Kitchen Sink Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

This past Friday night, after a particularly hectic week, I found myself with nothing planned for dinner. I decided to use up some ingredients I had in the pantry, including my old standby, the sweet potato. What started out as a quickly thrown together meal ended up being really delicious, and something I'll definitely make again.

Sweet potatoes really are the perfect food: easy to make, versatile, hearty, and healthy, with the ideal balance of sweet and savory flavors. Their sticky-sweet nature holds up really well to Tex-Mex ingredients like salsa and cumin, and that's where I went with this dish.

Serves 4

4 sweet potatoes
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth (optional)
1 to 3 tsp. cumin (more or less to taste - I like tons of cumin)
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 can)
1 can Rotell tomatoes and chilis, or  1 to 1 1/2 cups of mild salsa, or 1 cup of diced tomatoes
1 avocado, diced
Hot sauce (to taste)

1. Bake sweet potatoes, either in the oven or in the microwave. 
2. While potatoes are cooking, rinse quinoa and prepare according to package directions. Use vegetable broth instead of water for added flavor. 
3. Once quinoa is cooked, add cumin and stir for a minute. Add beans and Rotell (or salsa or diced tomatoes), and stir to combine. Stir over low heat until heated through.
4. Cut cooked sweet potatoes length-wise, without cutting bottom skin. Squeeze open and stuff with quinoa-rice mixture. 
5. Top each stuffed potato with 1/4 of the diced avocado and hot sauce to taste. 
6. Enjoy! 

This dish was a surprise hit with the fam and was even better heated up the following day for lunch.