Yam Pie

I had a lovely Sunday and I really wish it wasn't over now. It was a beautiful day outside - Spring is just about here! I went for nice run outside, and used a new iphone app to track my distance - Runkeeper.  It seemed to pretty accurately tell me that I ran 3.75 miles - and that I ran slow!  Took me 45 minutes.  I was definitely fighting the wind, and its tough to keep up a good pace running to and from the river, having to dodge people and cars. But it felt really nice to run outside in the sun. When I got back I stretched out on our little patio and noticed that some of my tulips are coming up! I hope it doesn't get too cold and I get some flowers. I re-fueled with a big salad.

This has frisee, endive, radicchio, cannellini beans, more asparagus, cucumbers, and a segmented orange. I squeezed the pith of the orange over the salad and added a little EVOO. It was very refreshing post-run. And of course I had to have a cupcake for dessert.

I know this looks huge but I swear they're mini cupcakes. After lunch I headed to my new favorite place - Russo's! When we went last weekend it was busy but not insane. Heather told me it was quiet for a Sunday. She was obviously right because today it was nuts! The place does not have a lot of aisles or room that is not taken up with products, so it gets ridiculously crowded. I can see some people being very turned off by this (I would never bring Derek on a weekend) but the prices and selection are so amazing, its totally worth it for me. I couldn't believe how much I got for so little money! Even with all the pricey mushrooms and fancy cheese I bought! The only downfall of this place is that it doesn't sell fish. So on the way I home I stopped at Morse Fish, the fish shop in my neighborhood. I was planning on buying some crab and making a big batch of crab cakes to eat tonight and on salads for the rest of the week. But they were out of crab! Instead I got shrimp for salads and their housemade stuffed clams for dinner. Here's my whole loot...

I absolutely stuffed the fridge with all this stuff. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon cooking and prepping food for the week. I peeled and cut some carrots and celery for snacks - I think this is a much better way to go than buying those bags of "baby carrots." A lot of people don't even realize that those are really just whole carrots cut into smaller pieces by a machine. Which use a lot more energy than just cutting up the carrots yourself and there's probably a lot of carrot that's wasted by those machines. I also boiled a big pot of water and used it for multiple cookings. First asparagus, then shrimp for salads. Then dandelion greens and a huge garnet yam for dinner. Around 6PM I decided it was cocktail time and had a glass of wine and some fancy cheese.
I had about 5 of theses crackers with cheddar, wasabi goat cheese, and some other kind of stinky cheese. Then I settled down on the couch to read Food & Wine magazine for awhile. But quickly popped back up and ran back into the kitchen! I was planning on just mashing the garnet yam I cooked for dinner, but saw this great recipe for Sweet Potato Pie that I wanted to try. The recipe called sausage, which I obviously skipped. But the pie was amazing! The cornmeal crust added a great flavor and texture.

For dinner, I served a slice of the pie with the heated up stuffed clams. I also sauteed the dandelion greens with some red pepper flakes.

I can't wait to eat this pie all week - we have plenty of it. Hope everyone has a good week!