The Sweet Potato Bowl - Our First Triumph

When we started this quest, I was pregnant.  So I thought that the sweet potato bowl recipe from the Engine 2 Diet was just wonderful because I craved avocados as much as I craved milkshakes.  Not true!  The bowl is even good now that I'm not pregnant!

This was the first thing we found in aaaallllllll of our reading that we actually loved and could eat on a regular basis.  In fact, we eat it almost every day for lunch.  For a year.  Still yummy.

The E2 guys tell you to mix up (per person):

1/2 cooked sweet potato
1/2 chopped red bell pepper
1/2 mango
1/2 avocado
1/2 cup (I think) black beans
1/2 squeezed lime
some balsalmic vinegar

It's good that way, but we've made adjustments.  We skip the vinegar all together.  I hate mango, so we use peaches when in season.  (My husband keeps the mango.)  Any kind of bell pepper will do (for when affording red bell pepper requires taking out a loan), and I like to increase the sweet potato, beans, and lime juice.  You can used canned black beans, but they're LOADED with sodium, so we get dried beans and cook a huge batch for the week.  It's cheaper, too.  In a pinch, we've used kidney beans, chick peas, or pinto beans (though I don't recommend the pintos).

Will the kids eat it?  Of course not!  Soooo ...  I blend up the black beans with whatever veggies I think I can slip in and serve them with a little cheese on a tortilla.  Bean and cheese burrito!  Watch out Taco Casa! My daughter loves avocado, so I give her some on the side.  Both kids love mangoes or peaches, so I chop that up as a fruit salad (with banana, or apple, or whatever is on sale) for them, too.  Viola!  Lunch for all, without having to cook completely separate meals!

I think we seriously may have given this up all together if not for the sweet potato bowl.  Thank you, Engine 2!