Sweet Potato Archives - Strength and Sunshine

Ginger Glazed Purple Sweet Potato Doughnuts (Gluten-Free, Allergy-Free, Vegan, Paleo)

April 10, 2017 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 140 Comments

No more beige donuts! These healthy Ginger Glazed Purple Sweet Potato Doughnuts are gluten-free, allergy-free, vegan, and paleo! A creative and fun recipe to try for breakfast, dessert, or an afternoon snack!

Yes, yes I did! From purple sweet potato pancakes to tots and gnocchi. Just normal sweet potato doughnuts didn’t cut it for me! These pretty little baked gluten-free doughnuts are about to make your day (they’ve already made mine!) There is always something so special about purple food. You can never be frowning when you’re eating something purple 😉 No one is going to want your typical beige doughnut any longer! Trust me!Read More

Cinnamon Sweet Potato Doughnuts

September 19, 2016 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 167 Comments

A perfect Fall breakfast or dessert recipe for baked Cinnamon Sweet Potato Doughnuts! Gluten-free, grain-free, vegan, & paleo, these doughnuts have all the healthy superfood nutrition of the delicious sweet potato and nothing else!

Storytime! This is another recipe from the long “to post” folder. However, this one has quite a unique story behind its creation. It’s from last year, but since we’re in the beginning stages of FALL EVERYTHING season, some comforting sweet potato doughnuts seemed fitting! (Sorry, not pumpkin, but still good!) This is one of those recipes that was “saved” and if you know my way of cooking, baking, and thinking, there is no such thing as failures!Read More

Spiralized Sweet Potato Crust Veggie Pizza

May 16, 2016 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 142 Comments

A spiralized sweet potato crust veggie pizza that redefines the definition of veggie pizza! A filling and nutritious healthy pizza that is all vegetable, making it gluten-free, vegan, paleo, grain-free and a perfect twist on the traditional pizza night pie!

I told you last week that I had more to share! So I’m officially declaring May, not only Celiac Awareness Month, but also PIZZA Month! You should smile; it’s a good thing! I also think it’s a mighty fine way to beckon late spring and summer to us. Pizza is surely not seasonal. You can make a seasonal pie, but let’s be honest. There is never ever a bad time to bake up a pie!

This veggie pizza was long overdue for sharing here on the blog. I believe it’s from last summer, so we’ve come full circle! It’s a little sad that I’ve let this one slip for so long. We need to spiralize more! Confession time: I don’t use my spiralizer much. Maybe once every few months? I know…shame.

It’s even in a very easily accessible place (unlike my slow cooker), right in a bottom cabinet with where extra food, protein powders, my falling apart toaster oven, and rice cooker live. But it sadly stays there (crying in the darkness!) Using it for pizza is one of the best ways to show it some love though. If I was a spiralizer, I’d want to be used to make pizza! This is one awesome pizza to boot! It may just be making the cassava crust jealous!

You know what my favorite thing about this spiralized pizza is? Single-serve! Why of course! I know some people find it hard to call any pizza anything but “single-serve” 😉 I know the “pie love” can run pretty deep at times! Did you know there are actually some people who don’t like pizza!? I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. I recall this one lone child I went to school with, who said he hated pizza :O That’s pretty attuned with hating chocolate. A life without pizza is like a life without bagels (but worse!)

But there’s no pizza-haters here…right? Okay good, I’m glad we can all be friends. I understand some people having strong topping preferences, but hating the entire pizza culture? Unimaginable! That kid must have had some sad birthday parties…haha! And isn’t pizza such a typical college food? What must he be eating? I have one more mind blowing tidbit about this though that will blow your pizza-loving mind further.

His parents owned one of the most popular pizza places in our town :O I know! That kid hated pizza and grew-up in a PIZZA family…the definition of a pizza family! I don’t know how that happens. He was always pretty proud of his pizza-hating and never minded the stares he would get as he so boisterously told his preferences. You know what this means though? More pizza for us! The pizza-loving people of the world!

