Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat Cheese

This is a recipe I first tasted when Emily and Amanda came to KC for one of their legendary Smitten Kitchen Cooking Weekends. If I remember correctly, these were the quickie first dish they made so they'd have something to snack on while all the rest of the foods were being prepared, throughout the day.  I remember eating a lot of them that Smitten Kitchen Day. While the two cooks were busy working their tails off, what better did I have to do? Nothing...so plenty of time to devour one round after another. As much as I loved what they made, I didn't attempt to recreate them myself until this Christmas when Joy requested an appetizer for the big Christmas Eve dinner in Montana. And guess what? I still love them and could eat a whole plateful.

But let's start with a very minor dilemma. The recipe calls for, and in fact is named after the ingredient of sweet potatoes. So that's what I bought, though with a few misgivings, since Deb's colorful pictures seemed more indicative of the brighter orangey tone of yams versus sweet potatoes. Next time I make this, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be a rebel and use the yams because my sweet potato version seems a little washed out, in comparison to the pics of Deb's rounds.

Oh, and one other cooking note:  I was buying ingredients with two little girls in tow and with a lot better things to do than hang around in a busy grocery store. Had I read a little more carefully, I would have seen that you're supposed to make sure you get a "firmish" goat cheese to work with. I didn't and it changed the consistency of my appetizer a bit. My goat cheese was so soft that I finally decided to just kind of mix it up in the other ingredients. I thought the end result still tasted yummy but next time I'll be smarter and do what Deb says. If nothing else, the rounds photograph prettier when you have those pleasing goat cheese chunks visible, rather than a slightly more gloppy mixture of cheese and other ingredients.

Now that I've made this whole recipe sound complicated and easy to mess up, I'll just end with saying  I'd make these again, anytime an appetizer is called for.

Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat Cheese
Recipe Courtesy of Deb Perelman and Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

1  1/2 pounds sweet potatoes (YAMS?) scrubbed, unpeeled, cut in 3/4 to 1 inch coins
4 T. olive oil, divided
1/4 cup toasted and cooled pecan halves
2 tiny or 1 small shallot
2 stalks celery
2 T flat-leaf parsley
1 T dried cranberries or cherries (optional)
2 ounces FIRMISH goat cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 t. red wine vinegar
1/2 t. smooth Dijon mustard

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Coat a large baking sheet generously with olive oil, about 1 to 2 tablespoons. Lay the sweet potato coins in on layer on the oiled sheet. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Roast, without disturbing, for 15-20 minutes. Carefully flip each piece; the undersides should be blistery, dark and a bit puffy and should release from the pan with no effort. If they're not, let it cook longer. Sprinkle them with additional salt and freshly ground pepper and return the pan to the oven for another 10 minutes or so, until the undersides match the tops.

Meanwhile, prepare your salad. Chop pecans well. Mince shallot. Chop celery and parsley. Mince cranberries, if using. Crumble goat cheese (or find out you have very soft goat cheese and no way is it going to crumble. Figure out Plan B. Deb actually has a note in her recipe that says if you find you can't crumble the goat cheese, set it aside and just sprinkle it on top. I was in too much a time crunch to carefully separate by very soft goat cheese so that's where Plan B came into effect. Or would that be Plan C??? Plan A - get the right cheese. Plan B - do what Deb says and sprinkle the wrong kind of cheese on top. Plan C - have too little patience and/or time to use the fix Deb suggests and, instead, simply mix your wrong, runny cheese in with all the other salad ingredients. You decide.

In a small dish, whisk together 2 T olive oil, 2 t. red wine vinegar, and 1/2 t. dijon mustard. Pour half over salad.

When the potatoes are done lay on a serving platter. Scoop a handful of the salsa/salad over each round. Pour the remaining salad dressing over the top to taste. Eat immediately.