Here is last night’s dinner.

I had a sweet potato to use up and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. Make fries? Too boring. Add it to a pot of chili? Too time consuming. I had a hunch that I should mash it, but sweet potatoes by themselves are not the most exciting thing to eat. Sure, I could add some spices, but still it did not seem so appealing to me.

My inspiration for this dinner came from my obsession with wraps. Lately I have been eating wraps every day. I love them! They are so awesome for so many things and great when you are sick of sandwiches or bread. For breakfast I often have a wrap with some kind of nut butter (peanut, cashew or almond) and apple butter and fruit. For lunch I usually have a Garden Veggie Wrap with Hummus, to get in the veggies, so I figured why not wraps for dinner?

I decided to make burritos! This recipe is similar to my recipe for enchiladas (that I have yet to post) made with spinach and black beans, chili powder, lemon juice and pasta sauce, with salsa in place of the pasta sauce and the addition of mashed sweet potato. Suddenly the once plain sweet potato was made completely delicious and I can now say that I have found a way to eat wraps for every meal of my day.

Sweet Potato Black Bean and Spinach Burritos

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Wraps –

• large or small whole grain tortillas
• romaine lettuce leaves

Burrito Filling –

• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, pressed
• 2 handfuls fresh spinach
• 1 (540 ml) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup frozen or canned corn
• 1 cup salsa of your choice (I use mild)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 3 teaspoons chili powder
• 3 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to boil, add the sweet potato chunks and boil for 10-15 minutes, until soft. Drain the cooked sweet potatoes, place them into a large mixing bowl and mash them until smooth.While the potatoes are boiling, heat the oil in a large wok on medium heat. Add the diced onion and pressed garlic and saute 5-8 minutes, until soft. Add the spinach and saute a few minutes more until the spinach is wilted. Add the black beans, corn, salsa, nutritional yeast, chili powder, lemon juice, paprika and salt and cook everything a few minutes more until the entire mixture is hot.

Remove from heat and add the spinach/bean mixture to the sweet potatoes in the large mixing bowl and mix until combined.

Place a leaf of romaine lettuce onto your tortilla and top with about 1/2 cup of the burrito mixture. Roll and eat.

The burrito filling is also great on its own, which is how Autumn preferred it. This recipe made enough for us to have leftovers for today’s lunch. You can choose to use larger tortillas or smaller ones, depending on how hungry you are feeling.

These days we have been feeling a bit more relaxed and have been spending a great deal of time reading. The girls got so many books for Christmas that Autumn’s face is never not in a book. Even at night when they are already tucked into bed I often see a bit of light under her door, as she turns on her lamp and tries to sneak a bit of extra time to read. Sometimes I even hear her sneak downstairs to grab some more books to read. When she wakes up in the morning, there are always books in the bed with her. These memories are so precious to me.

She also lost two more bottom teeth in the past two weeks!

Just another reminder to me that everything in life is impermanent and nothing lasts forever.