Miso Honey Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes

Salty and sweet, these Miso Honey Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes are easy to make with loads of flavor. Serve them as a main with salad or as a side dish.

Growing up, the only sweet potatoes I ever ate were the candied ones with loads of Karo syrup and butter, baked till sticky for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I honestly don’t remember ever having them any other time of the year. 

As I got older and my sweet tooth diminished, I still baked those sweet potatoes for the holiday but with just a tiny sprinkling of brown sugar for color instead of all the syrup. The sweet potatoes were sweet enough on their own.

In fact, when it’s just my husband and I at home, one of our favorite meals is roasted whole sweet potatoes, served split open from end to end with a generous pat or three of butter inside, no sugar at all! 

I knew that if I wanted to add a sweet element to these roast sweet potatoes, I’d have to balance it with a savory element. The miso works beautifully here. 

Miso Honey Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes

I give the ingredient amounts below for each sweet potato because you may want to roast one or seven or 15, depending on how many people you are feeding. 

Ingredients per person

1 sweet potato

Olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

2 teaspoons honey

1 teaspoon miso

For topping:

1 tablespoon roasted peanuts, chopped

Sprinkling chopped parsley

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Set your sweet potato between two large chopsticks (or the handles of two wooden spoons) and use a sharp knife to cut slices into the sweet potatoes without going all the way through. The chopsticks (or spoon handles) help make sure that you can’t cut all the way through! 

Put the sweet potatoes in your prepared baking pan and drizzle with olive oil. 

Roast in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, basting occasionally to encourage the sweet potatoes to open up as they cook. 

Meanwhile, add the butter, honey and miso to a microwaveable bowl and heat them briefly to melt the butter. Mix well. 

After the roasting time is up, remove from the oven and spoon over the butter mixture so it goes in between the slices. I also used a pastry brush to brush some on the skin. 

Return to the oven and roast for another 10 minutes or until a knife goes in easily, basting halfway through.

Sprinkle on the chopped peanuts and parsley to serve. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are celebrating National Sweet Potato Awareness Month. Many thanks to our host, Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out all the sweet potato recipe links below 

• Karen's Kitchen Stories: Beef and Sweet Potato Stir Fry 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili 
• Food Lust People Love: Miso Honey Roasted Hasselback Sweet Potatoes 
• Mayuri's Jikoni: Shakkariya Nu Shaak
• Culinary Cam: Spiced Sweet Potato-Red Lentil Stew 
• Sneha's Recipe: Sweet Potato Patties 
• Sid’s Sea Palm Cooking: Sweet Potato Sushi

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Hasselback Sweet Potatoes! 

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Sourdough Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Oh, so tender and sweet, these jumbo sourdough peanut butter banana muffins are made with very ripe bananas, sourdough discard and smooth peanut butter. 

My poor neglected sourdough starter has been sitting in the refrigerator for almost six months, just hanging out and hanging on. It had very little hooch on top so I took that as a good sign.

I fed it up without discarding a couple of times and it responded well until finally, I took some out to make these muffins. While the discard doesn’t help with the rise, it surely adds moisture, giving the muffins a lovely texture. 

Sourdough Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

You can use fed or unfed sourdough starter for these muffins though unfed will give them more sourdough flavor. This recipe makes nine jumbo muffins.

Ingredients

2 cups or 250g flour

½ cup, firmly packed, or 100g brown sugar 

½ cup or 100g sugar 

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

⅔ cup or 150g very ripe banana (peels were brown and speckled)

2 large eggs

½ cup or 113g melted, cooled butter

½ cup or 125g sourdough discard 

¼ cup or 60ml milk

¼ cup, rounded, or 80g smooth peanut butter (with sugar)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a large muffin pan with jumbo paper liners. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. 

In another bowl, mash the bananas with a fork and add the eggs and mix.

Add in the butter, sourdough discard, milk, peanut butter and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth. 

Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and use a rubber spatula to fold together until just combined.

Divide the batter between your muffin cups. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes in the preheated oven or until a toothpick comes out clean and the muffins are golden brown. 

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes on a wire rack. Transfer the muffins to the wire rack. 

These can be eaten warm or cold. Either way, they go great with a cup of coffee in the morning or a cup of tea in the afternoon. 

Enjoy! 

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s time for Muffin Monday. Check out the lovely muffins my baker friends are sharing below.

