Vietnamese Watercress and Beef Salad

We love, love, LOVE this dish! Mainly due to its simplicity and how quick it is to put together.  We’ve been living in the Caribbean for the past 1 1/2 years and to our dismay, watercress does not exist here… so every time we’re back home in California, we go crazy with the watercress.  One thing I should mention is that this is “older” watercress, not the baby or micro watercress that you normally get at Whole Foods, but thicker-stalked watercress. This is important because they’ll hold up to the beef much better.  We usually get them at the Asian grocery stores because they are so cheap and fresh.

This dish is typically served with Jasmine rice and a Vietnamese dipping sauce (nuoc cham), but can easily be eaten by itself as a hearty salad.

Okinawan Sweet Potato and Haupia Pie

So I ran across some sweet purple potatoes (Okinawan Sweet Potatoes) at a Korean supermarket a couple weeks back and started what I do best – hoarding. I grabbed an armful of these purple gems and smiled to myself thinking about eating fresh baked sweet potatoes… just like my mom makes them. Of course, after eating sweet potatoes for a few days in a row, D and I were completely sick of them so now i have extra potatoes. I found this interesting recipe on the web and decided to try it since it sounded like a nice, fresh and not overly-sweet dessert…despite the sweet potato part.