Sunday Night Summer Supper in Chatham, Massachusetts

Down here on the Cape, folks have been taking turns preparing meals, and last night, Meghan, our gelin (hars) prepared the most exquisite meal one could hope for!  Marinated chicken breasts broiled on the outdoor grill along with slices of sweet potato.  Salad?  Of course! Marash Boy's favorite grain quinoa (rinsed and cooked) mixed with finely chopped herbs, feta cheese, calamata olives, chick peas, ripe tomatoes, peeled cucumbers and a dressing (blended up in the blender) of basil, lemon,  red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, and green onions.  A salad to die for  . . . or rather, a salad to live for! 

Being the sous-chef for the evening, Marash Girl learned a trick that she will share with you today -- although ( if you watch the cooking shows which Marash Girl does not as she does not have a television set,) you may already be well aware of this short "cut".

Meghan bought the best (and only) sweet potatoes that she could find, but each potato was wrapped in thick plastic with the printed suggestion on the plastic that the buyer leave the sweet potatoes in their plastic coats for faster cooking in the microwave!  Can you imagine the marvelous flavor of a sweet potato infused with plastic?  Well, Marash Girl and Meghan didn't want to imagine it.  They tore off those thick plastic coats as quickly as they could (which was not very quickly) rinsed the potatoes, and tried to slice them.  Close to impossible with the dull knives in the summer house.  Vhat to do?  

Back to the microwave with the sweet potatoes (now shed of their plastic coats) for one minute only.  Yes, they did,  They put the sweet potatoes in the microwave oven for one minute and then tried to slice them into circles and voila!  Like magic, strong arms and dull knives could then work together to slice the sweet potatoes into circles.  Not easy, but do-able.  

N.B.  The microwave treatment pre-slicing works for slicing squashes as well, as long as the squashes have no plastic coat wrapped around them.