We’ve got sweet potato recipes that will take you from sweet to spicy to savory.

Sweet potatoes are a very old root vegetable, domesticated in Central America more than 5,000 years ago. And the original sweet potato cultivators were on to something. Sweet potatoes are an excellent source of beta-carotene (look out carrots), and they’re also good for getting complex carbohydrates and dietary fiber. What else do sweet potatoes have going for them? They’re good for your heart, a good source of vitamins C and E. Add to that the fact that sweet potatoes work for sweet, spicy and savory dishes, and you’ve got one killer tuber. So, get some sweet potato on your plate with one of these 21 sweet potato recipes.

1. Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Cotjia Salad

Cook up some quinoa, add roasted sweet potato and top it all off with the classic Mexican cheese.

2. Sweet Potato Cornbread

This gluten-free cornbread is perfect on its own or with a hearty winter stew.

3. Baked Sweet Potato Falafel

With a dash of cumin and coriander, these falafel don’t require a deep fryer, which makes them simple and tasty.

4. Vegan Sweet Potato Hash Browns

For a seasonal brunch, try this creative (and vegan) take on a classic hash browns.

5. Miso Sweet Potato and Broccoli Bowl

Is there anything better than a bowl of warm, seasonal vegetables? This one brings a bunch of healthy ingredients together.

6. Smoky Sweet Potato Hummus

If you want a twist on a classic appetizer, give this one a try; with a dash of cayenne it has just the right amount of spice.

7. Roasted Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese and Arugula Sandwiches

Who said a sandwich had to be boring? With these ingredients you’re far from an average lunch.

8. Beluga Lentil and Sweet Potato Stew

Cold weather calls for a hearty dish, and this one just might become your new favorite.

9. Sweet Potato and Leek Pizza

Good as a comfort food dinner, or even as a starter with a large group of guests, this is not your average pizza.

10. Southwestern Spiced Sweet Potato Fries with Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream

These will go fast, you may want to consider making a double batch.

11.Coconut Cardamom Sweet Potatoes

A healthy rendition on a creamy sweet potato casserole. But without the marshmallows!

12. Risotto with Mushrooms and Sweet Potato

A risotto is always a good dish this time of year, and in this one, mushrooms and sweet potato are the ideal seasonal pairing.

13. Sweet Potato Truffles

Yes, you read that correctly. Make a batch of these for a tasty and healthy holiday dessert that’s sure to please your dinner guests.

14. Sweet Potato Scones with Beetroot Jam

A normally sweet recipe turns savory with bright red beets atop orange scones.

15. Sweet Potato Crackers

Made with coconut flour, these simple crackers are grain- and gluten-free.

16. Date and Gorgonzola Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

A classier rendition of a baked potato, and much more interesting.

17. Petite Sweet Potato Pies

These pies are small for a reason; the idea is that you want to eat “just enough,” which is exactly what you get with these individually-sized pies.

18. Smoky Millet Stuffed Sweet Potato Crepes

Vegan and gluten free, these scrumptious crepes are sure to become a new favorite.

19. Sweet Potato and Pecan Cinnamon Buns

Perfect for the lazy three-hour long weekend breakfast you want to have with your French press.

20. Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi is an easy pasta that you can make at home, and this version is even gluten-free.

21. Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie

It’s like dessert for breakfast.

Related on EcoSalon:

21 Apple Recipes for Fall

21 Glorious Pomegranate Recipes

Images: Stacey Spensley, Kari Sullivan, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Joy

The post 21 Seasonal Sweet Potato Recipes appeared first on EcoSalon.

Caramel sauce is essentially sugar that has been melted down to a brown liquid. To make it more palatable and easy to work with, it is then traditionally mixed with butter and cream. Ultimately, the sauce is a recipe that does little for your health and more for your muffin top. The following healthy caramel sauce recipe utilizes only 3 ingredients to turn caramel’s story into something a bit more positive, without compromising taste.

The backbone of caramel – sugar — has become taboo in mainstream diets, picking up slack for many a health woe. A high consumption of sugar can put you at an increased risk of obesity, type-2 diabetes, and cancer. The other ingredients in caramel–milk and butter–contain saturated fats and are linked to heart disease. Needless to say, traditional caramel sauce needs a makeover.

