Recipes

During these snowy days here in New York, I sometimes feel the need for something warm, comforting and substantial. Sweet potatoes are a favorite of mine, so I decided to make myself a stuffed sweet potato for some healthy comfort food.  Here is what I did:

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees, Line a cookie sheet with foil, place bacon comfortably on the sheet and bake for 18-25 minutes depending on the degree of crispy goodness you like. Be careful when removing the cookie sheet because there will be a good amount of grease, you don’t want to spill it anywhere.  Remove bacon to a plate and drain both sides well on paper towels.  Oven cooked bacon and skillet cooked bacon seem to hold onto the grease more. In the microwave the paper towels absorb some of the grease, so for this recipe I decided to use oven baked bacon.

I had some tender asparagus from Whole Foods that I placed on the cookie sheet and coated it with the bacon grease and baked that for 5-8 minutes. Drain those well on paper towels also. Note: You can use whatever veggie you happen to have on hand to add to your stuffed potato. If it’s something you can bake or roast, you can use the bacon fat. If not, cook the veggie you have appropriately and include it in your stuffed potato.

Next I cut a sweet potato in half leaving the skin on and coated it all around with the same bacon grease and baked that for about 45 minutes, (it was a large potato). The potato is done when a knife

slides easily into the potato.

When not too hot to handle I scooped out 3/4 of the potato and put it in a bowl and mixed in 1/4 tsp. of cinnamon and about 1 Tbl. of organic honey. Add more or less if you wish. Place this mixture back into the potato, top with more bacon bits and drizzle with honey.  The fragrance is amazing and the honey goes well with the bacon, potato and avocado balls. Clean up is super easy, fold up the foil and throw away.

I don’t use salt on anything when I’m cooking with bacon, it has plenty already.  Actually, I don’t use salt ever, I don’t remember my mom or dad cooking with it so I don’t miss it.

The quick version of this is to peel the sweet potato, cube it and cook till done in the microwave, add bacon bits and cinnamon and swirl in some honey. You just have to drain the cubes really well so it’s not watery.