Sweet Potato Salad with Miso

Our St. Patrick's Day Feast!

I am posting a photo of friends. We all came together on St.Patrick's Day. I made my first (and successful..yipee!) corned beef and cabbage. Of course the most wonderful part was spending time with friends. I consider myself very, very lucky in the friends department.

Today I made this salad with sweet potatoes. You could also make it with butternut squash or cauliflower instead of sweet potato.  I have increased our miso intake with the possibility of radiation from  Japan blowing over the pacific. I really love Japan. One of my most favorite places really. All the dishes I have made these last two weeks with miso have been a celebration for my love of Japan. I thought to post a new recipe today so we can celebrate Japan together. I choose to eat my miso raw (never boil or bake it) to keep all its enzyme goodness intact. It contains dipicolinic acid which has been theorized to detox heavy metals and some radioactive elements out of the body. I personally love it like a cup of tea with a squeeze of fresh lemon, or mixed in a bowl of beans or mixed with cultured butter and spread on a cracker.
So, get your miso on. And, if you want to get technical about it, try for 2 tablespoons a day, which is how much has been theorized one needs to get all the wonderful benefits. I searched high and low for all the goodies about miso. This was my favorite: History Of Miso from Soy Info Center.

I had to share this poem. It was in my email box this morning from my friend Christi. Have you been to her blog yet? http://www.christimider.com. I continually go to her blog for inspiration, and as you know I have required a bit more of that lately. She has this amazing ability to post something that is exactly what I need to hear. She is a very gifted healer.
Well, here is the poem...
below that I am posting the recipe.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
—Naomi Shihab Nye


Sweet Potato Salad with Miso
makes 2 big or 3 small servings

1 large roasted yam cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes to make 1 1/2 cups worth
2 tbls. toasted sesame seeds
2 tsp umeboshi vinegar
2 tbls toasted sesame oil
1 tbls fresh squeezed orange juice
pinch salt
1 tbls miso
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1 tbls extra virgin olive oil

Roast yam on a cookie sheet in the oven. 375 degrees until knife tender (about 50 min). Remove the skin from the yam after baking. Let cool to room temperature then cut into cubes. Try to handle the cubes as little as possible to keep them intact.
In a bowl, mix umeboshi vinegar, toasted sesame seed oil and miso. Whisk with a fork and pour over the yams. Then add 1 tbls of sesame seeds. With your clean hands, gently mix. 

Slice cabbage very thinly (any type you like) and coarsely chop it. Put in a bowl and set aside. Add olive oil, fresh orange juice, pinch salt, apple cider vinegar and 1 tbls sesame seeds. Toss well.

To plate divide cabbage salad into two or three plates and gently top with sweet potato mixture.