Meatless Monday: Stuffed Sweet Potato Mexi Boats

 

I am counting down the days, hours and minutes until school is over. Like, forever.

Well, technically not forever since I am a teacher now and will hopefully have a job come September as a substitute teacher. So technically I’ll be in school for life. But – I am still super excited that I will no longer be the student.

Honestly, I’ve spent my entire life in school as s student and I am quite done with assignments, readings, homework and presentations. This week I have a math play to present – yes, a play about a math equation. A three-digit subtraction equation. No joke. It’s supposed to be 20 minutes long and I am seriously unsure of how we will stretch the play out that long. We also have to watch everyone else’s plays, for a four hour class. Only 13 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes….

However, in the meantime I’ve been keeping my weekends quite busy and pre-occupying myself with summer in all its glory. Monday – Friday it’s school and homework, but I check out on the weekends. We went to Prince George a week ago to pick up the new Jeep, then this past weekend I had baseball provincials (we didn’t place, but it was fun!), and then we also headed down to the states for the weekend with a friend of mine from the Island to hang out at Adam’s family’s vacation place near Mount Baker.

 

As if I don’t have enough baseball already, another friend messaged me late last night saying they were down the road watching the Women’s Canada Cup where Canada and Australia were playing for the finals. The game didn’t start until 9:30 pm, and it ended at 11:45. I think I packed as much into this past weekend as was humanly possible.

And now it’s Monday. More importantly, it’s Meatless Monday.

Another super easy, delicious and meatless meal idea for your week.

I had seen this post for stuffed grilled sweet potatoes and I knew I had to make them. I did try to grill them, however apparently I have no idea how to start our new infrared BBQ and Adam wasn’t around to help so I skipped that step. I want it known I did attempt several times to light it up but for some reason I wasn’t sure if it was actually lit or not, and instead of having a ton of propane in the air I opted for not grilling. Oh well – they are just as delicious, and it’s one less step.

You can do this whole recipe in the microwave, which is great because it’s super hot out and having an oven on at 400 degrees is just not an option these days. They are delicious – and make great leftovers for the next day.

 Stuffed Sweet Potato Mexi Boats

vegan (leave off shrimp) vegetarian, wheat-free, dairy-free *serves 4*

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sized sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup tricolour quinoa, uncooked
• 1 cup water
• chili powder
• green onions
• avocado
• 1 large red pepper
• 1 can black beans
• 2 limes

Directions:

1. in small pot add the 1/2 cup uncooked quinoa and 1 cup of water, bring to boil over high heat then reduce to low and cover for 15 minutes. Remove from heat.
2. While quinoa is cooking, wash and pierce the sweet potatoes. Place on plate and microwave on ‘potato’ setting for 10-15 minutes, until cooked throughout. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. Wash and drain the black beans and add to medium sized bowl.
4. Chop the red pepper into small pieces and place in bowl with black beans.
5. Once quinoa has finished cooking, add to black beans and red pepper, mix together. Sprinkle with chili powder as much or as little as you like.
6. Cut sweet potato in half lengthwise so you have four halves. Take out a small portion of the middle and set aside (you can eat it like mashed sweet potato, or set aside and refrigerate to use in smoothies, etc)
7. Top the sweet potato with the quinoa/black bean/red pepper mixture.
8. Dice the avocado and chop the green pepper and place on top of quinoa mixture.
9. Serve with sliced lime, sprinkle on top.

If you want to add some more protein to it, I cooked some prawns in lime juice over medium heat and placed them on top.