World Vegetarian Day: Georgia’s roasted sweet potato recipe with seasonal vegetables

Since it’s World Vegetarian Day this week, I thought I’d share a recipe from Green Valley Kitchen, that’s made from seasonal vegetables. It’s colourful, healthy and will definitely get your taste buds tingling! These roasted sweet potatoes stuffed with quinoa and spinach make for a flavourful autumn dish, perfect for work lunches, a snack or an entrée. The thing that stood out the most about this dish are the many health benefits. I love nothing more than a super tasty dish, that’s also good for me! Sweet potatoes are a rich source of fibre, containing a good array of vitamins and minerals. They are also packed with beta carotene which has anti-inflammatory benefits, helps to boost your immune system and promotes healthy skin and eyes. The quinoa and pecans are also a great boost of protein. An added bonus with this dish is that sweet potatoes and spinach are in season here in the UK. This means they’ll taste better, they’re fresher with a higher nutritional value, they avoid overseas pollution and they’re more environmentally-friendly. Discover which seasonal vegetables you can plant this autumn here. A helpful tip to keep in mind when whipping up this dish is instead of roasting the sweet potatoes whole cut them in half instead. This will make it a lot easier to tell when the sweet potatoes are cooked, plus they cook a lot faster this way.

World Vegetarian Day: Georgia’s roasted sweet potato recipe with seasonal vegetables

Recipe

Makes 4 Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 40 mins Total time: 50 mins

Nutrition

Calories – 275 Sugar – 9.1g Fat – 11.7g Saturated Fat – 2.6g Carbohydrates – 37.3g Fibre – 5.9g Protein: 7.5g

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized sweet potatoes
• 6 cups of baby spinach – roughly chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic – minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups of cooked quinoa
• 1/4 cup of pecan pieces
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1 to 2 ounces feta cheese – diced
• A sprinkling of black pepper
• A pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 2. Slice the sweet potatoes evenly in half, lengthways. Coat them with some olive oil and place face down on a lined baking tray. 3. Roast the sweet potatoes for 30 to 40 minutes until they are soft. 4. You can use pre-cooked quinoa. Or if you’d prefer to cook the quinoa yourself, prepare 1/2 cup as per the package instructions. I usually cook quinoa in vegetable broth for extra flavour. 5. While the sweet potatoes are roasting, add olive oil to a large sauté pan, over a medium heat. Add the garlic and half the spinach and cook until wilted. Then add the rest of the spinach to the pan and cook until it’s wilted – this should take about 4 minutes. Then remove from the heat. 6. Stir the cooked quinoa, pecans, cranberries, black pepper and salt into the spinach mixture. 7. Add the feta into the quinoa spinach mixture and gently mix. 8. When the sweet potatoes are ready, remove from the oven and let them cool slightly. Check that they are properly cooked – they should be soft and indent slightly when squeezed. If they aren’t done, put them back in the oven for an extra 5 to 10 minutes. 9. Let the sweet potatoes cool slightly so they are easy to handle. With a small spoon, gently press down on the centre of the sweet potatoes to create a small indentation that is the length of the sweet potato. 10. Spoon the quinoa and spinach mixture evenly over sweet potatoes and serve. 11. Dig in! Are you planning on making any scrumptious meals to celebrate World Vegetarian Day? What are your favourite seasonal vegetables to cook with? Let us know in the comments below! You might also love our warming, vegetarian squash soup recipe.