potato — Blog — Nikki Dinki Cooking

The 4^th of July is just around the corner and that means fun, frolicking, and most importantly FOOD. Most years I find myself making sweet treats for my niece Lucy, as her birthday falls on the 4th. We all like to gather in Fire Island to celebrate as we sing happy birthday and watch the fire works.

To say Lucy loves dessert is an understatement, so I always try my best to put a smile on her sweet little sugar addicted face and make her some incredible treats. No matter what you are making this July 4^th it should be easy, should make people smile and if it happens to also be red white and blue than even better. So here are some of my favorite July 4^th recipes that will make your weekend that much more sweet.

Red, White + Blue Sangria by Crista at Peace.Love.Quinoa

Let’s start this 4th of July with fizzy and refreshing white wine sangria's! In this recipe she finishes her sangria off with sparkling water; I think I'm going to skip that part and finish it with some bubbly champagne! The best part about sangria is you can use whatever wine, fruit and juice you like.

"We're NUMBER ONE! We're NUMBER ONE!"

This is the chant of sweet potatoes everywhere...

What the heck does this mean? It means that the CSPI ranked all vegetables giving them points for things like Vitamin A and fiber and deducting points for saturated fats and refined sugars. And the sweet potato ranked NUMBER ONE with a score of 184!!

It outscored the next highest vegetable by more than 100 points!!

But when you smother this nutritional dense vegetable with butter and sugar it turns a once all-star food into something not quite so good for you. So...why not add just a touch of sugar, some super vibrant spices and some greek yogurt for creaminess?!

Sounds pretty good doesn't it? ;)

RECIPE:

5 lbs sweet potatoes

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4tsp nutmeg

1/8tsp cloves

2tsp Salt

1/4 cup honey

2Tbs Dark brown sugar

2 egg

2 container Oiko Greek Yogurt - Plain

Pecans and dried cranberries to top

Cut sweet potatoes into 1/2inch to 1inch cubes. Steam until soft, about 15minutes and mash or puree potatoes. Add spices, salt, honey, sugar, eggs and greek yogurt, and stir to combine. Pour mixture into a baking pan and bake for 40-50minutes at 350 until top is slightly brown. Top with pecans and cranberries and bake for another 5 minutes. Serve hot and ENJOY!