Cajun Sweet Potatoes

I’ve been working from home since the middle of March and have enjoyed making fresh breakfasts and the luxury of being able to prep in advance for evening meals. But one area I’ve struggled with is lunchtimes. By this point I’m well into my working day and don’t want to get distracted by having to spend time making another meal from scratch, or turning my kitchen into a mess. And while I could always have a sandwich and a bag of crisps, these aren’t healthy options and can soon breed bad habits.

Jamie Oliver’s 5 ingredients book is handy for knocking-up decent meals with minimal effort. Cajun Sweet Potatoes may take an hour to cook, but you can simply leave them in the oven to roast while you focus on more important things. Prep time is just 10 minutes – perfect to enable a stress-free lunchtime. Not only that, this meal was really flavoursome but the anti-garlic police may want to use less garlic cloves than the recommended full bulb.

By the way, if you’re looking for a cracking recipe that uses sweet potatoes, look no further than penang chicken and sweet potato curry. So, sooo good, and a brilliant ‘date night’ option.

Recipe: Cajun Sweet potatoes

Calories: 346 per portion

Serves: 2

Book: Jamie Oliver – 5 ingredients

Prep time: Approx 10 minutes

Cooking time: Approx 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 4 sweet potatoes (250g each)
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 1 heaped teaspoon Cajun spice
• 200ml Greek yoghurt
• 4 spring onions
• Olive oil
• Red wine vinegar
• Sea salt
• Black pepper

Cost per portion: Approx £0.83

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F / gas 4.

Quickly scrub the sweet potatoes clean, then slice into 3cm rounds. Place in a 25cm x 30cm roasting tray with the whole unpeeled garlic bulb and toss with 1 tablespoon each of olive oil and red wine vinegar, a pinch of sea salt and black pepper and the Cajun spice. Arrange in a flat layer and roast for 1 hour, or until soft, gnarly and caramelized.

Once done, squeeze all the soft, sweet, creamy, mild roasted garlic out of the skins into the yoghurt, mash together, then taste and season to perfection. Trim and finely slice the spring onions. Spoon the yoghurt across a plate or platter, stack the sweet potato on top, drizzle with ½ a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle over the spring onions, then dish up.