Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

Isn’t it awesome when you can make a super yummy meal ahead of time and just throw it in the oven when you’re ready to feed your family? I call that a win. This dinner could not be easier. It’s also great to separate into lunch containers when you’re back in the office.

Prep your sweet potatoes in the insta-pot

8-12 smaller sized sweet potatoes

1 cup water

steamer basket

Lock lid, cook on high pressure 12 minutes, let steam release naturally.

If you don’t have an insta-pot, you can bake them at 400 degrees on a parchment lined baking sheet for 45 minutes.

While these are cooking whip up -

2Lbs ground Turkey

1 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

1 teaspoon Chipotle Chili Powder (or regular chili powder, we aren’t doing rocket science here)

1 Tablespoon dried minced Onion

1/2 teaspoon Oregano

1/2 teaspoon Cumin

Cook this all together in a large sauté pan until turkey is cooked through about 8-10 minutes.

Set aside, but you still need the pan - don’t wash it!

Chop up

1 Bell Pepper

1 Onion

Throw them in the sauté pan (the one you just used to cook your meat) with 1 Tablespoon olive oil. Add a little salt and pepper and sauté about 5-8 minutes, until onion is translucent and everything is soft.

Now let’s get to this whole building thing

In a glass baking dish, place the sweet potatoes (skin on - I hope you scrubbed them before you cooked them). Cut a slit in the top and shove about 1/4-1/2 cup of baby kale in there, really get it in there. Add the meat, bell peppers and onion. If you’re a fan of the cheese, sprinkle some shredded cheese on top, or grate it yourself - it’s all good. If you aren’t a cheese fan you can always throw a dash of nutritional yeast on top.

Okay, you can stop here and cover this with plastic wrap, wax cloth, foil, a lid, your choice, but remember we’re trying to leave the planet for our children’s children, so best practices.

When you’re ready to feed your family, shoot a text to your oldest kid “Hey, can you please preheat the oven to 350 and place the dish of sweet potatoes from the fridge into the oven. Make sure you take off the covering first.” These are important things, first of all if your kid is like mine the chance that this will get done is 50/50. Second, if you ask them to take out the dish so it can come to room temp while the oven is preheated, the uncooked dish will most likely still be sitting on the counter when you get home. Third, your best bet is to just have them do it all at once. They need to bake for 30-45 minutes. Cheese should be bubbly and sweet potatoes heated through, but I don’t recommend sticking your finger in there, grab a thermometer and just make sure you’re up to 120 degrees.

Now the fun part - Toppings:

Chopped cilantro

Chopped tomatoes

Chopped avocado

Chopped Chives

Black olive (just one, jk. throw in a couple, but chop them first, the other would be weird)

Sour cream (or fancy sour cream which just adds 2 Tablespoons ketchup and a teaspoon of tapatio to 1/2 cup of sour cream and stir)

I mean really, think taco night, but this can all be paleo friendly - or Whole 30 if you omit the joy (I mean cheese and sour cream).