Spiralized Sweet Potato Crust Veggie Pizza

Spiralized Sweet Potato Crust Veggie Pizza

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Cook time

15 mins

Total time

15 mins

Author: Rebecca Pytell

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: American, Italian

Serves: 1

Ingredients

1 Large Sweet Potato (spiralized with 3mm Blade)
3 Baby Radishes (sliced)
3 Large Brussels Sprouts (quartered)
3 Large Bell Pepper Rings
2 Flax Eggs (mix 2 TB Milled Flax Seed + 6 TB Water, let sit.)
1-2 TB Nutritional Yeast
Sauce:
2 TB Unsalted Tomato Paste
1 Tsp Dried Oregano
½ Tsp Minced Garlic
½ Tsp Onion Powder
½ Tsp Dried Marjoram
½ Tsp Dried Basil
¼ Tsp Black Pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Mix the spiralized sweet potato with the flax egg mixture, using you hands (be gentle).
Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.
Grease a 9 inch round baking dish, cast iron skillet, or baking sheet lined with parchment or silpat, and place the spirlized potato in the center and form a tight circle shape.
Spoon on the sauce on top of the pizza crust, then layer on the veggies and sprinkle on the nutritional yeast.
Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes. Use a spatula to gentle remove onto a plate.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 1

Now, this pizza is obviously more “fork-friendly” than, slice and eat with you hands. But if you want to get messy..use your hands 😉 I’m sure you know that’s what I do! I fully embrace the pizza culture in every way I possibly can!

**I get asked all the time, so THIS is the spiralizer you want to buy if you still don’t have one!**

So tell me:

+ Do you know any pizza-haters?

+ How often do you use your spiralizer?

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Purple Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies

December 16, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 148 Comments

No need to decorate these sugar cookies! Purple Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies are naturally purple, gluten-free, vegan, and sugar-free! You would never know that these thick & soft cookies are secretly healthy and loaded with fun!

Are you one of those sugar cookie people? I have a lot of mixed feelings about sugar cookies and I’m not sure where I fall on the love or indifference spectrum. You see, in my mind, there are 3 types of sugar cookies. Those famous soft thick bakery sugar cookies with frosting (seem more like discs of cake though), the soft chewy ones you make at home to decorate for various holidays, or those not soft, sad, no flavor, gross kind of sugar cookies that kids would bring in on there birthdays in elementary school since their mom thought it was a “healthier” choice than cupcakes.

You see, I have a lot of expectations and assumptions about what a good sugar cookie should be if I’m going to put that thing in my mouth. It has to be soft, chewy and have flavor. For get crunchy sugar cookies. That is the worst cookie that could be made crunchy. Ack! My number one though, is it must have flavor! It’s hard to place a sugar cookies flavor. Yes, the vanilla extract and the sweet sugar, but those are rather bland if that’s all you have. But I’ve been feeling a bit in need of a sugar cookie after so many of you told me those were your favorite cookie of the season.

Many of you said the reason for this festive favorite was more for that fact that you get to whip out all the cookie decorations. Frosting, gels, sprinkles, glitter, etc. Well sure, that’s a great way to play up so boring neutral colored black slate cookies. BUT, if you just want a sugar cookies, a nice soft, flavorful sweet bite, without any more fuss, and would also be perfect anytime of year, then I have your solution right here my friends! I can’t really keep it a secret either, you can tell from the title, and the color of these sweet delights.

That’s right! The Purple Sweet Potato is back again! With the very few I’ve gotten so far this year, I’ve been holding myself back from just eating them straight, and trying to save them for fun recipes instead. (It’s hard…very hard!) Cookies seemed like a great use to reward that forced hoarding and appease the random sugar cookie craving I felt. Plus I think these will be a new favorite sugar cookie for you too. No need for decorations since the magic is right in the potato. This is when letting the natural ingredient shine becomes that sage advice.

These purple sweet potato sugar cookies are also NOT bland. They are naturally sweet from the magic that is a Stokes Purple Sweet, plus the lovely stevia syrup and my favorite baking erythritol to coat these bad boys in. So they’re actually sugar-free, wooo what!? Nor are they bland on festive color (is purple festive?). I guess purple can be festive for any holiday, right? Just a fun color for Christmas, a lucky color for New Years, eh, we’ll make it work! I do know that these are my new favorite sugar cookies. So soft, thick, and uniquely flavored, and they really are sweet! Sugar cookie conundrum no more! This girl is a PURPLE sugar cookie fan through and through, and you will be too 😉

