Foodies: Sweet Potato and Cottage Cheese

Sweet Potato Pudding

This is loosely based on the Indian dessert Halwa, which uses carrots. I just happened to have a sweet potato the night I tried this. I also had leftover chopped walnuts from making bakalava that I needed to use. It had to be a dessert because they had cinnamon and sugar mixed in with them.

Ingredients: sweet potato, milk, butter, walnuts, cinnamon, sugar or agave nectar

Peel and then shred some sweet potato. One medium sized potato made enough for me and Josh.

Put some butter in a saucepan and melt it over medium heat. Add the sweet potato and mix it, coating it all in butter. Before it gets a chance to burn to the bottom, add milk until it’s an inch higher than the sweet potato level.

Boil, stirring occasionally (mind it closely because milk has a tendency to grow when it boils; adjust the heat accordingly). Add finely chopped walnuts, (use a food processor for the walnuts and potatoes if you have one, it’s much faster) cinnamon, and sugar or agave.

Continue to stir and simmer until it is more of a pudding-like consistency, leaving it a little more liquid-y than you want it. It will absorb a little more as you let it cool and serve it, just like a hot cereal. Taste and adjust for sweetness, adding more cinnamon or agave if desired.

It tastes really nice topped with pieces of ripe banana. You could even blend a ripe banana into it too!

Interesting things to do with cottage cheese…

“Blueberry Cheesecake – that is good for you!”

This is such a delicious, fast, and filling snack. Just take some low fat cottage cheese, and mix in blueberries or strawberries, a squirt of agave nectar, and some crushed cinnamon graham crackers. Admittedly it’s not as amazing as real cheesecake, but it does gives you the memory.

“Lasagna”

Ok, this may seem really ghetto, but it’s easy. There are plenty of nights when I don’t feel like or have time to cook a nice dinner , so we end up with spaghetti. (whole wheat spaghetti, with tomato sauce; it’s still healthy, just fast and simple. I actually really like spaghetti)

A nice topping for spaghetti is cottage cheese! Again, it gives you the memory of eating something wonderful but much more time-consuming. It also adds protein and rounds out the meal a bit more. To add protein to spaghetti, I usually add cheese and peas, shelled edamame, tvp, or cottage cheese.