Sweet Potato Quinoa Burgers

I'm not a vegetarian. I love burgers and steaks and fried chicken but I've also learned to eat my vegetables. This is not to say I don't respect the meatless lifestyle and I know it works for a lot of people but I need me some iron. I do enjoy making vegetarian dishes though, especially when going to dinners with veggie friends or potlucks.

I've discovered that in addition to carrots and broccoli, I actually enjoy a lot of vegetables like zucchini, green beans, eggplant, tomatoes (fruit?) and sweet potatoes (not just as fries either).

This recipe hails from a couple years ago when I started cooking for myself more often and in a healthier fashion. The recipe originally called for a blackberry salsa but I found regular salsa, hummus or yogurt pairs well too.

 

Let's begin. Quinoa is cooked according to instructions in one pot while diced sweet potatoes are cooked in another. The timing usually works out so that they are both done at the same time. Half of a red onion and a clove of garlic can be chopped while everything cooks and a can of black or kidney beans should be drained and rinsed. Black beans are apparently harder to come by in the UK so I used kidney beans this time. 

Once the potatoes are cooked, drain any excess water and rinse in cold water to help cool faster. Mash with a potato masher or large fork. Add in the red onion, quinoa, some cumin and beans. Mix until all ingredients are combined. At this point, the mixture is still hot so I put it in the fridge to chill.

 

 When the mixture is no longer hot to the touch, form into patties. These can be baked in the oven, lightly fried in skillet or grilled outdoors. The patties can also be made ahead of time for a barbecue, kept refrigerated until party time.

 

I tried these with sliced avocado instead of any sauce and it was a great addition! Eat with a fork or sandwiched in a fluffy roll.

 

Recipe

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 medium sweet potato (or 2 small), peeled and diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 can kidney (or black) beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 teaspoon cumin

1. In a small saucepan, cook the quinoa according to instructions (usually 1:2 ratio of quinoa to water).
2. In a larger pot, cook the diced sweet potato by covering with water and bringing to a boil. Cook until the sweet potato is tender and can be pierced with a fork.
3. Drain the sweet potatoes and rinse with cold water. Return them to the pot and mash with a potato masher or fork.
4. Stir the cooked quinoa, beans (drained and rinsed), chopped onion, garlic and cumin into the mashed sweet potatoes. Stir until everything is mixed together.
5. Allow the mix to cool until you can easily handle without burning yourself.
6. Form into patties and lay on a baking sheet (if baking, otherwise, heat oil in a frying pan and brown on each side like you would for pancakes or fritters). 
7. Bake at 250 for 10 minutes, turn patties over and bake for another 10 minutes. 
8. Serve with salsa, jam, yogurt or avocado!

Sweet Potato & Black Bean Enchiladas

I guess I'm back on the sweet potato bandwagon. Did I ever really leave it? Over the holidays, there were many large family gatherings which meant divvying up of the meal prep duties and learning to cook to scale, going from cooking for one for a week to cooking for ten for a night. One of the dishes, which I'd never made before, were chicken enchiladas.

Getting back to my cookbook roots, this recipe comes from Oh She Glows so is veggie friendly but you could easily make this with chicken and reduce the sweet potato quantity. It's super easy to make, just a little hands on, and then popped in the oven!

For this recipe, the vegetables are cooked until soft before wrapping in tortillas and dousing in enchilada sauce. The store I went to was out of enchilada sauce so I went the DIY route. The tortillas are wedged into a casserole dish. My dish was too small so I made some egg scrambles and wraps with the remaining filling. A 9x13 would probably work better than a square pan.

If you're making this with chicken, you would also cook the chicken first before wrapping up and baking in the oven. Pro tip: shred the chicken in a food processor instead of by hand with forks.

The enchiladas are baked in the oven until steaming. If you're adding cheese on top, bake until the cheese to brown on top before serving. Served with the avocado-cilantro sauce was the perfect garnish.

Recipe
Adapted from Oh She Glows

Enchiladas

• 2 cups sweet potato, peeled and chopped
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 clove garlic, minced
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 1 can black beans (15oz), drained and rinsed
• 2 1/2 cups enchilada sauce
• 1 Tablespoon lime juice
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 whole-grain tortillas

Avocado-Cilantro Sauce

• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro
• 1 medium avocado, pitted
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a rectangular baking dish.
2. To make the enchiladas, cook the sweet potatoes in a medium sauce pan, covering the sweet potato with water. Cook until tender.
3. In a skillet, heat the olive oil and cook the onion and garlic until translucent.
4. Add the bell pepper, cooked sweet potato (drained of water), and black beans. Cook on high for a few minutes until peppers have softened.
5. Remove the skillet from heat and stir half the enchilada sauce, lime juice, chili powder, cumin and salt into the vegetables.
6. On a flat surface, fill the tortillas with the vegetable filling. Roll like you are rolling a burrito or taco and place, seam down, in the greased casserole dish. 
7. Repeat until the casserole dish is full.
8. Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the wrapped tortillas.
9. Bake for 30 minutes. If you add cheese, remove once the cheese has browned.
10. 
    