This three-ingredient, vegan caramel sauce recipe tastes a lot like the original. Dates are the basis of the mix. Dates are naturally sweet and also have a deep, caramel-like flavor, which makes them perfect for this alternative recipe. The fruit also packs some serious health perks. In 100 grams of dates, there are 6.7 grams of fiber, nearly 700 milligrams of potassium, and 54 milligrams of magnesium. The same-sized serving also offers 18 percent of the recommended daily allowance of copper, 15 percent of manganese, and 12 percent of vitamin B6. Still, despite being a fruit, dates contain a lot of fruit sugar, so they shouldn’t be eaten in excess. Regardless, the following caramel sauce recipe is leaps and bounds above the traditional version in terms of health.

Healthy Caramel Sauce Recipe

Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1 cup BPA-free canned coconut milk
• 10 dates, pitted and diced finely
• Dash of sea salt

Directions

In a saucepan over medium heat, add all the ingredients. Stir constantly, waiting for the mixture to bubble. When it bubbles, turn the heat down a few notches, to medium-low. Continue to let bubble, allowing for the water from the coconut milk to be cooked off. The mixture will thicken. When you can run a spatula down the surface and a trail follows, this means the mixture is thick enough and can be removed from the stove. Serve cool or hot with ice cream, slices of apple, or as a glaze for baked goods.

Image Credit: Jeremy Brooks

Related on EcoSalon:

8 Things To Do With Dates (Ahem: The Fruit, Not Men)

20 Foods That Give You Energy

The post 3-Ingredient Vegan Caramel Sauce Recipe appeared first on EcoSalon.

When the weather is hot and sultry, what’s better than a cucumber? They’re refreshing, crunchy, cooling and in season now. (If only the weather were hot and sultry in the San Francisco Bay Area, but that’s another story.)

There are so many different varieties available these days in farmers’ markets. From Armenian to lemon cucumbers, you could try a different one every day of the week in salads, soups, pickles, and more. Here’s a rundown of recipes from around the web that celebrate cucumbers!

From Shockingly Delicious we’ve got a simple and super classic cucumber salad that sounds, well, shockingly delicious.

Over at The Kitchn they’re using up their abundant cucumber harvest by making cucumber juice. I see some vodka in there somewhere.

And Cooking with Amy offers up a gorgeous, smooth green soup with avocados and cucumbers.

Image: Swanksalot

The post When the Mercury Rises: 3 Recipes with Cucumbers appeared first on EcoSalon.

I know we just did squash but my plants are still producing like mad and who can resist a dish called Zuccaghetti? This salad-like concoction from Food 52 requires no cooking, so it’s great for hot days and it requires shredding, which will allow gardeners to work through their massive piles of squash.

Over at The Kitchn.com, they’re giving readers lots of ideas for picnic salads that aren’t the usual boring, dressing laden options. This crunchy cabbage and peanut slaw sounds like a mouthwatering Fourth of July pick to me.

As anyone who has ever tried to make red, white, and blue food knows, blueberries are pretty much the only option for the blue. This recipe from Food in Jars for Blueberry Butter uses a slow cooker to get the job done. How brilliant! You can be on grill duty while the blueberry butter makes itself.

Happy Fourth and Happy Cooking!

Image: Jeff Kubina

The post Tempt Your Tastebuds with Zuccaghetti, Crunchy Peanut Slaw and Blueberry Butter appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s that time of the year already – when gardeners sneak up onto friend’s porches and leave bags of summer squash before ringing the doorbell and running – hey, it happens.

As it happened in my little garden, every plant I put in the ground died except for two (yes two!) squash plants. Now, keep in mind, I live alone, and there is a trumpet vine right near the vegetable bed, which the bees really love. I’m happy about the pollination, but these babies are a little too prolific. Nobody who lives alone really needs two squash plants. Trust me. In the space of one day, the tiny squashes turned into monsters and suddenly I was harvesting about five a day. Help!

Cutting the squash into coins and sauteing it for a side dish is a cute idea, but it’s not really going to work for me. How many times a day can I eat squash? So, the theme this week is recipes that use up lots and lots of squash.

Anytime you have to shred a squash, you know you’re going to go through several of them. Here’s a recipe from Food Blogga that is an interesting twist on the usual zucchini bread. A savory version that sounds yum.

