Here is a fresh, lower calorie twist on Sweet Potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows. Whoever says you can't serve avocados hot needs to be uninvited to your holiday parties.
Cipollini onions are by far, my favorite onion to eat. Maybe not so much as my favorite to work with because they are small and peeling them individually takes a minute, but they soooo freaking work it!!! They are great for roasting or braising so it makes them are perfect addition to this dish to sweeten it up a bit instead of marshmallows.
Recipe
4 each Sweet Potatoes, skin on, sliced 1/2" thick
8oz Cipollini Onions, cut in 1/2
2tbs Flat Leaf Italian Parsley, rolled tight and sliced fine
2tbs Avocado Oil
1 each Avocado, add more if you're a really big fan
6 each Figs, only soft & ripe, otherwise skip them
Sea Salt, Course
What To Do
First, fire up your oven to 425f. Then, pull out every single pot & pan looking for that casserole baking dish that you used last year, once. Use a light coating of pan spray on the casserole dish to prevent your food from sticking to it and having to scrub it for an hour.
Next, wash your sweet potatoes in the sink and then cut them on a clean cutting board with a large sharp knife. Cut them cross-wise about 1/2" thick. Keeping all the slices the same thickness will help with cooking all the pieces evenly. It helps to have both shoes on too. If you only wear one shoe, your slices will be crooked.
When I prepared the cipollini onions in the picture above, I cut them in a variety of ways to change up the experience while eating this dish. Some I cut top to bottom and others sliced across their equator. You can them all the same or change it up, but keep the sizes very similar, again so they cook evenly.
Evenly shingle the sliced sweet potatoes in your lightly sprayed casserole dish. Add the onions evenly over the top of the potatoes. Drizzle the avocado oil over all of the vegetables and even season with coarse sea salt. I say course because it's much easier to feel, see and control how much you are using. The fine salts tend to have less control and become very potent. Remember, you can always add more salt, so start light and add more because once it's in there, there is no turning back.
For the Figs, you can use any varietal that is in season, available and ripe. Green, Black, Brown, it really doesn't matter. I prefer to slice them because they can be so pretty inside. Especially when they are soft and ripe and the sugars inside are really dense. You can add these to the dish when you take it out of the oven after the potatoes are cooked through, about 30 minutes. If you would like to melt in more of the flavor into the dish, add them on top of the potatoes and return the dish to the oven for another 10 minutes.
Last, cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Cut each half in half again and remove the skin by peeling it back from top to bottom away from the pulp. Dice the avocado and drop it on top of the sweet potato and figs. I strongly suggest seasoning each dice with a little salt on top to cut through that rich healthy fat in the avocado.
Comments