11. While the enchiladas bake, combine all ingredients for the avocado-cilantro sauce in a food processor. Blend until smooth.
12. Serve the enchiladas hot with the avocado sauce on top.

DIY Enchilada Sauce

• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 Tablespoons flour
• 4 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 scant cup tomato paste
• 1 3/4 cup broth
• Pinch of salt

1. In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Stir in the flour until a thick paste forms. Stir in the spices until combined.
3. Cook for a couple minutes until fragrant.
4. Stir in tomato paste (I definitely used ketchup) and the broth. Whisk until smooth and combined.
5. Bring to a low boil over high heat, then reduce and simmer to allow the sauce to thicken.
6. If it still looks too thin, you can thicken the sauce with some cornstarch. 

Sweet Potato Crockpot Chili

Alright, kicking off these kitchen resolutions right. Making my meals for the week on Sunday has saved me a lot of time and money throughout the week not ordering take out or buying lunch. I'm okay eating the same thing every day for lunch but I prefer to have some variety at least between lunch and dinner which means making two batches of something over the weekend.

The crockpot makes this super easy because I can just set it up and while it cooks, I can make another meal--or watch a lot of Netflix. This recipe came from a simple search for crockpot recipes on Pinterest. So many things on Pinterest.

If I were to make it again, I would add some ground turkey (brown it first) but as it were, this is veggie friendly. There will be a lot of chopping at first, there was so much crying with the onion chopping, so many tears. It's really quite the safety hazard to be blinded while using a knife. Just sayin'.

The vegetables are combined in a crockpot with three cups of broth, can of beans (drained and rinsed), crushed tomatoes and quinoa. Stir everything together and add your spices. More chili powder for some heat.

Set the crockpot to high and cook for four hours or until the sweet potatoes are soft. I served this with avocado on top. Plus it inspired lunch envy at work, win!

Recipe

• 2 medium sweet potatoes, diced
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 red bell peppers, chopped
• 1 can of kidney (or black) beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz)
• 1/2 cup quinoa, uncooked
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• Avocado (for topping)

1. Once the vegetables are chopped and ready, combine with the beans, crushed tomatoes, quinoa and broth in the crockpot.
2. Stir in the spices.
3. Set the crockpot to high and cook for 4 hours or until the sweet potatoes are soft. 
4. Serve hot and top with avocado or cheese.

Kale and Sweet Potato Salad

Remember how I went through a phase of throwing everything together in a quinoa bowl? No? Well, I do! I was reminded of that habit while making this salad because I turned the salad into a wrap situation at times so it was like "whatever I can put in a quinoa bowl, I can also put into a wrap" epiphany.

As I've mentioned before, the dressing of the salads is not exactly my forte. Clearly I'm more attune to the ways of muffins and sugar and butter and not this green leafy stuff. But maybe, just maybe if I add enough other things to the mix, it will be okay.

 We're roasting sweet potatoes, carrots and chickpeas so we have a good mix of veggies for our salad. Although salads are usually cold, I actually enjoyed this with the warm vegetables. It also softens the cheese but more on that later. The vegetables are coated in olive oil and dusted with pepper before roasting to perfection. The same bowl is used to toss kale with some scallions and parsley to get a light coating of olive oil. Another dash of oil might be needed and then lemon juice. Quinoa is also cooking while all this dressing is happening.

In the end, the quinoa, cooked vegetables and some feta cheese are all mixed together with the kale. We have a nice balance of health here with the healthy grains, leafy greens and colorful veggies. At first, I ate this straight up and later decided it would make a good wrap filling so made some of those too. I even added some chicken to one variation and scrambled eggs to another, so many choices!

This is super easy to make-ahead of time so you have lunch for the week. It makes a good amount, probably 6-7 servings and you can double up on that salad dosage if you'd like.

Recipe

• 4 cups of baby kale
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
• 2 large carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 scallion stalks, chopped
• 3 Tablespoons parsley, chopped
• 1 cup quinoa, cooked
• Feta cheese to serve
• Olive oil for roasting veggies and dressing
• Lemon juice for dressing
• Pepper for seasoning 

1. Preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl, toss chopped sweet potato, carrots and chickpeas in some olive oil and pepper.
2. Spread the vegetables across a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Roast until the carrots and sweet potatoes are soft.
3. Meanwhile, cook 1 cup of quinoa according to instructions (basically 1:2 ratio of quinoa to water).
4. In the same large bowl, combine the baby kale, chopped scallions and parsley. Toss to combine and drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice.
5.  Once the quinoa and vegetables are cooked, toss together with the greens and top with feta.
6. Serve in a bowl or add to a wrap. You can add some chicken or eggs to make it a breakfast burrito (highly recommended).