Sweet Potatoes - The Best Deal in Town

If you're poor, trying to eat healthy, and don't want to take a lot of time to cook, buy some sweet potatoes. I spent weeks avoiding buying a bag of them (my biggest complaint about Trader Joe's - what if I just want one or two potatoes?), mostly because I didn't want to lug them home, but I finally decided to do it. I got them home just fine. Again tonight, as I did last week, I simply baked one in the microwave. It took 4 whole minutes - just don't forget to poke holes in it! I topped it with a little pat of butter and a bit of maple syrup. They are so filling and so healthy, and if you have a little more time, I highly recommend roasting them on high heat with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Whole baked sweet potatoes always remind me of working at ABC because we used to order lunch commonly from this little health food market called Full O'Life that had them as a side dish option. Four or five of us would often order them. For my meal I used to get this thing they called California Style Veggie Burgers, which was two small veggie patties topped with sliced avocado, cheese, and salsa. It really is something you will probably only find in California - where else do they put salsa on a veggie burger? In my kitchen they do! We had some pepper jack cheese in the house, and that inspired me. It's too early for avocados just yet but I had salsa, so I melted the cheese on the burger and threw on some salsa. Overall, it was a really satisfying, balanced meal, made in 10 minutes max.

I've been reading recipes and food articles like crazy and I am definitely getting the itch to make something big soon. I am not doing too well on knocking things off my food to-do list. It's been busy around here, with lots of guests in and out, but on Sunday I plan to shop and come up with something really good to try out. I feel like I've been eating very carb-heavy lately, so I want to make something lighter or more protein-heavy. After my birthday passes in about a week, I am hoping to finally have my dutch oven, and I pork shoulder for tacos (with fresh salsa!) is the first meal I want to make in it.