A little Southern lovin’ for the leftovers (A post by Molly)

Here at Molly B and Me we know how to deal with leftovers. We’ve wrangled ragu out of old tomatoes, whipped waffles out of the dregs of a pumpkin pie can, even spun soufflé out a limp asparagus. We’re confident in our cookies, certain of our soups, and cocksure of our casseroles. Still, New Year’s Eve left us intimidated by our inundated refrigerator. Layers of holiday food filled our fridge, stretching back chronologically like bed rock to the very back of the fridge, which still held some expired pre-Christmas meal leftovers. We began with the first layer, New Year’s Eve.

My parents had invited some of their gourmet group friends over to ring in the New Year with grilled ribs and crème brulée (both of which did not make it to the leftover stage, unfortunately for me). My parent’s friends brought gourmet spinach salad and a shrimp platter, which would be perfect if my parents hadn’t already bought their own shrimp platter for the occasion. My mom also threw some sweet potatoes in the oven for the occasion… and forgot about them, at which point one those devilish legumes exploded over the oven covering it in burnt orange goo.

With those odds against me, I decided turn to my Southern brothers. After my efforts to use up the sweet potatoes in a breakfast hash still left me with two large sweet potatoes, I decided to sneak them into a crowd pleasing baked good, like biscuits. Instead of eating the shrimp platter, I decided to take the easy way out and make gumbo from scratch… and then I decided to run to the store and buy every ingredient for gumbo except for shrimp. By the end of the day (after many hours of much needed oven cleaning) I pulled the biscuits out of the oven and added the fully cooked shrimp to the gumbo. While there’s still a lot of fridge to get to, my cooking swagger has definitely been restored.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

2 baked sweet potato (chilled and pureed)

¾ cup milk

1 tbs. brown sugar

2½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

3 cups flour

½ cup cold butter

  1. Mix sweet potato milk and brown sugar in a bowl until smooth.
  2. Swift together flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a separate bowl.
  3. Using a pastry cutter, cut cold butter into dry ingredients until about the size of popcorn kernels.
  4. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients until they form a loose dough (add flour or milk as necessary)
  5. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough until it’s about a half inch thick, cut out as many biscuits as you can with a biscuit cutter, a mason jar, a juice glass, or whatever you have on hand.
  6. Bake biscuits for about 15 min. at 450 degrees
Though my sweet potato hash only used up one of those pesky sweet potatoes, it was deliscious
Though my sweet potato hash only used up one of those pesky sweet potatoes, it was delicious. I made also made a spinach and feta cheese omelette with the egg whites leftover  from the crème brulée.
Don't underestimate these biscuits, they're fluffy on the inside and crunchy on the outside
Don’t underestimate these biscuits, they’re fluffy on the inside and crunchy on the outside
Roux makes me nervous sometimes, their's nothing worse than a tasting raw flour in your soup, but this one turned out.
Roux makes me nervous sometimes, their’s nothing worse than a tasting raw flour in your soup, but this one turned out.
Even the pickiest member or our family ate two bowls (despite the presence of bell peppers)
Even the pickiest member or our family ate two bowls (despite the presence of bell peppers).
After loving the dish for many years I gave gumbo a go for the first time
After loving other people’s version of the dish for many years I gave gumbo a go by myself for the first time
It was all work it to use up that shrimp
It was all worth it to use up that shrimp
Best thing to warm you up on a cold winter day
Best thing to warm you up on a cold winter day

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