Baked sweet potatoes with chili beans

Everybody likes a good ol' baked potato. Garnish it how you will; you love it. Warm, comforting, but let's face it - not the healthiest. Sprouted Kitchen just happens to have a spin-off version that just might be better than the original. You be the judge. I'm already hooked.

Baked sweet potatoes with chili beans

As adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

4-6 small sweet potatoes
1 15-oz. can of pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon chili powder
1 heaping teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 28-oz. can San Marzano tomatoes (whole or crushed)

Toppings/garnishes:

Plain greek yogurt
Fresh cilantro
Sprouts
Red onion, diced
Avocado, diced
Freshly shredded Tillamook cheddar cheese
A few slices of freshly cooked bacon, broken up into little bits

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Pierce holes in sweet potatoes with a fork, wrap each one lightly in foil, place on middle rack in oven, and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until tender. Warm olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Cook onions and garlic until softened. Add spices and San Marzano tomatoes. If tomatoes are crushed, great, if whole, crush them to puree. Bring to a simmer and reduce for about 20 minutes. Add beans and cook another 5-10 minutes. Taste and season with additional salt and spices, if needed. Split open baked sweet potatoes, creating a cavern down the middle. Fill the cavern with chili beans and garnish with toppings, as desired. You've had chili before, I'm sure; you know the drill.

These baked potatoes are so good. The chili, in itself, is delicious. Then top it with so many wonderful colors, textures, and flavors, and it's just great. And the potatoes and chili save and reheat well also. This seems like it would be a wonderful meal for a loved one who is feeling low, or for an easy make-ahead, warm lunch. Okay, they're probably just good any time. Try them. Cheers!

Chipotle sweet potato, black bean, and guacamole tacos

If you've been reading here for long at all, you know that I love sweet potatoes. And Zack and I love fresh, homemade tacos.

As I've mentioned before, I've become a little interested in the meatless Monday movement. New studies are showing that going meatless one day per week has benefits for a healthier heart. This week, however, I decided to take the idea a step further and go meatless for the week. Mainly because we kind of overindulged last weekend (think burgers, gyros, pizza - not all at once though). Ha ha. And I'm not saying I'm about to become a vegetarian - I love meat. But this week needed to be healthy and wholesome; veggies and grains and spices were calling me. This taco recipe, that I found on a blog through Pinterest, was the perfect way to kick off the week.

Chipotle sweet potato, black bean, and guacamole tacos

As adapted from Naturally Ella.

Serves 4.

Ingredients for tacos:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 15-oz. can of black beans, rinsed and drained

2 chipotles in adobo sauce, roughly chopped

3 tablespoons adobo sauce

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Freshly ground black pepper

1 heaping tablespoon honey

Juice from 1 lime

8-10 6-inch tortillas, preferably corn or whole-wheat, or combination

Ingredients for guacamole:

2 avocados

1/2 medium onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 serrano pepper, diced

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Juice from 1 lime

2 small tomatoes, diced

Handful of fresh cilantro, plus additional for garnish

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add onions and cook until onions begin to soften, 3-4 minutes. Stir in sweet potatoes and continue to cook for another 3-4 minutes. Combine the chipotles, adobo sauce, crushed red pepper flakes, black pepper, honey, and lime juice in a small bowl. Pour into the skillet with the sweet potatoes and reduce heat to medium-low, stirring occasionally and cooking until sweet potatoes soften, 15-20 minutes. Stir in black beans towards the end of cooking to heat through. While sweet potatoes cook, pulse onions, garlic, serrano pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, black pepper, and lime juice in a food processor; pulse until combined but still a bit chunky. Scoop out insides of avocados, add to food processor, and blend until desired smoothness is reached. Fold in tomato and cilantro. Season with additional salt and pepper as needed. To serve, spread a spoonful of guacamole onto the middle of tortillas, sprinkle about 3 heaping tablespoons of sweet potato mixture onto guacamole, and top with fresh cilantro.

Zack and I have discovered that sweet potatoes are an amazing ingredient to use for tacos. They have incredible color and flavor, and you tend to forget they are replacing your meat of choice because they are so hearty and filling. The chipotles and adobo sauce add this amazing smokiness that I was not expecting. Plus, you can't go wrong with homemade guacamole. I added the crushed red pepper flakes and a bit more of the chile peppers than called for in both the taco mixture and guacamole because Zack and I like a bit of heat.

We saved the components of this recipe separately for better freshness for lunch the next day, and it did not disappoint. If you have not tried sweet potatoes in your tacos, you must. You will be surprised and delighted. They are perfection. And we all like it when the stars align to create a little perfection in our kitchens and cooking. Am I right, or am I right? Cheers.

