Sweet Potato Spaghetti

Grain free spaghetti that takes less than 5 minutes to make? Ummmm, yes please!! If you are a sweet potato fan and a noodle fan, than I don’t see why you wouldn’t love this! I’ve been making zucchini noodles for years with my spiralizer. And I truly adore them. I don’t see why I would ever replace them as they are my favorite noodle alternative. But these sweet potato noodles are so fun and much more kid friendly! Ingredients:

• 2 large sweet potatoes (or as many as you want really)
• water
• ice cubes

Steps:

• In a pot bring enough water to a boil where you would be able to submerge your sweet potato pasta with
• in the meantime, following the instructions of your spiralizer, “noodelize” (that is too a word!) your sweet potatos
• once the water is boiling put your “pasta” in, and set your timer for 3 minutes
• really pay close attention as your noodles could quickly turn to mush if you leave them in the booing water too long. Taste them and take them out when they are still a little crunchy, but barely.
• drain when they are to your liking and stick them in a bowl filled with water and ice in order to stop the cooking. Let cool for a couple minutes before draining again.
• serve how ever you feel like!

For this time around I had made miso soup and the kids really wanted noodles to go with it. So I served it these. But of course just a basic tomato or pesto sauce would work great too 🙂

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Chocolate Dip

I did it again. Chocolate. You sweet sweet temptress. I just cannot seem to escape you. I had leftover baked sweet potatoes. I knew I wanted to make something sweet with them. I put a bunch of stuff in my food processor and what came out was a dense, sweet, chocolatey mixture. This makes for such a fun snack! Delicious on it’s own, but even better when used as a dip. With anything really. I chose apples for todays snack. The kids loved it! Nutritious, delicious, filling. A winner in my book.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups baked sweet potato
• 1/3 cup raw cacao powder
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
• 1/2 avocado
• 1/4 cup milk (I used coconut)
• dash of salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup

Steps:

• put everything in food processor and blend until smooth
• serve with any dippable food (that is SO a word, spellcheck)

Sweet potato Chocolate Muffins

I’ve been on a muffin mission lately. I find it to be such a convenient food to have around with kids. I try and make my muffins nutritious so that they are not just a filler food and so I feel good about the fact that the kids want to eat 3 or 4 at once (I always make mini muffins now). I had sweet potato left over from dinner last night, which makes a perfect base for a muffin recipe. I have made these before, but have altered the recipe a bit. And since I have a hard time following recipes in general, I will probably alter it again next time I make these 🙂 These muffins are a bit dense because of the sweet potato and the dates, but I find that to be a good thing so you can get full after only eating a couple. In my opinion, that’s what nutritious foods do: the high quality of nutrients make you feel full faster and longer than something less nutritious like pretzels, crackers or chips. I also intentionally never make my muffins overly sweet. If you like things super sweet, I recommend you add extra maple syrup.

As usual I made a big batch and will freeze a couple bags in order to have some handy for when we need a quick snack or for school lunch.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour ( I used spelt and buckwheat)
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• dash of salt
• 1 cup mashed sweet potato
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 2 TBS ground flax seeds (or 2 eggs) (I grind my flax seeds in the coffee grinder, a blender can work too)
• 1 cup almond milk
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup pitted medjool dates
• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil

Steps:

• preheat oven to 375 F
• mix first 5 ingredients in a large bowl
• in a food processor mix all the other ingredients, minus the sweet potato
• add sweet potato at the end and pulse a few times to mix it in
• grease your muffin tins
• fill them up and bake for 10 minutes for mini muffins, probably about 20 minutes for larger muffins
• this recipe made 48 mini muffins

Sweet Potato Chili

This weekend we are going camping with about 20 other families from my daughter’s school. One night we will be doing a potluck. I love potlucks. I love getting to try a bunch of different dishes and always tasting something new. With that said, while camping, people tend to take the easy route and buy pre packaged foods and convenience foods, not to mention all the meat and white bread. I want to make sure my family and I get a good amount of veggies in.

That’s why I am bringing one of my all-time-favorite-large-group-feeding-dishes: vegetarian chili. This chili is pretty easy to make and will save for several days in the fridge, and freezes great. This was one of the dishes I made a huge batch of when I was pregnant and was so happy to find in my freezer once my son was born. And because of the amount of veggies I use, this is packed with nutrition.

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 large celery stalks
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1 large sweet potato, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• zest and juice of 1 lime
• 2 cups tomato sauce, plus 2 chopped tomatoes, OR 1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes
• 4 cups of pre cooked black beans, OR 4 cans (15 oz each) of organic black beans, rinsed
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 jalapeño chile pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 TBS cumin
• 1 TBS chili powder
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Steps

• Warm up the oil in a large pot over medium heat and add the onion, belle pepper, garlic, celery and salt. Cook bout 4 minutes.
• Add the sweet potato and lime zest, cook 10 to 15 minutes while stirring occasionally.
• Add the rest of the ingredients, minus the cilantro, cover and cook about another 10 minutes.
• Serve as is, or over brown rice or your favorite grain. I love having mine with fresh cilantro, a good sharp cheddar and some fresh avocado.

I doubled this recipe for this weekend.

Do you have a chili recipe you love? Please share! I really love chili 🙂