Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Kale with Mixed Miso Sauce (Waterless); Quinoa with Pomegranate; Corn off the Cob (No Added Fat)

We are a bit low on groceries and I didn't have much time to come up with dinner, but we did have Japanese and white sweet potatoes (both are white inside; the Japanese has purple skin and the white has tan skin). I thought it would be good to make a waterless (put vegetables in a high quality Saladmaster pan with no added water or oil, and cook on low heat for 20m or more) main course.

My wife had gone to a potluck lunch yesterday and had made a quinoa with pomegranate salad; I also served the leftover. Finally, I roasted two cobs of corn over my gas range's flame and served the stripped kernels with lime juice and a bit of freshly ground Himalayan pink salt. Here is what I did for the main course. (Incidentally, yesterday I put the main Thanksgiving menu together - here is the tentative menu for Thanksgiving and the one for our pre-Thanksgiving.)

Ingredients

• 3/4 medium onion cut into 3/8" half moons (approx. 1 cup)
• 4 kale leaves, stems excepted, roughly hand torn into approximately 1/2" squares
• 2 sweet potatoes, cut into 3/4" cubes
• Carrot cut into 3/8" slices and then larger diameter portions quartered
• 2t miso (I used 1t red miso and 1t chickpea miso)
• 1/2 tangerine (ideally without seeds, and I tried to tease them out)
• 3/4 t black sesame seed
• 1/4 t ground cumin
• 1/4 medium tomato
• 1/8 onion
• 1t ginger

Process

1. I put, in order, the onion, kale, sweet potato, and carrot, into my large Saladmaster stock pot (the onion was at the bottom to keep the denser potato off the bottom and make the already easy cleanup even easier), covered, and brought to heat over medium high.
2. Within a few minutes, the steam escape valve started jiggling lightly. I then reduced the heat to low till there was no more rattling and cooked for at least 20 minutes undisturbed.
3. In the meantime, I put all the remaining ingredients (in practice, I left out the healthful ginger as my daughter doesn't, unfortunately, like ginger - I served the sauce on her course, and then added the ginger for the sauce for the adults) in my blender. I blended on high a few seconds till homogenized.
4. When I was ready to serve, I mixed the sauce into the vegetables.

Results

I thought that the meal came out quite well, even better than I had anticipated. The waterless cooking made the sweet potatoes particularly tasty.

Ideas for the future

Normally, some garlic in the sauce would have been good, but my Dad doesn't eat garlic. A little bit of jalapeno or smoked poblano in the corn would have been nice, too.