Week Two: Lentil and Sweet Potato Stew, Pasta with Light Turkey Ragu, Tortilla Soup, Applesauce, and Pumpkin-Spice Rice Krispie Treats

We are cookin' over here! I don't really know how something as boring as "meal planning" could get me so excited about cooking. I don't know about you working folks out there, but sometimes making dinner isn't the first thing you really want to do after a long day at work. Let alone, making up lunches to take to work the next day after you do dishes from dinner, when you really just want to relax or maybe exercise or hangout with your husband.

Now, I've realized it's not the cooking that I dread doing after work. It's the stress of, "oh, shoot, I need to run to the store because I don't have that on hand" or "wow, I wish I would have realized that this recipe takes like 4 hours to make and we won't be eating until 9 o'clock tonight." That's the thing! If you set aside a little time over the weekend or on Monday to plan out the week and grocery shop, you save yourself so much stress. Plus, it gives you more opportunity to eat more healthily and less of an inclination to grab take-out for lunch. And the idea of being able to pull good menus to use that I have from the past sounds just great.

Lentil and Sweet-Potato Stew.

Alright. So, Lentil and Sweet-Potato Stew. This was really delicious. And again, a recipe I found on Whole Living, one of Martha Stewart's websites. I know, I know...I keep going back to it, but all the recipes are so good! And this stew was no exception. Mildly spicy, with a subtle curry flavor, and packed with vegetables including sweet potato (evidently), onion, carrot, celery, and green beans. I almost considered adding some sort of meat, but I figured that the sweet potato and lentils would make it hearty enough, and they did. This soup stands alone.

When it comes to my next recipe, I have a confession. I do not have a Pinterest account (yet), because if I did, I would spend way too much time browsing recipes, home decor, arts and crafts, and whatever else happened to strike my fancy. Therefore, I have resorted to browsing through recipes only and I am already addicted. Now you may find a wide range in terms of quality when it comes to recipes on Pinterest, but there are also many gems which I simply take a screen-shot of and save for later. He he.

Now that you all know about the values of Pinterest, we can talk about the Penne with Light Turkey Ragu. So simple, and very tasty. Ground turkey, leeks, oregano, basil, tomato...delicious. I love leek; such a great vegetable. The recipe calls for penne, but I just used the pasta I had on hand which happened to be a mix of whole-wheat and regular rotini.

Tortilla Soup with Black Beans.

My third dinner recipe this week was Tortilla Soup with Black Beans, another Whole Living find. This is so easy, but definitely more than satisfactory. I added some ground beef, which I had been saving in the freezer for a time like this, and I'm glad I did. My mind must have been elsewhere when I was making this, however, because I neglected to add spices until towards the end of cooking, and then I forgot to squeeze fresh lime over the soup before serving. Oh well. I think my version will be better tomorrow after marinating in the refrigerator all night, and we still have limes. Ha ha. But even so, it was really delicious and a great go-to weeknight soup. We crushed our tortilla chips over our individual bowls right before serving, so as to prevent tomorrow's leftovers from being full of soggy chips.

To top it all off, Tim and Amy visited us last weekend, and were so kind as to bring us a big bucket of farm-fresh (I believe, Jonathan...?) apples and a watermelon. They even brought us pumpkins they had grown, which was so cool because we were considering getting pumpkins the day before but didn't. So, what to do with a bucket of apples? First thing we thought of was applesauce. My mom makes some great applesauce. Actually, she made an amazing batch with some Gravenstein apples that Tim gave us last year. So I thought she would be the best person to seek applesauce-making advice from.

She uses an adapted version of Julia Child's recipe from The Way to Cook. Basically, wash, peel, and quarter apples (you can leave on peels or reserve some peels to put in the pot, then sieve out later (Julia says they give flavor and body to the sauce)). Place apples in a heavy-bottomed pot with fresh squeezed lemon juice, lemon zest, and a little cinnamon. Cover and set over low heat (this is key); the apples will slowly soften, rendering juices. Stir and mash frequently until tender, about 30-45 minutes. At this point, if using apple peel, you can push the sauce through a sieve, return to pot, and add some sugar and vanilla extract, cooking a little longer.

I, being an amateur, just kind of threw some peels in with my peeled apples, thinking I would just pull them out later. But they kind of got mashed up too. Oh well. We skipped the sieving and ended up with some delicious, chunky applesauce. The apples were not quite as tender as I would have liked (I think we man-handled the apples a little too much with aggressive mashing), but Zack thought it was perfect and our friends enjoyed it too. Oh, and we used brown sugar instead of granulated sugar.

And lastly, our dessert of the week was Pumpkin-Spice Rice Krispie Treats, another Pinterest find. We made these to take over to our friends' house on the evening of Halloween. So festive, so tasty. It's amazing what a little pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg will do for a traditional treat.

Pumpkin-Spice Rice Krispie Treats.

Well, that's all for Week Two. Cheers.