Recipe Review: Sweet Potatoes, Beans, and Delicious Rice

I was feeling a little sweet and a little starchy this week, so I set out to find a recipe that would blend all sides of my mood. Enter this dish with sweet potatoes, beans, and delicious rice. A relatively simple dish to make, it is a warm, fall meal that is both filling and practical. And it doesn’t require too much effort, so you can spend all that extra time you would have spent cooking focusing on knocking out an awesome NaNoWriMo chapter, or like, watching 18 episodes of your favorite TV show. That last one might be a bit of an exaggeration.

Alright, so even though I really enjoyed this recipe, I would have to suggest a number of changes. For starters, perhaps I was too enthusiastic in my choice of sweet potato (I cannot resist going after the largest orange one I can find), but the ratio of sweet potato to beans was a little off. Now, as a forward thinking young lady, instead of cutting back on the sweet potato goodness, I suggest doubling the amount of beans added to the recipe. Throw in as many beans as you want. It’ll be great – the more the merrier!

Secondly, I would probably add some corn. I like colorful foods and with the vivid orange of the sweet potatoes and the nice red of the tomato rice, some bright yellow corn would fit right in. I don’t think it’d challenge the sweetness of the sweet potatoes in a bad way. Instead, I imagine it adding a nice crispness to the dish. I mean, I haven’t tried it with corn yet, but it is something that I am itching to try.

Lastly, do not treat the chopped avocado as optional. This stuff is way more delicious with some amazingly beautiful and creamy avocado piled on top. For me, the more avocado the better (probably to a certain point, but I did not reach that point yet). I found that the green not only made the whole dish more colorful (which it did, yay!) but it also balanced well with the other textures and tastes. And who doesn’t love avocado?

The whole experience, from creation to digestion was great. I even got to learn that sweet potatoes come in two forms – a white/ivory variety which isn’t sweet so much as crumbly and creamy, and the sweet orange type. You need the sweet orange type for this dish. Sometimes they are labeled as “yams,” which is not true since they are dicots not monocots like real yams. Whatever they’re called, go for the orange kind. They are the key.

Happy eating!