How sweet this comfort food is -- baked, mashed or boiled

I sliced a large sweet potato, boiled the disks until they were tender and added them to a 10-inch whole-egg and egg-white frittata with chopped scallions and garlic; grated cheese and a little low-fat milk. A few slices of reduced-fat Swiss cheese went on top of the potatoes, as did black pepper and no-salt seasoning.

Editor's note: Costco Wholesale sells many foods in packages easily consumed by a family of four, but sweet potatoes come in 10-pound bags. Here are a few ways to use them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At Costco Wholesale, you can buy 1 pound of organic salad mix, 2 pounds of tomatoes or three large hothouse cucumbers, all easily consumed by a family of four.

But sweet potatoes come in 10-pound bags ($8.49), meaning you'll have to get busy, if you want to use them all before they spoil.

Several years ago, my trainer at the gym suggested I go on a no-bread, no-pizza diet to lose weight, but added I could eat my fill of sweet potatoes.

I'm still on that diet and I still love sweet potatoes -- mashed with extra-virgin olive oil, sliced and boiled for use in frittatas or simply baked until the sugar oozes out of where you vent the skin with a fork.

At ShopRite in Paramus, 3-pound of bags of smaller sweet potatoes, washed and sized, are $2.99.

But the store also sells starchier yams, so make sure you get sweet potatoes.

If you Google the nutritional value of sweet potatoes v. yams, you will find contradictory entries.

A post on The Globe and Mail newspaper Web site says sweet potatoes have fewer calories and far more of an antioxidant called beta-carotene. 

"Sweet potatoes also have a lower glycemic index number than yams, meaning their carbohydrate is released more slowly into the bloodstream."

See: Which one's healthier?

I start the frittata on the stove and finish it under the broiler, above.

A filling breakfast of sweet-potato frittata and baked sweet potato, both accented with Valentina Mexican Hot Sauce (Black Label), which is available at Hackensack Market on Passaic Street.

I boil sweet potatoes with the skin and whole peeled garlic cloves in a loosely covered pot until tender, about 45 minutes; drain them, return them to the pot and add extra-virgin olive oil and almost anything I have in my spice cabinet -- black pepper, red-pepper flakes, sea salt, curry powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and more -- before mashing them. At breakfast, mashed sweet potatoes are great with eggs, omelets and frittatas. 

Fresh Atlantic cod, long-line caught in Iceland, is only $7.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack. The skinless-and-boneless fillets, cut into serving pieces, poach in only 7 minutes in hot Roasted Salsa Verde from Whole Foods Market with Costco's organic diced tomatoes and fresh lime juice. At dinner tonight, the perfect side dish was mashed sweet potatoes, above.

Foods that help you lose weight

Cabbage and salted cod fish over Korean brown rice with beans.

Organic whole-wheat pasta in a sweet pepper-tomato sauce.

A takeout dinner salad with smoked wild salmon added at home.

Hot cereal with dried fruit and pine nuts. Add low-fat milk, banana or other fruit.

Baked cod fillet with a coating of cornmeal and black pepper.

Ackee and salt fish with boiled green banana -- hold the Middle Eastern pocket bread I'd stuff with this Jamaican national dish, especially popular at breakfast.

Canned fish salad -- tuna, pink salmon, sardines -- with diced celery and apple, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and ground cumin. Best eaten over salad mix, not between bread.

Editor's note: Here is how I've lost more than 40 pounds and kept it off. Today, I also discuss China 46 in Ridgefield and re-heating food in plastic containers.

Fish, fish and more fish -- preferably wild caught -- whether fresh, salted or canned. 

No bread, no pizza. No cake or ice cream -- ever. No butter or heavy cream.

Fruit and cheese for dessert, and unsalted almonds roasted at home for a snack or you could roll up reduced-fat cheese and smoked wild salmon with a bit of mustard.

Lots of organic salad mix, fruits and vegetables -- at every meal, not just lunch or dinner. Kimchi and olives as sides. 

Dinner leftovers for breakfast, especially when you can substitute filling brown rice or sweet potatoes for bread.

Fermented cabbage kimchi from Arirang Kimchi in Englewood.

 


I had already stopped eating meat and poultry, and lost a few of my 228 pounds, when trainer Nick Manzo at my old gym suggested I could really lose weight by giving up bread and pizza.

About 2 years later, I am happy and contented at under 185 pounds.

I went from conventional pasta and white rice to whole-wheat spaghetti, brown rice and Korean 7 Grains -- a mixture of brown rices and beans.

I stoped eating white potatoes, but continue eating sweet potatoes, which I prefer bolied and mashed with extra-virgin olive oil and seasoning.

I try to go to the gym three days a week, and walk, climb stairs and take public transportation.

China 46

Last Saturday, I drove past the wreckage of the old building that housed China 46, but the sign remained standing.

The restaurant, on Route 46 in Ridgefield, was best known for its delicate soup dumplings and other Shanghai-style dishes.

For many years, the old truck-stop diner was home to Phoenix Garden Too -- a branch of a Chinatown restaurant -- before China 46 opened there.

China 46 closed in 2007, according to Internet chatter.

On the same side of Route 46, but closer to the New Jersey Turnpike, the sign of Gasho of Japan remains standing months after the Ridgefield Park restaurant building was torn down. 
  

Plastic containers on the shelf of a 99 cents store in Bergenfield.

Reheat on glass

Most of the plastic storage containers I saw at a Bergenfield store were marked "Microwavable" or "Microwave safe."

But you're best bet is to plate the food that was stored in the container before reheating it to minimize potential chemical transfer from the plastic.

For the same reason, cover food you are microwaving with a paper towel, not plastic wrap, which contains chemicals to make it flexible.