Purple Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies

Purple Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies

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Author: Rebecca Pytell

Recipe type: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

½ Cup Arrowroot Starch
½ Cup Millet Flour
2 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Packed Cup Purple Sweet Potato Mash*
2 TB Stevia Syrup
½ Tsp Pure Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract
¼ Cup Unsweetened Non-Dairy Milk (I used almond)
¼ Cup Erythritol

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375°F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the arrowroot, millet flour, baking powder, and potato mash. Mash everything together with a fork (your hands work better!) and knead into a well mixed dough.
Next, add the stevia syrup, vanilla, and milk. Knead again until all is well incorporated.
Prepare a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper. Pour the erythritol on a plate and set aside as well.
With the dough, form 8-10 balls with you hands, then flatten them a bit before fully coating each side in the erythritol and then placing on the baking sheet.
Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes (mine were done in 18). Remove and let cool.

Notes

Simply wash one large potato, make 2 slits in to the flesh, wrap in a damp paper towel and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Flip, and microwave another 3 minutes. Remove, slice open lengthwise and allow to cool a bit before scooping out the flesh.

The best gluten-free sugar cookies? Well, you know what I think, but you tell me after you make them yourself! I have a feeling these will make any sugar cookie lover or hater a fan, regardless! These cookies are everything you want and nothing that you don’t! So forget the bakery specials and crumbly bland school cookies, make these instead for any all all festive occasions and watch as smiles and joy fill the faces of everyone 🙂

Want more cookie? Try Soft Spiced Cocoa Pumpkin Cookies, Soft & Grainless Pumpkin Spice Latte Cookies, Soft & Chewy Ginger Cookies, Chocolate Candy Cane Crunch Cookies.

So tell me:

+ Are you a sugar cookie fan?

+ If you were a cookie, what type of cookie would you be? You know, I think I’d be an oatmeal cookie. A bit misunderstood, an old soul, not the most polished, but once you get to know ’em, you fall in love!

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Purple Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Tahini Parsley Sauce

November 9, 2015 by Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine 189 Comments

You won’t believe how easy homemade gnocchi can be! With the stunning color of purple sweet potatoes and the taste of creamy tahini, this gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, and paleo recipe will blow everyone’s mind!

Can you handle it? Can you!? I couldn’t! I waited all year to get my hands on some Stokes Purple Sweets, just for this recipe! I actually tried making “conventional” sweet potato gnocchi this summer and it was a horrible mess. Normal orange sweet potatoes are too wet and really, I never eat them or even buy them anymore. My sweets must be of the much more dense variety, like the Japanese and the PSP. That texture and density makes for perfect gnocchi creation as well. Since PSPs have such a memorizing color, they were my potato of choice for this first time recipe creation of gnocchi!

Now, I’ve been dieing, I mean DIEING, to have gnocchi again. It used to be one of my favorite special foods as a kid. When I saw my mom picked up a frozen bag of potato gnocchi at the grocery, I would just be elated with excitement. Top those boiled babies with some ketchup and I was in pure potato-bliss! Then came Celiac Disease, a soy allergy, and a choice to be egg and diary free, and I was out of luck in the gnocchi department. Out of luck as long as I was stubborn and kept putting off just trying to make some myself. I’m really enjoying myself with creating homemade recipes of classic dishes (as you know), and again, I’m kicking myself for putting it off for far too long!

When I do make my own allergy-safe version of classic childhood dishes, I do so much research and recipe reading before hand. So for this recipe, I probably read just about every gnocchi post there is on the web. I was a bit dumbfounded as to why every recipe used so much flour! I’d though gnocchi was pretty much all potato, but I was wrong. I wanted to challenge that phenomenon and use much much less. I also wanted to make these allergy-free, so none of that paleo nut flour obsession. When I finally found myself with a perfect PSP and a sunny Friday afternoon with nothing to do, my perfect recipe experimentation produced one delicious success!

This recipe is so easy too. It only took me about triple the time it will take you because I had to photograph and I wanted to get some shots of the process too. My camera ended up with some purple “clothes” by the end, but it was worth it! I put together a cute little 6 step photo journey for you so you could see what each phase should look like (dough wise). Let’s take a look!

Fun stuff right!? Are you getting more excited? The first is of the dough which is just a large microwaved (yes, microwaved) and scooped out PSP flesh with arrowroot, then the rolled logs before cutting into the gnocchi pieces, then the cutting, then the cute fork marks, then a shot of after from the quick boiling you do, and finally the plated version! It really could not have been easier! Once you know what to do, I bet you’ll be making gnocchi at home rather frequently!

