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.

Double Recipe Test: Creamy Avocado Pasta, and Honey Mustard Greek Yogurt Dressing

I was slightly skeptical of this recipe for creamy avocado pasta from the health and lifestyle site Greatist. It just seemed a little TOO easy, and the picture wasn't totally appetizing. But avocados are a favorite around here, so I gave it a try.

It didn't seem like a full dinner on its own, so I added a substantial salad with this honey mustard Greek yogurt dressing/sauce from The Hungry Runner blog. I pinned this image:

The pasta recipe is incredibly easy. Just toss some avocado, basil, lemon, garlic, olive oil, and salt in the blender or food processor. Process till smooth, and toss with cooked pasta.

I followed the recipe as written, and used Barilla Plus multi-grain pasta. This is how the sauce looked.

The dressing is also a snap. Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, Greek yogurt and honey.

Dinner came together in about 15-20 minutes!

It was delicious, too. The pasta is AMAZING. This is definitely my new go-to. Creamy, lemony, and fantastic. My husband actually couldn't even identify the avocado flavor. It tastes like a rich pesto. Love it.

The dressing was pretty good too, though it definitely had that Greek yogurt taste. I might try regular plain yogurt next time, or half and half regular yogurt and mayo. It was still better than bottled dressings, and a nice change from standard vinaigrette french dressing.

Altogether, this was a great success - popular with even the littlest eaters.

Verdict: A perfect healthy, quick weeknight dinner.

Ratatouille

I was a little hesitant to make this ratatouille recipe from The Comfort of Cooking. Veggie dishes for dinner sometimes get an "I'm still hungry!" around here. Also, watery veggies like eggplant and zucchini can make for an insipid dish if they're not cooked right. But I couldn't resist the beautiful pic.

I couldn't find my 9 x 13 baking dish, so I used a dutch oven. Other than that, I followed the recipe. It's super easy, you basically just layer thinly-sliced veggies in a tomato sauce and bake.

Before cooking, it looked like this:

Not quite as gorgeous as the blog. Of course. After cooking, and served with whole wheat pearl couscous:

At this point I was pretty worried that it might just be bland veggie mush.

Roasty tomatoes and herbs to the rescue! It was very tasty. The thyme, oregano, and red pepper really added flavor, and the tomatoes took on a nice, acidic, roasted taste. The guys loved it, and didn't seem to miss the meat.

Verdict: Delicious, and very easy! This one is going into rotation, for sure. It could also be a nice meal for company if you need a vegan/vegetarian option.

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 Cabbage

The pin for this roasted cabbage recipe from Martha Stewart came with the standard fawning caption "So addicting! Like crack! OMG!" or whatever. *eyeroll*

Like a sucker, I fell for it. Here's an original image:

I roasted the cabbage at 400 degrees, but by the recommended 40 minutes, mine looked like this:

And even overdone like that, the center part was still hard and a tad undercooked. Maybe a lower temp would work better? But you'd have to get it just right to still get the browning effect.

As for the flavor, I used salt, pepper, and cracked fennel seeds for seasoning, and I loved it. I thought they were delicious.

However, my husband and almost-3-year-old (both of whom will generally eat ANYTHING) each took one bite and pushed the rest to the side of the plate.

If you're keeping score at home, that's two of three non-picky eaters who thought this tasted bland, greasy, and just blah.

Verdict: Not a crowd-pleaser. 

Zucchini and Carrots "The Best Way"

I'm always looking for flexible recipes - I hate repeat dinners, so I like to find things where you can vary the seasoning and come up with something different.

This zucchini and carrot recipe from Voracious Vander has been pinned a bunch. Here's a pic from the original recipe:

I like that you can use different spices to complement your menu.

The recipe says to roast at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, or "until browned". The first time I made this, after 25 minutes the veggies were well-cooked but not browning. They were OK, but didn't really taste "roasted".

A couple weeks later, I found myself with zucchini and carrots on hand. I don't usually repeat failed recipes, but I thought this had potential.

I tried again, this time I upped the oven temp to 475 degrees. That seemed to do the trick. I also chopped the carrots smaller than the zucchini because they seemed to brown more slowly. Here's what mine looked like:

I used Herbes de Provence, salt, and pepper. They were really delicious. Highly popular with parents and toddler alike.

 I served them with broiled steaks from our locally-grown-and-butchered cow, and whole wheat pearl couscous with lemon and parsley.  (Yep, I didn't even wipe the plate before I took the pic. Sorry to those readers who have a compulsive streak)

Verdict: Success!

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.