Spinach, oat and sweet potato salad

Spinach, oat and sweet potato salad

Serves 2 as a main meal, or 4 as a side or light meal

First make the salad;

2 tomato, chopped 

1/2 onion, chopped

1/3 cup whole oats

2 TBSP coconut oil, melted over low heat or olive oil

1 cups packed spinach, thinly sliced and stems discarded (or saved for soup stock!)

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

Combine all tomato, onion and oats in a bowl and toss to combine.  Add coconut oil and spinach and mix well.  

Heat a frying pan over medium heat, add raw sunflower seeds and with a wooden spoon, stir constantly for 5 minutes or until sunflower seeds are turning brown and smell nutty.  Add toasted sunflower seeds to the bowl and mix well.

Feel free to change it up and mix in your favorite dressing, sauce or liquid.

For the potatoes;

1/2 a yam/sweet potato, chopped into bite size pieces, about 1/2 inch cubes

1/2 tsp coconut oil

sea salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Melt coconut over low heat and toss with potatoes until coated.  Arrange on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Let cook 15-20 minutes or so until outside is browning and middle is done.  Toss with the rest of the salad.

Creamy Sweet Potato Oatmeal

Creamy Sweet Potato Oatmeal

Serves 2-4

2 cups almond milk

1/2 cup water (or more almond milk if you have it)

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups whole oats

1/2 sweet potato, grated

4 dried apricots, chopped (optional)

sugar to taste

Heat almond milk over medium high heat 3 minutes, stirring and watching closely.  Almond milk will boil over really fast and is a total mess to clean up, not to mention a waste of some hard earned fresh almond milk.  Stir in oatmeal, sweet potato, apricots and salt.  If the mixture seems dry, add the water or more almond milk.  You want the oatmeal to be able to move around freely in the liquid when you stir it, but not too wet so it won't absorb it.  Cook over medium high heat for a couple minutes, stirring constantly.  Bring heat down to very low and cover the pot.  Let it sit 10 minutes or until oatmeal is done and sweet potato is tender.  Cover the top with a layer of natural vegan sugar and mix it in, let it heat 2 minutes and serve hot, or if you have time to plan ahead, let it cool one hour and serve cold for the best tasting option (or at least, I think it is).  Enjoy :)

Baked sweet potato fries

Slice some sweet potatoes (or yams, there is a difference but either will work great) into fries or thin chunks like I did, coat with melted coconut oil, sunflower oil or olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes until done.  You can also fry these in a frying pan.

Slice some yellow and green bell peppers, along with onion, sprinkle a little garlic powder, salt and pepper and fry in coconut oil for a couple minutes until tender.

Simple but delicious!

Sweet potatoes for breakfast

Usually, I stick to fruit and raw veggies until dinner time then I'll cook one meal, but when my sister made this for breakfast, I couldn't resist.  Sweet potatoes, portabella mushrooms, onions and tomato.

Fry the sweet potatoes in a little sunflower or olive oil until browning.  Add mushrooms and onions, sprinkle some dried (or fresh) herbs like rosemary and thyme, let sit on low heat, covered.  Add tomatoes at the end, sprinkle salt & pepper to taste and heat until warm.  This would be sooooo good in a tortilla or on toast, but is equally amazing by itself.