Soup is always a good bet because you know you’re going to need to cut up more than one or two of those babies to make a pot of soup. I made something similar to this recipe from 101 Cookbooks the other day. My version included yellow squash instead of green and I garnished mine with a swirl of crème fraîche and a spoonful of basil pesto.

Back to the ever handy shredding method. This recipe from How the Cookie Crumbles is one I will return to again and again this summer. The other day a friend and I demolished at least eight squash this way and it only served three people. And that’s exactly what you want this time of year.

Image: clayirving

The post Feeling Squashed? 3 Tasty Recipes to Use Up the Abundance appeared first on EcoSalon.

Here in sunny California, every few days during this unusually chilly May, the sky begins to spit out a cold drizzle. So while hearts, minds, and pale goose-pimply limbs are ready for summer, it still feels decidedly wintery. But alas, at the market we have an abundance of tender, green shoots. What to do? Here’s one answer: Late Spring Minestrone with Green Pea Pistou from Food 52.

If your winter cravings of deep leafy greens are still as intense as mine, I’d suggest trying this Kale and Carrot Salad from Food in Jars. It’s easy, healthy, and will pair well with just about any meal.

And now for something sweet: Berries are slowly coming into season here. And I love a simple cake with fruit. Here’s a lovely Lime Yogurt Cake with Blackberry Sauce from Smitten Kitchen.

Image: Gozalalewis

The post Three Recipes to Try: Spring Minestrone with Green Pea Pistou, Kale and Carrot Salad, Lime Yogurt Cake appeared first on EcoSalon.

Every mother’s day for the past three years I have cooked for my sisters. You see, they are both mothers, I am not, and we no longer have a mother to honor. Plus they like my cooking and I like cooking for them.

We all look forward to the yearly event and just hanging out with one another. We don’t do anything special. Just sit around and eat and talk. Then we do a puzzle or play scrabble as the afternoon stretches on. Normally I make some sort of frittata dish. This year I branched out and made a leek tart from one of Marcella Hazan’s books. It was fabulous.

And now I can’t seem to get enough leeks. They’re just one of those expressions of spring that I treasure, even though they are available year-round.

Here’s a wonderful sounding recipe for leeks vinaigrette from Rachel Eats that I’d like to try.

When I was in Portland recently for IACP, I had the pleasure of meeting and dining with Kim Boyce, pastry chef and cookbook author. Her new book, Good to the Grain, about cooking with whole grain flours has been getting lots of attention because she’s some kind of genius at combining the special characteristics of the various whole grains with complementary and unusual flavors. This is thoughtful baking, not at all about health for the sake of health. I have yet to buy the book, but in the meantime, I can try this recipe for olive oil cake shared by The Wednesday Chef on her blog.

Sometimes I work at home and sometimes I work at the home of my colleague. Come lunchtime, we usually throw together something out of our combined leftovers paired with fresh bread, cheese, salad, or whatever we have. It’s always fun because we never know how the meal will play out and it’s almost always better than we think it will be.

One day, we had no salad greens so we foraged in her backyard for herbs to create an herb salad. Combining parsley, cilantro, chives, and mustard green flowers from domesticated mustard that had gone to seed, we created a salad whose sharp flavors awakened our palate and kept us fueled for the afternoon’s work.

Here’s a recipe for herb salad from the award-winning Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook blog.

Image: Muffet

The post 3 Recipes to Try This Week: Leeks Vinaigrette, Olive Oil Cake, Herb Salad appeared first on EcoSalon.

Recently when I was in Portland for the IACP conference, every menu seemed to have rhubarb on it. I ordered rhubarb crisp, rhubarb compote, rhubarb this and rhubarb that. Rhubarb is one of the shortest season produce items I know, which makes it all the more special. I’ve been hankering to make something with it myself and Mother’s Day weekend seems like the perfect time. I’m going to pick up some rhubarb at the farmers market this weekend and make this Spring Rhubarb Crisp, from fellow Oaklander, Romney Steele, out of her wonderful book My Nepenthe.

And while we’re on the subject of Mother’s Day, if your mom is a pancake fan, check out these genuine buttermilk pancakes from Culinate. You can mix the dry ingredients up the night before to save time. Why not make rhubarb compote to go with?