With such a fabulous gnocchi recipe, there had to be a fabulous saucy something to put on top. Since I know most of you aren’t as ketchup-obsessed as I, I decided to go with my second obsession with tahini! Tahini has that wonderful deep, savory, “nut” type of taste that just goes so well with just about everything. For me it’s also a potato topped must. If my potato isn’t topped with coconut butter, I top it with tahini. So mix some tahini with garlic, parsley, and some nondairy milk and you have the perfect gnocchi sauce!

Of course, you can top you gnocchi with anything your potato-loving heart desires. I never was fond of topping gnocchi is a tomato sauce though. I really have no recollection of ever doing so. It was always eaten either plain or with ketchup. I’m not really sure what the “traditional thing” is for topping gnocchi. Cheese? Sauce? I don’t know. You tell me in the comments though!

The tahini sauce did need something to brighten up that blank-slate taste though. Some garlic and fresh parsley seemed like the perfect palate please combo to do the job! I’m pretty sure I’ll just keep making this sauce for anything I eat as well. It’s so simple and delish and perfect for this lovely purple sweet potato gnocchi!

Purple Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Tahini Parsley Sauce

Purple Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Tahini Parsley Sauce

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You won't believe how easy homemade gnocchi can be! With the stunning color of purple sweet potatoes and the taste of creamy tahini with parsley and garlic, this gluten-free, vegan, nut-free, and paleo recipe will blow everyone's mind! An elegant dinner or date night dish!

Author: Rebecca Pytell

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: American

Serves: 2

Ingredients

Purple Sweet Potato Gnocchi:
1 Packed Cup Purple Sweet Potato Mash (from 1 large potato)
¼ Cup Arrowroot Starch
½ Tsp Xanthan Gum*
3 TB Water
Tahini Parsley Sauce:
2 TB Tahini
½ Tsp Minced Garlic
½ TB Fresh Minced Parsley
¼ Tsp Onion Powder
Dash of Black Pepper
2 TB Non-Dairy Milk or Water

Instructions

First, microwave your sweet potato until soft. Poke a few slits in it with a knife, wash, wrap in a paper towel and microwave for about 6-8 minutes.
Cut the potato in half lengthwise to allow it to cool before scooping out the flesh to get your 1 cup mashed.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the mashed potato, arrowroot, xanthan gum, and water. Use your hands to break it all up and knead into a dough ball.
Split the dough ball in half and then roll and form, with your hands, 2 logs (about 1 inch in diameter).
Then take a wet knife and slice ¼ inch rounds. Place the rounds on a plate, and take the back of a fork to the rounds to make some nice little indents (perfect for holding the sauce!)
Bring a large pot of water to a boil on the stove. In two batches, place the gnocchi in the boiling water and wait for them to float to the top. This will take about 1-2 minutes. Then scoop out with a slotted spoon and place in a colander.
Once all the gnocchi and boiled, rinse them in cold water, drain, then spread them out on a plate.
To make the sauce, combine all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and mix together.
Divide the gnocchi on to your plates, drizzle with the tahini sauce, and devour!

Notes

Most likely this will work without the bit of xanthan gum, but it gives you some "stick together" insurance.

That may seem like a lot of directions, but trust me, it’s super easy! And might I say, beyond delish! You practically only need potato! I think I was able to use such little “flour” since I used arrowroot which is such a great binder and absorber. It’s my go-to for gluten-free vegan baking and now gnocchi making too! Anyway, I’m super proud of this recipe and I really do hope you give it a shot! It will blow your little food allergy mind (promise!). If you do make it, make sure to share a photo and tag me @RebeccaGF666!

So tell me:

+ Do you just love gnocchi as much as me?

+ What the heck do you top your gnocchi with!?

*Recipe linking up for the week! Allergy Free Wednesdays, #RecipeOfTheWeek,#StrangeButGood, Real Food Friday, Gluten-Free Fridays, Tasty Tuesdays, Savoring Saturdays, Healthy Vegan Fridays, Tasty Tuesdays, Lena’s Tasty Tuesdays, Meatless Mondays, Waste Not Want Not!*