Broccoli Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Happy Wednesday friends! I just had to share our delicious dinner tonight. We are trying to incorporate more nutrient dense foods in our diet, and sweet potatoes are becoming a new favorite! Low in calories and packed full of vitamin A (over 300% of your recommended daily intake) they are an awesome addition to our meals. In the past, the only type of baked sweet potato I have had was full of cinnamon, butter, and marshmallows. Delicious? Yes. But I feel like packing them with marshmallows kind of takes away from their nutrition.

Seeing as I've only had sweet potatoes with other sweet toppings, this recipe provided a great new spin since its filled with contrasting salty toppings like cheese and pancetta (bacon would also work just fine if you can't find pancetta). If you are looking for a hearty, flavorful meal, this is it! I thought that they would simply be a side dish, which I why I prepared chicken with them, but they are so packed full of ingredients that they are easily a meal in themselves! Neither my husband nor I was able to finish our plates!

Anyways, click HERE for the recipe! One tip I have is on baking the potatoes. I cooked them at 425 degrees compared the the 365 that the recipe suggests. This will give you a crispier skin. I cooked them for 40 minutes, flipped them, and then cooked them for an additional 20 minutes and they were perfect!

Holy YUM!

Ok, so I may have completely failed at gluten-free biscuits and gravy last week....But I no longer care because I just made the most delicious breakfast this morning! And it was easy!

Sweet Potato Latkes and Eggs

I am all about simple. If I see that any recipe has more than about 10 ingredients I usually don't even try. So to find a super filling breakfast that is delicious, low in calories (less than 300 calories!), and easy, I was stoked! My husband was also VERY impressed! The latkes have a texture somewhere between a traditional potato cake and a pancake. Topped with an over easy egg, the yolk adds a delicious creaminess to them. If you want to try them out, click HERE for the recipe! I cut the recipe in half for me (I shredded half of a sweet potato and used 1 egg to make 3 cakes) and it was more than enough!

*This is a Paleo recipe, which is why the latkes are friend in coconut oil. I'm sure they would be just as delicious cooked in vegetable oil or whatever oil you have on hand!*

Gluten Free Fail.

Due to some auto-immune problems, I recently decided to go gluten free. I know its going to be a process, but it is something I am very excited about! Since making the leap, I have enjoyed several amazing new recipes (which I will share on another post) and am trying out a variety of gluten free products and substitutes.

All that being said, I thought today would be a great day to attempt gluten free biscuits and gravy. You all should know that I LOVE gravy. When we eat breakfast at a restaurant, I always get an extra side of gravy to smother my food with. Biscuits and gravy. Eggs and gravy. Hash browns and gravy. YUM. The bad part about this obsession of mine is that flour is a base ingredient in homemade gravy. Obviously I can't use standard flour on this new diet, so I decided to try out my new gluten free artisan flour blend. As for the biscuits, I tried gluten free Bisquick for the first time.

Ok, here it goes- (be warned that I am going to give you a step-by-step of my first gluten free failure.)

First off, I whipped up the biscuits using the recipe on the box. Nothing fancy. Bisquick, eggs, milk, and butter (it actually called for shortening but I didn't have any. Butter is yummier anyways.) Dropped the dough by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and baked at 400 for 14 minutes. They turned out beautifully! 

While they were baking, I started on the gravy. My mom taught me long ago how to make homemade gravy. No powder mixes for us! And the key to good gravy is grease. Fatty, delicious grease. Anytime I cook bacon, I save the drippings left in the pan specifically for future gravy making. Just pour it in a little bowl and put it in the refrigerator. 

Anyways, I started with my refrigerated bacon grease and my new artisan flour.

Next, I added about half of the grease to my skillet (probably about 3 Tbsp).

Once it completely melted I added 1/3 cup of flour.

I worked the flour into the grease to make a nice roux. (This is about where I realized things didn't look quite like they usually do)

Then the milk went in. Probably about 1/2 cup to start with. When making gravy, always start small and add as needed so you don't have to overcompensate with more flour.

The next stage should have consisted in the rue dissolving into the milk. The spoon wasn't working, so I switched to a spatula, my mom's gravy tool of choice.

Well, the spatula wasn't working too well either. Maybe some more milk? And maybe a whisk...

Ummm... no. This is not what gravy should look like. After lots of stirring/whisking, I realized that sadly this gravy was a lost cause. Tragic, I know. I almost cried. Almost.

So, Charlotte and I had biscuits and jelly instead. Not as good as biscuits and gravy, but still yummy! The texture of the biscuits is a little different than normal, but they were still great!

They are Charlotte-approved! And also cat and dog approved. Both pets cleaned up her crumbs from the floor.

In the end, we had a yummy breakfast. Not what I intended, but good nonetheless. And that's what this journey is all about! Trial and error. Discovering new things that are great and giving up old things that aren't. For now, I will be gravy free. But for the love of God, if any of you know how to make gluten free gravy, HOOK ME UP! :)

-Whitney