Knowing how to cook a handful of ingredients can take us much further than sticking to just recipes. Ingredients are usually more versatile than recipes.
We've already gone over how to cook quinoa.
Let's learn about another WHOLE food starch and excellent source of fiber and minerals. The sweet potato!
A few other reasons sweet potatoes are worth making:
VITAMIN A:
Just one cup of sweet potatoes offers over 200% of your daily recommended value. Vitamin A is essential for eye health, bone strength, and a tough immune system. It can also work synergistically with Vitamin D, and reduce acne.
Supplementing with too much vitamin A over time can be toxic to the liver, which is why a whole food source is a nice option.
MANGANESE:
More good news for your bones here, as well as your joints. Manganese is required for normal bone growth and is used in the formation of cartilage and the fluid that lubricates our joints.
Essential for people with iron-deficiency, anemia, and low energy.
FIBER:
We all know the benefit of fiber when it comes to pooping. Fiber is also essential for keeping our digestive track clean and protecting us from inflammatory diseases of the gut. Fiber helps control blood sugar and insulin resistance in people with type 2 diabetes.
COPPER:
MORE good news for those bones. Copper helps with the formation of bone and red blood cells. Sometimes, upping our vitamin C too much can result in a copper deficiency, so adding copper-rich foods is a good way to avoid this. Copper is also good for hair growth and mental health (fights crankiness, irritability and depression).
Ok, so how do we make them?
Active Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: ~ 1 hour
Ingredients:
4 large sweet potatoes
Instructions:
1.) Preheat oven to 400F.
2.) Wash potatoes and puncture several times with a fork. Place the potatoes in a non-reactive baking dish, and bake for about 1 hour. The potatoes are fully cooked when you can easily pierce with a knife.
That's it!!
I double this amount, and blend any leftover potatoes with vegetable broth to make a the base of a soup I can freeze and finish later on.
You can top it with some Garlic & Green Onion Dip to make it even yummier!!
Related Posts:
The Author:
Hi! My name is Sarah, and I am the founder of Abundelicious. I help women let go of emotional eating and diet culture, while finding the foods, habits and movement that allow them to reach their wellness goals and thrive.
I'm into clean eating, traveling (beach please), helping folks eat and feel better, gardening (not very well), and bopping around my neighborhood with my dog.
