No, your eyes have not deceived you. The word “healthy” has actually come up in my blog without the word “not” before it. The following recipe is from a FoodTV Canada TV show called "Eat Shrink and be Merry". In spite of it being low fat it is rather good with lots of veggies and sweet potato biscuits on top. I haven’t modified too much from the original though but whenever I have I have made a note of it below.
I started off by browning sliced baby carrots, a minced onion and sliced mushrooms. I left the celery out but that’s because I don’t usually buy any. I also added salt, pepper, sage and thyme. The recipe calls for frozen peas and carrots but I avoid using frozen veggies since it affects their texture, usually turning them mushy.
I do however, make an exception to my no mushy vegetable rule for peas since I have never seen fresh peas in the grocery store. I try to add them halfway or towards the end of the cooking times so they don’t get dried out and wrinkly.
After the veggies are cooked I added the chicken broth and creamed corn.
Ho, ho, ho Green Giant. Am I the only one who remembers that commercial?
I had made roasted chicken the night before I made this recipe so I had plenty of leftover shredded chicken. In the original version they used a deboned rotisserie chicken but I find that this is a good way to use up leftover chicken. If you don’t want to go through the trouble of buying or roasting an entire chicken you could always just cook a few chicken breasts in the oven.
My pile of shredded cheese. I like to buy different kinds of cheese and mix them for different recipes. If you use stronger cheeses you can reduce the total overall amount that you need.
The chicken, cheese and evaporated milk mixed in with the flour all went into the pot. I cranked the heat up until all the cheese was melted and the mixture had thickened. Once it was ready I turned down the heat so it wouldn’t burn as I made the biscuits.
I don’t bother measuring how much sweet potato I use for this recipe, then again I don’t ever really measure ingredients unless I am baking a cake.
The easiest way I know to cook a sweet potato is to prick it all over with a fork and microwave it for a few minutes. They don’t cook at the same setting as potatoes so I usually cook them at one minute intervals and poke them until they are soft all the way through.
Making the biscuits. I forgot to take a picture when I added the sweet potato in. The butter is melted and then stirred in until a dough forms which makes it so that the biscuits are rather fast to make.
At this point I added some chopped fresh parsley to the filling. Mostly because I had forgotten to do so before. I don’t know why the colour looks so different in this picture compared to the others.
I couldn’t be bother to roll out the biscuits so I just floured my hands and shaped the biscuits with my hands before depositing them on the filling and brushing them with melted butter.
After baking the stew and biscuits for 15 minutes they came out nice and golden.
This is a really good homey recipe. The filling is thick and hearty and chock full of vegetables. Even The Husband who generally eats veggies only grudgingly likes this recipe. It makes quite a bit and reheats really well. The biscuits are quite possibly my favourite part of this meal. I love anything with carbs but I think that the addition of sweet potatoes gives them a nice texture and slight sweetness. Do give this a try. It is a quick recipe and pleasing even to veggie haters.
