Twice Baked Creamy Sweet Potatoes

Sometimes, I go forwards with meal planning and other times, I go backwards.  This week, my weekly planning is down the drain.  I have not had time to even look and see what I had planned to make.  I do know there is a corn dish with goat cheese, I want badly to have and maybe, I can make it tomorrow.  In the morning, I made a zucchini dish and then I blankly looked at it and thought, it needs something with it.  The problem with a meatless meal….which is the main food.  In the end, I remembered, I had 5 sweet potatoes that had better be used and used soon.

The result was this interesting dish from allrecipes.com.  As soon as I read the ingredients, I was racing to the kitchen to take out the sweet potatoes, cream cheese and brown sugar.  I have never made a sweet potato dish with cream cheese but could imagine it, especially with the brown sugar.

A few years ago, I discovered savory sweet potatoes.  I am from that generation that made mashed sweet potatoes with a marshmallow topping.  I loved it then but now, it appears to be much too sweet and gooey.  I hopped over to the savory side with a salad and my sweet potato dishes changed.  The mild sweetness of the potato plays well against savory flavors.

Now, I have “normalized” and eat sweet potatoes both ways and I like them either sweet or savory.  Give me a sweet potato any day.

Twice Baked Creamy Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

2 sweet potatoes 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened (whipped) 1/3 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/3 cup chopped walnuts I left out the walnuts because I had a quick bread, in the oven baking with nuts.  I didn’t want another nutty dish.

Directions

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F .
2.	Rub sweet potato skins with  oil. Wrap potatoes in aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, or until soft. (Now, I admit, I took shortcuts.  I microwaved the potatoes which meant they were softer than if baked.  I also microwaved them for the second baking.  Time was short.)
3.	Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine cream cheese, brown sugar, vanilla, salt and pepper.
4.	Cut potatoes in half and scoop flesh into the bowl with the other ingredients.  Spoon mixture into potato skins.
5.	Bake for 5 minutes, or until heated through.

Check out Frugal Follies        Cast Party Wednesdays    Friday Food