Loaded Sweet Potatoes

Pinch of Yum (great spot for healthy recipes) has a recipe for Healthy Mexican Sweet Potato Skins that gets pinned a lot as "loaded sweet potatoes."

It's not super quick for a weeknight, but it's not too complicated either. Skillet roast some corn, then mix with beans and set aside. Saute some onions. Mix the corn, beans and onions with a bit of cilantro, the flesh of baked sweet potatoes, and some cream cheese, sour cream, and chipotles. Put it back in the sweet potato skin, top with a little shredded cheese, and bake till warmed and melty.

I followed the recipe as written, except I put powdered chipotles in with the roasting corn, rather than adding chipotles in adobo later.

They came out looking pretty decent. (The one on the right has a cablanca goat cheese topping, because my littlest guy was still nursing with a cow's dairy allergy, so I had to avoid the cheddar).

It was a very delicious, hearty meal! The 3-year old loved it, the sweetness of the sweet potatoes is a great way to get veggies in kids. It takes a little more effort than some of the "easy weeknight" recipes, but I think it's worth it because it's a solid one-dish meal.

Verdict: Tasty and healthy, a great vegetarian meal.

Ziti with Mushrooms, Onions, and Goat Cheese

This vegetarian pasta recipe is from the venerable Food and Wine. Of course it looks beautiful when you have all the resources of a high-end lifestyle magazine:

The basic idea is to caramelize (sort of) onions, then add sliced portobellos. Stir in some goat cheese and chopped parsley, and there you have it.

The home cook's version isn't quite so lovely:

I only had penne on hand, so I went with those instead of ziti. The appearance was not incredibly appetizing, but the taste was delicious. Very yummy indeed. The mushrooms are meaty enough that it's a pretty satisfying meal.

Verdict: A keeper!

Roasted Grape, Goat Cheese and Honey Sweet Potatoes

 This recipe is originally from  How Sweet It Is, a blog with lovely, delicious-looking pictures and well-explained recipes.

This is one of the original pics:

I usually make sweet potatoes by microwaving, then adding butter and cinnamon sugar. Not terribly healthy, but pretty good. I thought this recipe might be a little something different.

I started by roasting the grapes,  350 degrees for 45 minutes. This was the result:

Carbonization! Someday, someone will be able to radiocarbon date these. OK, tried again, this time for 35 minutes. Success.

The recipe called for baking the sweet potatoes, but I microwaved them. After the grape debacle, my after-work dinner prep time was nearly up.

Followed the rest of the recipe as written, except that I didn't save out any goat cheese or honey for garnish - I just mixed it all in. Garnish is not a weeknight family thing, as far as I'm concerned. If they want garnish, they can take me out to dinner.

So, they came out looking edible, though not as GORGEOUS as the ones on the blog.

I know the pictures are ugly, but I want to show how it might look in your actual kitchen, not some magical place you can get to with an expensive digital SLR camera and food-staging expertise.

The taste, however, was just OK, the goat cheese added a nice tang. The texture was the big problem. It was like eating caulk. Maybe it was because I microwaved it, or maybe I stirred everything in too vigorously.

Verdict: This recipe is finicky at best. For the average home cook, I'd look for something else to change up your sweet potato routine.