Ingredients:
½ pound ground beef or turkey
2 Tablespoons taco seasoning
½ cup tomato sauce (usually I use a whole 8 oz can)
1 can (15 oz.) black, kidney, or pinto beans, drained (I'm usually a huge fan of black beans in things like this, but this time I opted for kidney and LOVED it)
6 cups sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (I used 4+ cups - filled up my large liquid measuring cup - which came from one biggish and one smallish sweet potato)
2 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups chopped fresh spinach (didn't have any, but I didn't let that stop me from making it)
1½ cups shredded cheddar cheese
tortillas, sour cream, salsa, fresh cilantro, and/or guacamole for garnish
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425ºF. (I actually had it a little lower - more like 380 or so and cooked it a bit longer because I got it into the oven a bit earlier than I needed to)
Brown ground meat in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in taco seasoning, tomato sauce, and beans. Set aside.
Spray a 9x13 inch casserole dish with non-stick spray. Place sweet potato cubes in the pan and top with the butter and a sprinkle of salt. This is where you'd add the spinach if you had it, but if you don't, it's still darn yummy. Then add the taco meat and bean mixture and the cheese (but next time I'm debating about whether I'll skip the cheese at this step and just add it at the end with the garnishes). Cover with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are tender.
The original recipe assembled everything in foil packets: To assemble packets, spray the foil with non-stick spray. Place 1 cup sweet potato cubes in the center of each piece. Top with a small piece of butter (about 1 teaspoon) and a pinch or two of salt. Sprinkle some chopped spinach over the sweet potatoes, followed by about 1/3 cup of taco meat and a sprinkle of cheese. Fold the sides in, then bring the top and bottom ends of the foil together in the center and fold, sealing the packet.
Repeat with remaining ingredients, placing the packets on a rimmed cookie sheet. Bake as above. I thought this might make a great campfire meal idea - with or without the tortilla.
Serve in a tortilla with sour cream, salsa and a few sprigs of fresh cilantro. And guacamole if you have some.
Makes 6 servings.
Notes:
This may be my fastest turnaround from seeing a recipe to saving it (on Pinterest, of course) to making and eating it to photographing and blogging it. All done in just about a day and a half! And that's saying something. I'm really on a sweet potato kick at the moment, so whenever I see a recipe doing something creative with them, I get really excited. And this one was really, really great. A keeper, for sure. Especially with homemade tortillas, as seen in the photo above (only because we didn't have any from the store, but now I wonder if I'll ever go back!).
Update:
I've made this multiple times now - we LOVE it! I even tried it in the crock pot recently and it worked like a charm. I did up the sweet potatoes to 3 medium sized (probably closer to that 6 cups of cubed sweet potato that the original recipe calls for, but I'm not totally sure because I didn't actually measure). I also added a whole can (1 cup) of tomato sauce to the meat/bean mixture just because I didn't want to have a half can sitting in my fridge and then going moldy (that's what happened last time). It was perfect. Still haven't tried it with spinach, but I think it would be wonderful. Black or kidney beans are my usual choices. And I don't add cheese in the oven/crock pot (I did the first time, but ever since nope) - I just sprinkle some on top as garnish in my taco shell.
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