Let's talk about breakfast for a second....I'm one of those crazy people who cannot start their day without a big, old fashioned, hot breakfast. Cereal? Oatmeal and fruit? NO. First, I don't find them satisfying in any capacity. Second, I find myself starving less than an hour later, no matter how much I eat. And I'm not kidding; not too long ago I ate six packets of oatmeal for breakfast, left the house to run errands, and helped myself to some Panera about 50 minutes later to get my loud stomach to be quiet.
Most days I find myself frying up hashbrown patties from Trader Joes. They are NOT healthy at all, take forever to brown, and are always soggy in the middle. Then I also fry two eggs, eat some homemade yogurt, and drink four cups of coffee. This usually sates me for a few hours.
Anyways, I'm here to share with you my new favorite breakfast.....the sweet potato breakfast bowl. It's delicious, pretty, aromatic, and really, really flexible. And easy.
This is a big, moderately heavy breakfast and it makes a HUGE portion (think a few cups of food.) Scale back or share or have leftovers if you are a bird at breakfast.
Sweet Potato Breakfast Bowl:
Ingredients:
-1 medium organic sweet potato
-Organic olive oil for cooking
-Seasoning (salt, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, etc.)
-1/4 to 1/2 cup cooked meat or protein (bacon, sausage, ground anything, beans)
-1 or 2 eggs
-Optional: onions, chives, garlic, other root veggies, greens, spinach
Directions:
-Cut the sweet potato up into quarter-inch squares. Personally, I like to slice it into round discs about 1/4in thick, then stack three of similar size up, cut some of the skin away, and then cube.
-Precook the sweet potato a bit. An easy way is to microwave for 2 minutes. If you're anti microwave, you have two good options. The first is to boil some water in a kettle or hot pot, pour it over the spuds, and then drain after 4 minutes. The second is to put them in a pan with some liquid (water or broth) and steam for 4-6 minutes. The goal is for the cubes to be easily pierced by a fork but not fork tender...you should be able to stab them but they will stay on the fork tine. If you use either of the last two methods, drain the potatoes well in a colander or on a tea towel.
-Heat olive oil in a 10 or 12 inch skillet on medium and add the potatoes. Flip every 5-7 minutes until they're cooked almost to your liking. Then add your meat/protein. I like my spuds pretty browned on one side so I let them sit for almost 10 minutes before the first flip. Don't forget to season!! I love a good savory meal but adding some ginger and cinnamon is to die for with sweet potatoes.
-If you are adding other optional veggies, be mindful of how long they take to cook! Add your onions and root veggies with or before the potatoes but add your greens and spinach with the protein since overcooking creates bitterness.
-Pour everything into your bowl. Add more oil to the pan and cook your eggs up.
-Top your bowl with the eggs and feast!
These breakfast bowls are very simple and can be tailored to each eater's tastes. To speed up the process, I like to chop the potatoes the night before and set everything (potatoes, meat, veggies) side by side in the fridge. It's an easy dish to prepare while you're getting ready for your day...you can get the potatoes started and go brush your teeth or change a diaper or search for your mug of coffee that you perpetually lose.
**MAMA NOTES: Stinky Baby eats what we eat as a general rule because I'm lazy. The cubed taters were too small for her to eat safely so I also cut some of the sweet potato rounds into "fingers" and cooked them in the pan with the cubes. She licked the ginger and cinnamon off and then pretty much was over the sweet potatoes but the salty sausage she loved (of course). It was Adell's brand and really yummy and has no unnatural nitrates or junk fillers so I decided it was OK for her. :) She also had some egg yolk.
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