Elmo's Sweet Potato Biscuits/Being Elmo

Every soup needs a bread! And I had a lot of sweet potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of the sweet potatoes covered in butter and brown sugar, so once I came across the recipe for these biscuits, I knew I had to make them. I also appreciated that there was no butter; just a bit of olive oil as the fat. As much as I love the pockets of butter in my baked goods, I would rather not eat that every day. Also, the were super easy, and come from a Sesame Street cookbook. I got the original recipe from here - unfortunately I do not own said cookbook.

The biscuits were DELICIOUS with the everything-soup I made last week. Lunchtime was very exciting. They turned out to be a cross between a biscuit and cornbread, but that worked for me because cornbread is awesome.

Eat them with some SOUP

Recipe: Elmo's Sweet Potato Biscuits

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, peeled and mashed

1 cup white flour

1 cup wheat flour

1/4 cup of cornmeal

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp honey

Preheat the oven to 425. Mix the flours, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Separately combine the egg, oil, milk, honey and potato. Once these are combined, slowly stir into the dry ingredients. It should be a big sticky orange blob.

Press out the dough into a big square on a floured countertop. Cut the big square into 12 little ones. Place on baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. The original recipe says until golden brown, but mine never really got that way, so just until they are cooked through.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Peel cook and mash sweet potato. I was lazy and did it in the microwave.

Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl. I probably should have used a bigger one.

Combine wet ingredients in a big bowl. This is a good size.

Slowly add dry ingredients to wet...

...until just combined. Don't over-mix!

Press onto a floured surface into a square.

Cut into 12 biscuits and put them on a pan.

Bake at 425 for about 12 minutes. We ate a bunch before I took the picture. Whoops! They are really good broken up into soup. 

Movie Review: Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

11/21/2012: UPDATE
I'm leaving the entry as-is, but I guess you should read the news about this guy before watching the movie/forming any sort of opinion about him. I had really bad timing with this review. Whoops.

I want to say something snarky, but this movie was just too darn cute.

Talk about lightening up the mood! This one is definitely family friendly, although I don't know how many children will sit through a documentary. If your kid loves documentaries, I will babysit anytime just to hang out - your kid is awesome.

Being Elmo describes the rise of the career of the guy with his hand in Elmo's rear - Kevin Clash. Kevin, much like his Sesame Street character, is probably one of the most likable guys I have ever seen. Ever since he was 10 years old and saw his first Muppet on the television, Kevin had a passion for puppets. After years of hard work and perfecting his craft, his dedication paid off and he was able to meet his idol, Jim Henson. In the film, we follow his rise to the top of the puppet world with Elmo, and watch him ultimately become a writer, producer and director of Sesame Street. 

The movie opens your eyes to just how much work and skill it takes to be a puppeteer. Like I said, Kevin was obsessed with the art since he was a child, and it was still not an easy ride to get to the place he is in today. He has put so much into his puppeteering and has had so much influence in pop culture, yet he can walk down the street unrecognized. You get the sense while watching the movie that he is really OK with that. The way he talks about how nervous he was about meeting Jim Henson, or how detailed he had to be when making his puppets show that Kevin is not doing this for the money or the celebrity - he is doing it because that's who he is. Kevin is Elmo. Watch this movie after you get sad and weird watching Shame. Trailer posted below.