Southwest Sweet Potato

I thought this up a bit last minute when I was trying to think of something to make with the ingredients that Ryan and I got in our weekly organic produce box. We had corn, tomatoes, and avocado. We weren't doing grains (though we had the corn already and figured it'd just have to pass for the sake of not wasting food!), dairy, or processed foods. We wanted to make sure the ingredients were fresh and tasty for our guests.

SOOoo, I decided to try a cowboy caviar and put it in sweet potatoes. It sounded a little weird at first, but gosh was it good! I enjoyed making our guests nervous by telling them that the menu for the night was primarily caviar. I appreciated their openness to try. They were soon delighted and thankful to see that this caviar was lacking ingredients derived from fish.

Also, I tried a new way of baking the sweet potatoes that I hadn't done before. I've never made such a perfect baked sweet potato! You'll enjoy learning that in this recipe as well.

So let's get on with it. Here's the recipe!

Feeds 4

Ingredients:

• 4 Sweet potatoes

• 1 Avocado, Large, diced

• 1 Red Bell Pepper

• 1 15oz can of black beans

• 1/4 cup cilantro, organic

• 2 ears worth of corn (or 1 15oz can)

• 2 garlic cloves

• 1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered, organic

• 1/8 of a large onion, finely chopped

• 1 tsp of lime zest

• 4 tbsp of lime juice

• 1/4 tsp of black pepper

• 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper

• 1 tsp of sea salt

• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar

• 1/4 tsp of cumin

• 1lb or organic chicken breast (optional)

Instructions:

• Set your oven to 400 degrees and let it preheat for at least 5 minutes

• Poke your sweet potatoes with a fork all over. Set the sweet potatoes directly on the rack on your oven. No pans or aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes or until tender when poked with a fork or knife.

• (optional) Season your chicken breast with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on high in a pan for 1 minute one side. Flip it over and cook on low for another 10 minutes with the lid over the pan. Flip it over again and let it sit on that burner with the lid on for another 10 minutes. While the chicken is cooking, prepare the cowboy caviar.

• While your sweet potatoes (and chicken) are cooking prepare, dice, and chop the red bell pepper, corn, onion, cilantro, garlic, and tomatoes. Toss these all in a bowl with the black beans.

• Mix together the dressing with the zest, lime juice, black pepper, cayenne pepper, sea salt, olive oil, vinegar, and cumin. MIx the dressing into the bowl.

• Once everything is tossed together, gently mix in the diced avocado.

• Depending on how long it took to prepare the cowboy caviar, the sweet potatoes should be just about finished! Cut them open and add your delicious caviar and chicken (if you made it) inside!

Hope you love it!