Swing Eats

What's a good, simple, and seasonal side for Thanksgiving? My vote (besides Brussels sprouts) is for sweet potatoes. Right now, the local farmers have amazing sweet potatoes with different color skins. Remember, most of the nutrients are in the skin. The skin also adds more texture and dimension than peeling it. Peeling requires unnecessary work, and ends in a lot of food waste. So keeping the skin on the sweet potatoes is a win-win. Keep it simple. There's no reason to over complicate, especially when roasting a turkey is involved. I prefer to roast sweet potatoes with fresh herbs, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Here I used thyme rosemary. Sage would work wonderfully, too. Either way, this side compliments the rest of the turkey day spread well, especially the turkey and cranberry sauce. Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Thyme and Rosemary Ingredients: sweet potatoes, aka yams, 4 large, cut into large dice olive oil, 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, 1 teaspoon chopp...

I love carrots. Especially their bright orange color. Usually, I eat carrots raw as carrot sticks. But I often forget how sweet carrots are when cooked. Another one of my favorites is roasted carrots with potatoes. It is rare to find a dish where the carrots are the star. One of the standard culinary carrot dishes I learned to make in culinary school was glazed carrots. Unfortunately, it rarely lived up to its potential. I believe due to the technical execution which consisted of boiling the carrots in too much water in a narrow sauce pan, resulting in watery and mushy carrots with no color left. Herein lies my redo of this classic. Braising proves perfect for glazing. Braising is when something is cooked in a wide covered dish with no added moisture over medium to high heat. Here my seasonings consist of my seasonal favorites: maple syrup, Kentucky bourbon (yes, it is gluten-free, made from corn: my choice Eagle Rare), nutmeg, and butter. My favorite cut for carrots is oblique whic...