Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Ohhh Sugar & SPC

Sugar. I eat too much sugar. It's in the almond milk I drink. The cereal (Puffins, Honey Rice are awesome) I eat. It's in most of the sauces I use. And, of course, the desserts I make. For (one of) my New Years resolutions I will attempt to cut back on my sugar intake. Mind you, when I go grocery shopping and am purchasing processed foods, I always strive to buy foods whose sugar intake per serving is under ten grams, but that doesn't mean that I then eat one serving per day. I probably end up consuming thirty grams of sugar a day -- which is no good. Well, it's time for a change (I feel like I've been hearing that phrase a lot lately... weird). This recipe below -- SPC -- was my last super-sugary-side before attempting to cut the sugar. It was a good way to go...




Sweet potato casserole. The word casserole always conjures up the unppetizing to me: tuna casserole (warm tuna fish? yuck), green bean casserole (a buttery, fried mess), low-tide casserole (reminds me of, well, the smell of low tide -- in a dish -- covered with cheese). While those might all taste delightful, there's something about casserole that makes me wince. Mixing a bunch of ingredients together and creating something with the texture of soggy bread is what comes to mind. Maybe it's the relationship that fifties housewives had with casserole's and the opression that was put on those women to make casserole's and have babies that makes me angry. There I go -- off on a tangent, but this brings me back to the dish; it will be referred to by it's abbreviation: SPC.

INGREDIENTS
4 cups cooked sweet potato (I just zapped mine in the microwave until tender -- about 5 min per potato)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons Earth Balance (use butter if you can tolerate dairy)
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons Earth Balance
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix the sweet potato, sugar, eggs, margarine, almond milk and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Once combined, put in one of those dishes most people put casseroles in. Combine the brown sugar and pecans and cut in the margarine until the mixture is crumbly. Now, top the casserole (uh, I said it) with the mixture and bake for thirty minutes.

Holler.

1 comment:

Jack said...

We consume outrageous amounts of sugar as a society. It's off the charts vs. other countries. Diabetes and other maladies are affected by this. Reducing sugar intake is something I've tried and it's very hard to do because we've set our base level so high. I'm inspired by your plan!