No Measure Meals: Chorizo and Peppers with Sweet Potato Puree and Asian Pear Slaw

I tried really hard to come up with a catchy name for this dish. But catchy names need to be short. And the reason I invented this meal is because I wanted shepherd’s pie but I didn’t have any of the right ingredients. And ‘I Wanted To Make Shepherd’s Pie But I Didn’t Have Potatoes, Lamb, or Carrots’ is definitely not catchy. And so I bring to you the less-than-catchy:

No-Measure Chorizo and Peppers with Sweet Potato Puree and Asian Pear Slaw

Ingredients

fresh chorizo

hot peppers of choice

sweet potatoes

cream cheese

milk or light cream

Asian Pear and Celery Slaw (recipe follows)

Directions

1. Peel the sweet potatoes. This is an optional step, but not doing so will result in a lumpier puree.
2. Dice the sweet potatoes and add them to a pot of salted water. Boil until soft.
3. While potatoes boil, remove casings from fresh chorizo. Add to a hot pan and break up with spoon. Cook until beginning to brown.
4. Small dice hot peppers. Add to cooking chorizo.
5. Drain potatoes. Place in food processor with a bit of cream cheese and milk or cream. Blend until smooth.
6. Serve potato puree topped with chorizo and pepper mixture. Top with Asian Pear Slaw (super simple recipe below.)

Substitution Options

• You can certainly swap out the chorizo for any other ground meat, or even make it using lentils for a vegetarian dish. In fact, I may do just that sometime in the near future. Because I love lentils.
• Serving this with regular mashed potatoes would be great too. That would bring it even closer to a shepherd’s pie. You could also use mashed cauliflower, which I’ve recently decided I like even more than mashed potatoes. But more on that in future recipes.
• If you do not have a food processor, you can mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher or use a hand mixer.

A note on measurements: This is a No Measure Meal. Thus, you can use as little or as much of something as you’d like. If you want the sausage to be spicier, use more peppers. Want the sweet potatoes to be creamier? Use more cream cheese. Play around with it.

However, I understand that normal people (a group to which I do not belong) often like guidelines. Thus, here are some for this dish:

• Use 2 regular sized links of sausage per person you are serving.
• Use 1 medium to large sweet potato for every TWO people you are serving.
• One regular-sized Asian pear and two stalks of celery should be enough for FOUR people.

Asian Pear and Celery Slaw

Ingredients

asian pear

celery

olive oil

vinegar

dijon mustard

sugar

salt

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine olive oil, vinegar (or lemon juice) and a tiny bit of dijon mustard. Whisk with fork until well combined. Add salt and sugar to taste.
2. Finely chop Asian pear and celery. Add to vinaigrette and toss to coat.
3. Refrigerate until ready to use, up to an hour (making it too far in advance may cause breakdown of pears due to use of vinegar.)

Substitution Option

If you do not have an Asian pear on hand (I admit that the fact that I do is kind of strange) it would be absolutely acceptable to use an apple instead. I based the goodness of the idea of combining apples and celery on the concept of a Waldorf Salad, so really, an apple might be even better.

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A note on the Asian Pear and Celery Slaw: This was a last-minute addition to the dish and a great example of why I feel it is important to play with your food. I added the slaw because I knew I’d want a crunchy element and also because I felt it was lacking a fresh veggie or fruit option. And I had a sad, lonely asian pear sitting in my fruit bowl. I tossed it in the simple vinaigrette to keep the pear from turning brown and to slightly soften the celery. It turned out to be amazing. Even my husband–who does not ever combine fruit with meat–loved it (I served his on the side, and he ended up dumping it all over the plate and even going back to the kitchen to add more.) I will absolutely make it again and use it in sandwiches and on salads. Maybe as a topping for a chilled soup. Or, like, to eat with a spoon while standing in front of my open refrigerator.