Recipe ideas come to me at odd moments, usually when I’m not even thinking about food (which, if I’m being honest, isn’t all that often). The idea for this one came to me on an airplane in the middle of reading a novel. Pretty random considering the story took place in 1940 Nazi Germany. Anyway, it occurred to me I’d never seen or heard of a recipe for twice baked SWEET potatoes, only russet. I’ve since done some searching and found many recipes (can’t believe I’d never seen any before) but most of them have more fat than a cheeseburger, with ingredients that just didn’t sound appealing to me (I will never understand adding brown sugar to sweet potatoes, especially when consuming them as an entree not a dessert. Hello!?! They’re already sweet!).
This recipe has the right combination of sweet, savory, tangy, spicy and salty. Honestly, it turned out better than I could have hoped. I was so excited for leftovers today. It’s a more time consuming meal since baking of the potatoes is required before anything else, but it’s not difficult by any means; just takes some planning ahead. Note: I prefer the lighter colored sweet potatoes as opposed to orange yams. I will be making this again VERY soon!
I came home from a 2-hour appointment that took place during the time I would normally eat lunch. It was 2:30, I was grumpy and nearly passing out from hunger (ok, so I’m exaggerating a tad – but you get the picture. I was HUNGRY!). I needed to put something together fast! Anyone who knows me well, knows I do NOT skip meals. If and when I do, it’s not pretty. Sure, I could have shoved my fist in the peanut butter jar (this may, or may not have happened previously), but I wanted to make a good, nutrient dense, low-fat choice.
I pulled mashed yams out of the freezer – sold by Trader Joe’s. The bag contains frozen “pucks” of cooked sweet potatoes and you simply reheat as little or as many as you need. Genius. Then, I grabbed the frozen chopped kale, also a Trader Joe’s item. And lastly, thank you Trader Joe’s – the frozen brown rice. I threw all these items with some water in a pan and had lunch in 5 minutes. I seasoned it with some hot sauce, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, lemon juice, sea salt and pepper. I was ready to eat in literally 5 minutes. Not only was it quick, and healthy with no fat, it was GOOD! Since I was basically delirious from hunger while preparing it, I didn’t measure or really even pay attention to amounts used. I will do my best to recount the details in the recipe here, so that you too can have a super quick and healthy meal next time you’re in starvation mode. It would be difficult to screw this dish up so play with it and enjoy!
