Thursday, January 31, 2008

Lazy woman's health food: beets and sweet potatoes

As happens all too often, my kitchen has a backlog of dirty dishes and, as I confessed to just a couple of posts ago, I was lacking the motivation to do anything about it or cook dinner by the end of the work day yesterday. Fortunately, I had the ingredients for a lazy woman's healthy dinner that took all of 10 minutes of active prep time.

Ingredients:
Beets
White wine vinegar
Sweet potatoes
Yogurt (I prefer Greek, which is increasingly available in grocery stores)
Garlic powder
Salt
Cheese, optional

**I was able to purchase everything but the vinegar, salt and yogurt at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market and, with the Goat Lady Dairy starting to offer yogurt, the list of grocery store items will soon be even shorter

I scrubbed the beets and wrapped them in foil with a splash of the vinegar, which I think aids the sweetness of the beets. Then, I scrubbed the sweet potatoes, poked holes in them and stuck everything in a 400 degree oven.

Then I read a book for an hour.

Once the sweet potatoes were soft to the touch and the beets could be easily pierced with a knife, I mixed together the yogurt, garlic powder and salt while the beets cooled a little. To avoid pink hands and to buffer the heat, I slapped on some latex gloves and peeled the beets by rubbing them briskly with a paper towel; they were then sliced to roughly 1/4-inch disks... very roughly.

I cut open the potatoes - Rob topped his with cheddar and cinnamon; I stuck a dollop of the yogurt on mine. I divided the rest of the yogurt between our plates and topped with beet slices. I sprinkled the slices with the tiniest bit of kosher salt and tah-dah, a lazy woman's healthy dinner.

The beets are a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Arabesque - they also suggest a drizzle of olive oil which I often do, using Giacomo's brand. It nights like these that make me wonder why I ever fall back on pizza delivery...

4 comments:

K. said...

Thanks for the meal idea. I will try it next week. But my kids won't try it with me! They think they hate sweet potatoes and beets, though when we sneak sweet potatoes into foods they like them

K. said...

Where do you buy Greek yogurt in the Triad? Do any of the grocery store chains carry it? I can't find it.

Sarah Beth Jones said...

I'm not sure how you could sneak in beets, but I wonder if sweet potato fries would be worth a try? I peel them, slice them in wedges, spray with a little oil and toss them with salt, pepper, a little sugar and sometimes cayenne, then roast in a 500 degree oven for 10 - 14 minutes, turning once. It helps a lot to use nonstick foil when making them.

I've had luck finding the Fage brand at Harris Teeter and like the 2% - they have it at Earth Fare, too, but it's more expensive there.

Let me know if you try the fries!

Unknown said...

Wow! a nice article about women's health . It has good information about women's
health food and also with some cooking ideas