Day 1 kicks us off with an unfortunate staple of my unfortunate diet. Is it healthy? Eh. Is it tasty? Eh. Is it a sweet potato with barbecue sauce? Absolutely.
The sweet potato is a very versatile, very delicious food, and it very much deserves better fate than sixormaybeseven minutes in the microwave. But you can’t have a conscience in the dinner game. And microwaving a sweet potato is tricky, because your eyes are telling your mouth to prepare for the king of starches even has your hands plot electromagnetic regicide. An undermicrowaved sweet potato is an inch-thick blanket of soft, flaky sweet potato wrapped around a goddamn iron rod. So an overmicrowaved sweet potato it is. The inside is soft with only occasional hard bits (if you’re using a microwave there will always be hard bits), and the edges develop a spongy, almost taffy-like consistency, which…gross.
And that begs the question, why would you ever microwave a sweet potato? And then, why the hell would you continue to do so on a regular basis? Who cares. This blog isn’t about answers.
Cook it for about five minutes, or until the core gets hot enough that steam starts venting through the holes you forked into the skin. Some days it’ll shriek – either a sentient cry for mercy or a projection of my palate’s opposition to this whole process, depending on the potato. Stay strong. Remove it from the microwave, slice it in half, and take a fork to its guts, breaking up as much of the goddamn iron rod as you can, then pop it back in the microwave for another minute or two. Or as long as you want. There’s a remarkable plateau effect that takes place around minute seven when the hard bits stay hard and the soft bits stay soft and the taffy bits stay taffy, maybe forever.
Normal protocol calls only for a plate, half a jar of barbecue sauce, and the pretend suppression of the dignity you actually lost years ago, but this is blog number one, so the thing needed some fireworks. The idea was sauteed veggies. Unfortunately, the idea hit with only three minutes left on the microwave. It was a logistical impossibility, but I’m an idiot with ambition. Sliced onions, sliced red pepper, olive oil, high heat. By the time the sweet potato started shrieking the pan was… almost warm. It hadn’t even reached a heat high enough to burn off the olive oil, so sauteed veggies ended up being raw veggies soaked in olive oil. And THEN I covered it in half a jar of barbecue sauce, which I really need to stop doing because it actually makes the whole thing too edible. Maybe even good. Using that much sauce pushes every other ingredient into irrelevancy and the success of the dish becomes directly tied to the quality of the barbecue. And I splurge on barbecue.
I really shouldn’t, but the extra two dollars is somewhat justified by the inverse relationship between price and sodium. Step up a shelf and save nearly ten grams – a vital difference if you’re only getting two servings out of each jar. Superior flavor is a bonus, and I ride hard for the Horsetooth Hot Sauce Mango Habanero. Tangy, smoky, spicy, and somehow only five grams of sugar, which is a fraction of what you’ll find among the peasant brands. What I’m saying is, if you squint, this dish might not be actively unhealthy. Please don’t tell me otherwise.
Burned and Bland 