Recipe: Apple Almond Yam Cakes

Wednesday night I tried a recipe from my latest issue of Wegman's Menu Magazine: Apple Almond Yam Cakes.

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I peeled the sweet potatoes (approximately 18 ounces) and a jazz apple (not Granny Smith, as called for - it was in the fridge).

Hubby and I have been married for over 3 years now, and as of last Wednesday night, had yet to use one of our wedding gifts - the slicer/shredder attachment for our Kitchenaid mixer.

A couple minutes later, this is what the sweet potatoes, and apple looked like after going through the course shredder (onion hand chopped):

After adding eggs, flour, and a little sour cream, I formed the mixture into patties, probably about 4" wide.  This was messy. They were really goopy, so I added a little extra flour for some reason.  I'm not sure that it was necessary.

In fact, the flour is probably what made the patties a little crispier than I had intended.  They were good anyway though!

  

My mixture made about 11 of these; I was a little short on yams.  I had planned on making a half batch, but there was no point in wasting some extra yam and half an apple, so I used it all up.  We ate 2 each on Wednesday night, I froze the rest. I'm hoping they will heat up well in the oven.

Modifications: I used Wegmans Light Sour Cream instead of regular.  I didn't add any salt.

Before making the Apple Almond Yam Cakes, I went for a 4.34 mile run.  

As I had already decided not to run an official Turkey Trot the next morning, I sort of took it easy. I ran the intervals that I was supposed to run according to the 5k training plan I made up 3x(800 in 4:59, 400 jog) but paying more attention to my heart rate, I walked if necessary to lower my HR during the recovery periods.

I went out at 4:45, it was 45F.  I wore my Lululemon Run: Team Spirit crops and Run: Swiftly Tech L/S, as well as my Brisk Run headband.  I threw my Momentum Vest by The North Face on top.  I also brought along my blinking safety light as it was already nearly dark when I headed out.

Here was my heart rate graph:

And here were my splits:

Lap 1 was the warm up; 

Laps 2, 4, 6 were run at close to a 10:00 pace, 

Laps 3, 5, 7 were the recovery -- as you can tell by the paces (13:11, 14:00, 14:43) I walked a little bit to bring my HR back into the low to mid 130s.

Lap 8 was the cool down.

The last nubbin was a walking cool down to bring my HR into the 130s again before stopping the watch.

I am going to try to pay more attention to my heart rate in the next couple weeks before (*I think*) I will officially start training for my 3rd half marathon in early spring.