Sweet Potato, Black Bean, and Quinoa Casserole

I have been having a really good eating week so far this week.  I am excited to be able to say that!  Last week was tough because of all the activities that I went to, and I think my body just went into detox mode because I have had no cravings for sugar, and no desire to eat my favorite junk food like chips.  Of course my head cold and seasonal allergies could also have something to do with it.  I've been so stuffed up that food doesn't have much taste anyway.  But I'm not going to let that spoil my good mood!

I discovered an intriguing casserole recipe on spark recipes this week.  After eating it for three nights in a row I have decided that I really like it because it is healthy, but it needs help on the spices.  The first night I thought it was a little bland, then the second night I thought the flavor of cumin was the only thing I could taste and I realized, that cumin was pretty much the only spice in this dish.  So on the third night I put some Tex Mex rub into it and it tasted so much better!  Next time I make it I will put the Pampered Chef Tex Mex rub into it instead of cumin and I think that will really pack a ton of flavor!


Super healthy casserole: only 204 calories per heaping cup full and only 3.4 grams of fat!  Now that is what I call a healthy casserole :-)   It has a sweet potato base instead of noodle base.  So you shred 2 sweet potatoes, cook 1/2 cup quinoa (so you have a total of 1 cup), shred 1 cup cheese, drain and rinse two cans of black beans and mix all that together.  (you are supposed to add 1 tbsp cumin but I say add any of your favorite Mexican seasonings or maybe a pouch of taco seasoning since with just the cumin the dish is a little bland) Then in a separate bowl combine 2 eggs with 1 cup salsa and mix together then pour over the sweet potato mixture.  Transfer all the ingredients into a greased 9x9 casserole dish and pop in the oven at 350 deg for 30 minutes and viola!  You are done.  The hardest and most time consuming part of this dish is shredding the sweet potatoes, so if you happen to have a shredder attachment for your kitchen aid it would immensely cut down on prep time for this dish. (seriously it took about 20 minutes for me to shred two large sweet potatoes.) Original recipe can be found on spark recipes HERE

And now for the pictures:

The first night I had some spinach that was about to go bad so I cooked it up in the frying pan until it got all wilty and ate it with vinegar.  I sure like vinegar so it tasted great to me.... I hadn't made cooked spinach since.... well... I've never made cooked spinach.  I haven't eaten it since I lived at home with my Mom and my Mom made me eat it!  The second night I cooked up some asparagus as a side dish.  I sure love asparagus!  I despise hollandaise sauce though.  I love to make my asparagus with olive oil and my favorite spice (Pampered Chef Crushed pepper and garlic rub) or grill it with olive oil and freshly ground sea salt!  I also like the thinner asparagus much better than the thicker, texture preference I think, but I do like both varieties.