I don’t normally ‘do’savoury. I make dinner nearly every night for my family, and am not embarrassed by my efforts, but it’s rare that I’m super excited.
Tonight, however, I’m just that – SUPER excited. In trolling through Pinterest for suggestions on dinner for tonight, I found a very yummy looking dinner of Spiced Sweet Potatoes and Chickpeas. My husband was going to be late for dinner, so the could be selected with the preferences of my pseudo-vegetarian daughter in mind; she would run screaming to the hills if a tried to sneak some chicken on her, but will very happily dive into a five bean salad. (I should be happy, I know; but just you try finding pulse based meals on kids’ menus…)
The recipe as it was primarily had sweet potato, chickpeas and onion with a lovely zesty dressing. As we were to be having it as a main, I decided it needed a few extra elements for visual and further flavour depth: broccoli, cranberries and pecans. Ooo, ooo, ooo, was this a yummy one! Particularly notable as I don’t honestly really even like sweet potato.
- ¾ cup finely chopped onion
- 2 T melted butter
- 1 t olive oil
- 1 t cinnamon
- 2 T honey
- 2 t freshly ground nutmeg
- 1 T freshly grated ginger
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 t salt
- 1 lime, freshly juiced
- fresh ground pepper, to taste1 cup (or whole can) chickpeas
- 3 large sweet potatoes, peeled (about 3 lbs)
- 2 c steamed broccoli
- ⅓ c chopped pecans
- ⅓ c dried cranberries
- ½ c crumbled feta
- Preheat oven to 400ºF / 220ºC.
- Finely chop onion and mix with butter, oil, cinnamon, honey, nutmeg, ginger, salt, lime and pepper. Put this 'dressing' to side.
- Cut sweet potato into even size cubes of approximately 1inch. Place in a large mixing bowl and pour the 'dressing' over it, ensuring that all the cubes are fully dressed.
- Pour everything in a large casserole dish and place in oven. Roast for approx. 30 min, mixing the food occasionally so it doesn't burn.
- Whilst it is cooking, chop the broccoli and steam lightly, approx 5 min (so it just retains its crunch). Also use this time to chop the pecans.
- When the food in the oven is done, take out and incorporate the broccoli, pecans, cranberries and feta, mixing well.
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