Sweet Potatoes with Mushroom Gravy

As you may have read before, Noel’s sweet potato harvest produced almost 125 pounds of edible roots.  He planted the same number of plants (18) that he has for the last several years but we had such significant rainfall throughout 2016 that the potatoes grew bigger, therefore increased our total poundage.

With that being said . . . we have a lot of sweet potato eating to do.  Since sweet potatoes are, well . . . sweet, I like to counter balance them with something savory.  This time I made a mushroom gravy. Here’s a link to a previous post on vegetarian gravy methods.   I also add other veggies to the gravy, such as baby bok choy or chopped collards.

Bake your scrubbed and fork pierced potatoes at 400 degrees until soft all the way through. Check with a fork or knife. Baking time depends on the size of the potato. Larger ones take about an hour. I start checking after one hour and at fifteen minute intervals for the big ones.  They can take an hour and a half or more.

Mushroom Gravy

Mushroom Gravy Ingredients:

2 T. unbleached flour

2 T. nutritional yeast

Dry roast/toast the flour and nutritional yeast  in a preheated (to medium) cast iron frying pan stirring constantly for 5 minutes.  Set aside.

2 T. olive oil

1 shallot, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. dried thyme or 1 tsp. fresh if you have it

2 cups sliced button or cremini mushrooms

2 oz. dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked and chopped or use fresh (I had 8 dried mushrooms)

1 T. tamari

1 T. liquid aminos

2 cups water (I used the shiitake soaking liquid plus enough water to make 2 cups)

Alternatively, use 2 cups vegetable broth and skip the tamari and liquid aminos.

Sauté shallots and garlic in olive oil for 2-3 minutes.  Add mushrooms and thyme and cook for another 5-10 minutes.  Blend the 2 cups liquid with the tamari, liquid aminos and  flour nutritional yeast mixture.  Pour over mushroom sauté and cook until bubbly and thickened.

Serve your gravy over a baked sweet potato and dig in!