Sometimes flavors are surprising

I went to some real hipsters' house near Campus a couple of months ago. You know the kind. They don't flush their toilets to save water (in the midwest where water is more than plentiful and their water is included in their rent). They shop at Goodwill and on Craigslist only. They seem to believe that having nice things and caring for your things is too worldly. Their idea of composting is throwing leftovers out the back door into the yard. The girls have medium-short hair that's pulled up into itty-bitty "ponytails" with hair falling out everywhere. The guys have shaggy (but not long) hair and boyishly thin, but long beards. One person declared, during their throwback party that consisted of eating kids sugar-cereals and watching the Mighty Ducks, that irony (unlike "cool") is not relative.

Anyway, dinner at the hipsters' commune was sweet potato and black bean enchiladas. Besides the fact that the sweet potatoes were really quite hard, they were excellent. (Someone needs to tell this girl that the oven doesn't really work when it's open, so it's probably not a good idea to leave it open for 3 and 4 minutes at a time so you can watch the food cook. Maybe I'd work better just to clean the window and watch through there.) It was really quite surprising, actually. The flavors went together really well.

Unfortunately, I don't have that recipe (if any of you use a Mennonite cookbook that is organized according to season, you might just have it). But when I saw this recipe on the FoodNetwork's website a couple of weeks ago I knew I had to try it. And it was excellent...different than the enchiladas, which were flavored with cinnamon and cumin...but still very good...and hardy. One sweet potato each with some salad was plenty enough for my sexy husband and I. If you don't have really big appetites, I would recommend splitting one. And for you meat eaters, my sexy husband thought this would be great with a nice steak.



Itty-bitty picture, complements of the FoodNetwork.:







Oh! And I forgot to buy tomatoes...so I can't comment on the tomatoes.



Oh! And when I tasted the "bean salad" without the sweet potato, I thought it was WAY too salty, but the potato needed the extra salt, so it worked out...just so you know.