Maine

Mexican Haystack

Sienna M. (original recipe)

I've never been to Maine, but I had a friend in college from there. She was lost to the war. She said, don't visit in spring, it's really muddy. She liked rabbits and soap making.

How can you tell if it's a brown bear or a black bear? Climb a tree! If the bear climbs up and kills you, it was a black bear!

Were the U.S. college hockey season to end today, the Maine Black Bears of Orono would be a Number 1 seed and host a regional playoff tournament. So, I salute you, Maine! (In the preseason poll, they were picked to finish 9th of 11 teams in Hockey East.)

I'm deviating from alphabetical order because we are in the thick of winter sports action and I thought this would be a great recipe to post just prior to the Super Bowl. Of course, I had to test it in advance so I made it for the Bill's playoff win over the Steelers. I wish the Bills had continued to win, but they had a pretty great late-season run. I don't have a favorite team standing, but I'll be a good American and watch the big game anyway.

This is the first time I am posting part of a recipe without trying it. I have a giant batch of lentil sweet potato pate left over from Arkansas and I'd rather not waste it. If I were to do it all again, I'd have cut the sweet potato in two and halved both recipes. As it is, I'll just add a little cumin to the pate and call it good enough.

If I were starting from scratch I'd try a variation of this recipe. Since I am still learning to appreciate sweet potato, I thought doctoring up the potato a little would be the way to go.

Sweet Potato Dip

• 1 medium Sweet potato, chopped

• 3 cloves Garlic, unpeeled

• Oil

• Salt and pepper

• 2 Tbs. Nut or seed butter

• 3/4 tsp. ground Cumin

• 1/2 tsp. Cayenne pepper

• 1/4 tsp. Smoked paprika

Salsa

• 1/2 cu. Cherry tomatoes, sliced thin

• 1 small Red Fresno chile pepper, seeded and chopped

• 2 Green onions, sliced thin

• 1 Tbs. chopped Cilantro

• Juice of 1/2 Lime

• 1/4 tsp. Salt

Guacamole

• 1/2 Avocado

• 1 clove Garlic, minced

• 1/4 tsp. Mexican oregano

• Juice of 1/2 Lime

• Dash of salt

To Serve

• Flour tortillas or (cheat!) tortilla chips

• 15-oz. can Refried beans, heated

Preparation

To make the sweet potato dip, start by roasting sweet potato and garlic cloves with oil and salt for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. Allow to cool and blend until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend again until smooth. Add water 1 Tbs. at a time if you want a thinner consistency.

For the salsa, combine all ingredients and chill.

For the guacamole, begin by mashing half an avocado. Then mash in garlic, oregano, lime juice, and salt.

Sienna would have us bake whole-wheat tortillas for 10 minutes in a 400-degree oven, and while this would be cool, I thought tortilla chips would be easier and less likely to break prematurely. All I could find were unsalted chips but since the haystack is well-seasoned, I thought they'd be worth a try.

This is a direct quote. "To make the haystack: First place a few tablespoons of refried beans on the plate, then sweet potato, salsa, and avocado. Place the baked tortilla strips [or tortilla chips!] around the haystack and use for dipping."

Discussion

This recipe accompanied the Bills-Steelers game perfectly, and I encourage you to look to Maine for inspiration when planning for the big game this Sunday. It's hard to go wrong with tortilla chips and a variety of healthy, vegan things to dip them in.

As you can see, I used the leftovers to make nachos. Sometimes vegan cheese is pretty gross and other times it hits the spot. This case was the latter. Probably the best vegan nachos I've tried.

Can you believe baseball spring training starts this month? During the regular season, they play games almost half the days in the year, and somehow they will wrap up and crown a champion before Americans go to vote in November. I guess I'll use this opportunity to give a shout-out to exercise, since it compliments the main theme of this blog, healthy eating. I was a jock in elementary school but I gave that up when they took away recess and formalized sports. I continued to love sports, a fact I share about myself not because it is unusual but precisely because it's something normal and possibly relatable.

I hope you have fun this Sunday. There is a lot going on in the world. You deserve a break from it for a day. Then it's back to work on Monday.

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Maine The only U.S. state with a one-syllable name

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