.
Ingredients:
- 1 large sweet potato (halved and wedged)
- 1/2 tablespoon or so of olive oil
- a few generous dashes of Tony Chachere’s Bold Creole Seasoning.
- 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon of sriracha sauce
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 425˚
- Remove skin and random potato ball hair from sweet potato, then halve and cut into wedges as shown
- In a mixing bowl evenly cover with olive oil and creole seasoning
- Spread in an even layer on a greased baking sheet
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until browned and somewhat crispy
- Remove, let cool slightly and eat
For sriracha mayo:
- Blend two tablespoons of the mayonnaise of your choice and one tablespoon of sriracha and serve on side
- Dip wedges in the spicy mayo and pretend your eating some sort of Belgian fusion food
And of course because I have nothing better to do whilst my pointless and fruitless job search continues I felt the need to take photos of my lunch and create this stupid blog post.
Just be glad I didn’t take the time to do a full post about the ingredient heavy vat of Bust Ass Soiled Chicken Chili I made for dinner!
When winter doesn’t cooperate with outside activities, one has to find other things to do and find comfort in; basement workouts, Cat 5 Cooking, pornography and alcohol seem to work best for me.
Look a squirrel!
Later.