If your Mother’s Day brunch plans are savory, as are mine, this springy golden beet salad from The Kitchn is healthy, easy and super green. No waste here since you mix the beet tops in with the roasted beets and serve them all together. I’m serving this with my leek tart.

Image: garyknight

The post Three Recipes to Try This Week: Spring Rhubarb Crisp, Buttermilk Pancakes and Golden Beet Salad appeared first on EcoSalon.

During a recent dinner at my friend’s underground restaurant (shh!) we were presented with the most inventive use of kumquats I’d ever seen. They were sort of glazed and roasted, and served atop a seared duck breast.

The kumquats were so luscious and such a perfect foil for the rich duck that I was smitten. The flavor has been haunting me ever since.

My reaction was interesting because I tend to shy away from kumquats, as I’m not really sure what to do with them. I’m attracted to their cute, happy orangeness at the farmers’ market, but since I’m not really a lover of the flavor of citrus rind, when it comes to everyday snacking they tend to just sit there and shame me for not eating them.

Then I found this recipe from food writer Molly Watson. Now wouldn’t these be good with duck, or pork, or dessert for that matter? Try it and let me know. There should be kumquats at markets (at least here on the west coast) for another week or two.

Speaking of seasonal recipes, I can’t get enough asparagus. I tend to spend the first several weeks just roasting it in a super hot oven with salt and olive oil (and sometimes standing in the kitchen eating the spears one after another like French fries) before graduating to more complex (and civilized) preparations like this one from 101 Cookbooks with the super healthy grain quinoa.

If you’ve never tried fava beans, this is your year. They are a short season shelling bean just coming into markets now. Yes, you have to shell them in two steps but it’s worth it. And this dip from Simply Recipes sounds like a winner.

P.S: Favas are easy to grow and provide a wonderful “green manure” for your garden because they are excellent nitrogen fixers. The leaves are edible too!

Image: Miss Meister

The post 3 Seasonal Recipes to Try This Week: Kumquats, Asparagus, Fava Beans appeared first on EcoSalon.

While waiting impatiently for spring shoots, we have to continue to enjoy our roots. This is the time of year that I start getting bored with the usual winter suspects and turn to the less common (and less appreciated) roots.

Parsnips, for example, are terribly underrated. They’re shaped like carrots and they’re sweet like carrots, but they have an herbaceous, almost wild flavor. This recipe would make a nice Sunday dinner accompaniment to serve with roasted chicken, fish or lamb. Or add a salad or some braised greens along with a whole grain and you have a comforting and satisfying vegetarian winter meal.

Last of Winter Parsnip, Mushroom and Leek Gratin

Serves 6-8

1 1 /2 pound parsnips
1 tablespoon butter plus more for buttering dish
2 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 ounces mixed fresh mushrooms (king trumpets, oysters or whatever is fresh and local), cleaned and sliced
3 leeks, white and light green parts, cleaned and sliced lengthwise
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 3/4 cup heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Peel parsnips and slice about 1/4 inch thick on an extreme angle so as to get the largest slices possible. Butter a 12 x 8 inch baking dish and preheat the oven to 400 ° F.

In a medium skillet, over medium high heat, warm the butter and olive oil. Add mushrooms and leeks along with a pinch of salt and sauté, stirring occasionally, until they release all of their liquid and begin to brown. Add thyme and white wine and cook, stirring, until wine evaporates. Set aside.

Begin to layer the ingredients into the dish beginning with a single layer of parsnip slices, followed by salt and pepper, followed by half of the leek/mushroom mixture and half the Parmesan. Repeat with parsnips, more salt and pepper, the remaining leek/mushroom mixture, and most of the remaining Parmesan, reserving a little for the top.

The final layer should consist of the remaining parsnips. Pour the cream over and push down with the back of a spoon to submerge everything as much as possible. Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan on top and cover with foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and check for tenderness, and continue to bake if necessary. When the parsnips are nearly tender, uncover and continue to bake uncovered for an additional 15 minutes or until the top begins to brown and all the cream has been absorbed. Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving to allow the cream to thicken.

Recipe Copyright Vanessa Barrington 2010

Note: Use local and organic ingredients whenever possible. As shown with Alaskan halibut.

Image: Danielle Scott

The post EcoSalon Recipes: Last-of-Winter Parsnip, Mushroom and Leek Gratin appeared first on EcoSalon.