Friday, November 6, 2015

Wild Mustard Greens and Sweet Potatoes with Cashew Cream Sauce Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, and Super Frugal

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The picture doesn't do the dish justice! Sometimes the dishes that are the
most delicious are the ones that look the funniest. Oh well.
I'll be honest with ya, I haven't been doing much foraging lately, for a variety of reasons. Number one because it was a long and dry summer here and not much growing to forage- the plants I usually find here in the summer- purslane and lambsquarters- were no where to be found locally, and I haven't had the time or energy to go to other locations to forage.
But recently, it rained a great deal locally, which means that all those plants that are dormant until the rainy season start popping up- I've been seeing a bunch of mallow and wild mustard starting to grow. This morning when I was heading back from picking up the mail, I saw such huge mallow and mustard plants; I was so excited that I picked a huge armful (getting mud on myself) and when I came home, I knew I just had to cook it up for my brunch.
Wild mustard is also known as broccoli rabe or rapini, and you can actually buy it in the grocery store if you don't pick it yourself (here's how to identify and forage wild mustard). It has a somewhat bitter taste to it, which I usually balance out with some lemon juice, but this time I thought it would be perfect to balance it out with some sweet and some creamy aspect (see, I told you I was on a "creamy" kick) and I had some stubs of sweet potato left from spiralizing sweet potatoes last night, so I decided to carmelize some onions and add chopped sweet potatoes to it along with cashew butter (that I made from the cheapo cashews I found the other day)...
And I have to say that I never had any dish made from wild plants that was more delicious. I am so excited to pick more and more wild mustard just so I can make this dish again.
If you don't have wild mustard, feel free to use any greens for this, especially bitter greens. This would work with kale, chard, mustard greens, collard greens, turnip greens, spinach, radish greens, dandelion greens, sow thistle greens or any other wild greens (which tend to be on the more bitter side than store bought greens) or store bought greens.
I am sure you can make this with almond butter or peanut butter or sunbutter instead of the cashew butter, but the taste will be somewhat different, but still delicious.

Wild Mustard Greens and Sweet Potatoes with Cashew Cream Sauce Recipe- Paleo, Vegan, and Super Frugal

Ingredients:
1 onion
2 tablespoons oil (I used refined coconut oil, you use whatever is cheapest or that you prefer to use)
Sweet potato stubs from 2 spiralized sweet potatoes, or around 1/2-3/4 cup chopped
1 large bunch broccoli rabe/wild mustard
1 heaping tablespoon cashew butter (or almond butter or peanut butter or sunbutter)
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt

Instructions:
1. Slice your onion into crescents and saute in oil until just starting to get translucent.

2. Slice your sweet potatoes super small (not much bigger than kernels of corn) and put them in the pan with your onions, and cover.

3. Every 3-5 minutes, give the sweet potatoes and onions a mix, then cover again. Do this until the sweet potatoes are fully soft, then remove the cover and allow the onions and sweet potatoes to caramelize a bit.

4. Chop up your greens and add them to the sweet potatoes and onions. Cook until they are wilted and the harder parts softened.

5. Add the salt, garlic, cashew butter and water.

6. Cook, mixing well, until the cashew butter is fully melted and combined with the water, and is a creamy sauce over everything.

7. Adjust salt to taste.

Enjoy!

P.S. Try not to eat the whole thing at once! This entire amount made enough for one very large serving or a couple of smaller portions.

Are you a forager? What have you been foraging lately, or have you also had a dry spell (pun intended) recently? What is your favorite thing to do with foraged greens?
Have you ever had broccoli rabe/rapini or wild mustard before? What is your favorite recipe with them? Does this look like a recipe you'd try?

3 comments:

  1. I am absolutely trying this -- maybe with butternut squash and collards. Since I have them in the freezer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks amazing! I will try this with whatever greens I can find!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your comment about the photo made me laugh - I thought the picture looked delicious! :)

    Lea

    ReplyDelete

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