• Cinnamon Stuffed Streusel Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Lemon Pomegranate Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Oatmeal Zucchini Muffins with Dried Cranberries from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Peanut Ripple Banana Muffins from A Messy Kitchen
• Simple Banana Muffins (2 Bananas = 6 Muffins) from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Sourdough Peanut Butter Banana Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page. 

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Roast Pheasant Crowns

Tender and succulent, roast pheasant crowns with their subtle gaminess is a delightful alternative to chicken or turkey for a holiday meal. Or any day really.

The first time I ever remember eating pheasant was at one my husband's company Christmas dinners, held in a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower. It was a lovely dressy affair that lasted all evening, starting with Champagne and ending several courses later with a delightful cheese selection. 

When the pheasant course was served, I was warned to be careful because, while the chefs make every effort to remove it, sometimes buckshot gets missed and it will break your teeth. I was told that finding shot was good because it meant you were eating much preferred wild pheasant, not farm raised. I did find one little ball of shot that night and one in the pheasant crowns I roasted for this post so yay! 

Crowning a pheasant is a simple way to present a beautifully cooked bird without the hassle of carving at the table. To crown a pheasant, we will simply remove the legs and wings (if any) from the carcass. Then we remove most of the back, leaving a base for the breast to sit on. The breasts can be brined and then roasted to perfection, without drying out.

The whole legs (thighs and drumsticks) are best cooked confit-style, that is to say, slow-baked covered with duck fat to keep make them tender. I’ll share that recipe in another post. 

Roast Pheasant Crowns

Start this recipe early in day you want to serve the pheasants, to allow time for brining, which is essential to ensure the birds don’t dry out while roasting. Older birds can brine for eight hours, younger ones need only four hours. This recipe is adapted from one on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. 

Ingredients 

2 whole pheasants (Mine weighed 1.9 lbs or 867g and 1.8 lbs or 826g.)

4 cups or 946ml water

2 tablespoons fine sea salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 bay leaf

4 tablespoons softened butter

Drizzle olive oil for roasting pan

Streaky bacon to cover your pheasant crowns before baking

Method

Separate the whole legs (thigh and drumstick) from the rest of the pheasants. 

As mentioned above, pheasant thighs and legs can be roasted but they tend to dry out, despite brining, and are better cooked confit – baked slowly in duck fat. That will be a separate recipe for later so set them aside. 

Cut the back out, leaving a small piece across the top of the breasts. 

These backs can be seasoned and pan-fried or roasted and then simmered in water to make a flavorful stock. Or if you have a collection bag for items to make stock in the freezer, toss them in.

Make a brine by bringing the 1 cup or 240ml water, salt, bay leaf and sugar to a boil.

 

Boil until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Add in the rest of the water and let cool to room temperature then chill in the fridge. When it has cooled completely, pour it in a Ziploc bag with the pheasant crowns, making sure they are completely covered. 

Keep in the fridge for 4 to 8 hours. (See note just above the ingredient list.)

When you are ready to roast, take the crown bag out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to an hour. 

Preheat your oven to 450°F or 332°C. 

Drain the brine and rinse the crowns with cool water. Pat dry with paper towels.

As you can see, one of my pheasants had the skin relatively intact. The other, not so much. I've read that some hunters can't be bothered to pluck the birds carefully, so they just pull the feathers out roughly or the skin off altogether. 

These were purchased at the same time from the same game butcher so who knows why they were different!

Rub the crowns all over with the softened butter. 

Transfer them to a roasting pan lightly drizzled with olive oil, then cover the breasts with streaky bacon slices. Use however many you’d like. I recommend full coverage so you might also want to overlap them like I do. 

Roast for 12 minutes. Baste with pan juices then roast for 8-15 minutes more, depending on the size of the breasts and how you like your game cooked. I recommend using an instant read thermometer.

Pheasant, particularly the breast, can and should be served with a slight blush of pink to keep it juicy and prevent it from drying out. A properly cooked pheasant breast should have a target internal temperature of 155° to 160°F or 68° to 71°C so take them out of the oven before they reach that as they will continue to cook as they rest. 

Leave the crowns to rest for 5-10 minutes before slicing the whole breast off each side of the crowns and serving.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes made with game or foraged items for a theme I called hunter/gatherer. Check out those recipes below! 

• Chili Cheeseburgers with Bison Chili from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Dried Rosemary from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Momiji Tempura ;from Culinary Cam
• Pork Korma from Sneha's Recipe
• Roast Pheasant Crowns from Food Lust People Love
• Urban Foraged Stovetop Potpourri from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Venison Tater Tot Shepherd's Pie from A Day in the Life on the Farm

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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