February is National Sweet Potato Month. Yet how many of us only think of sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner?

We enjoy them year-round, baked or sliced and steamed in the microwave for a tasty side or snack. But there’s a lot more to enjoying sweet potatoes.

Join Alton Brown as he demonstrates Chipotle Sweet Potatoes, a couldn’t-be-easier recipe that mashes diced, steamed sweet potatoes with canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (a piquant sauce made with tomato paste, garlic, paprika and other spices, vinegar, and salt).

Steaming maintains the vitamins and flavor nuances of the sweet potatoes, and chipotle adds smoky flavor and heat.

Food Fact: Sweet potatoes are not yams, just as buffalo is not bison. Check out the difference.

How many types of potatoes have you had? Check out our Potato Glossary.

In fact, food historians agree that the origin of pizza was not Italy, but Greece.

While flatbread was topped with other foods since it was first grilled on a hot rock in prehistoric times, ancient Greeks turned the process into an art. They topped a round flatbread (plankuntos) with stew, thick broth, meat, vegetables and/or fruit.

The result was a thrifty, convenient and tasty meal for the working man and his family, requiring no additional plates or utensils. (Injera, the Ethiopian flatbread, is still used for this purpose and is a mainstay of Ethiopian cuisine. More on the history of pizza).

Make a Grilled Chicken Caesar Pizza; then see how many different ways you can combine proteins and veggies on a pizza.

Look to your favorite sandwich and salad combinations. Instead of conventional sandwich bread, use the ingredients to top a pizza. You can use tomato sauce or barbecue sauce as a base, or any other sauce topping. We’ve used wasabi mayonnaise, blue cheese dressing and thousand island dressing with canned tuna, hard-cooked eggs and roast meat leftovers. Try a chef salad or spinach salad pizza.

Add romaine or other lettuce and some cherry tomatoes, and you’ve got a pizza salad-and-sandwich.

Pizza Dough Tips

 
Find more of our favorite pizza recipes.
  

Try striped bass for a change. Photo courtesy
EuroUSA.

What about the striped bass*, a coastal water denizen that happens to be the state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island and South Carolina, and the state saltwater fish of New Hampshire, New York and Virginia?

Native to the coasts of eastern North America, the bass live as far north as the St. Lawrence River in Canada to the St. Johns River in northern Florida. They are also found throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Once fished to dangerously low levels, the population has recovered and is now found in record numbers. Right now, an abundance of wild striped bass from Maryland and Virginia are in markets. Plentitude means lower prices, so they’re a great buy.

*Also called Atlantic striped bass, linesiders, rockfish and stripers, among other names.

Fish Facts
Though wild striped bass can grow to six feet in length (and may live up to 30 years!), what’s in the market are fillets cut from smaller, three-to-five-pound whole fish.

Striped bass are also farmed in a hybrid of striped bass and white bass. But there’s no need to look for farmed fish when the real deal is waiting for you. (See a discussion of the difference between wild and farmed fish.)

Thanks to Euro USA Fresh Seafood for this ultra-easy recipe. Pair it with a sauvignon blanc or a Chablis.
SEARED WILD STRIPED BASS RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. Take the fish out of the refrigerator 10 to 15 minutes before preparing.

2. Pat the skin dry with a paper towel and season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper.

3. Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over high heat.

4. Coat the bottom of another slightly smaller sauté pan with olive oil (you can use a less expensive oil here—it’s just to keep the pan from burning). Gently place fish fillets skin side down in the larger sauté pan and place the smaller sauté pan directly on top of the fish. This technique creates a lovely crispy fish skin by gently pressing the skin of the bass onto the bottom of the sauté pan.

5. After a couple of minutes, remove the top sauté pan to allow steam to escape and the skin to become very crispy.

6. As fish cooks, it turns from translucent to opaque. Cook the fish two-thirds of the way on the skin side and flip it over for the last third of the cooking time. The rule for fish is about 7 to 8 minutes per inch of thickness, a little less if you like your fish more on the rare side (as we do!).
 
Serve the bass with your favorite vegetables. We followed the photo and went Asian-style, with steamed snow peas, edamame and water chestnuts tossed with a bit of olive oil and yuzu juice. Include a side of whole grain (barley, brown rice, quinoa or whole wheat pasta tossed in olive oil) and a salad, and you’ve got a delicious, healthful dinner.