Sweet Potato Torta with Dijon Creme

Here is a tease for the recipe to be found later in the post.  It was a pure comfort food dish and we both liked it . :-)

Tuesday afternoon:

For some reason when the humidity is high and it is cold the damp chill seems to go right through me. Just like yesterday there doesn’t seem to enough hot green tea in the house to keep me warm today.

Mid afternoon snack:

After I made another batch of fat free hummus this afternoon I was craving it. I grabbed a good amount of hummus and sliced half a cucumber for my afternoon snack.

Dinner:

This idea started out as lasagna and ended up as a torta. Since we had flour the last two weeks when going out to eat I wasn’t too keen on the idea of using it tonight in lasagna. I decided to thinly slice sweet potatoes on the mandoline and use those to separate the layers instead. Here is what I made for dinner:

Sweet Potato Torta with a light Dijon Creme  (pictured above)
Serves 4

Ingredients:

½ cup raw cashews (soak for two hours and drain if not using a high powered blender)
¼ cup oats (pregrind into flour first if not using a high powered blender)
1 ½ cup water
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed (allow to stand 10 minutes so allicin can develop)
1 ½ tablespoons Dijon (or to taste, I added it ½ tablespoon at a time)
2 small or 1 large sweet potato, thinly sliced on a mandoline
14 ounces extra firm tofu, drained and squeezed dry
1 clove garlic, peeled
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons brown rice flour (any flour will work)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the creme sauce combine the cashews, oats, water and garlic in your blender and process until smooth. Pour this into a sauce pan and cook on low whisking until it begins to thicken. Add Dijon to taste and then keep the sauce warm until it is time to assemble the lasagna.

Combine the drained tofu, garlic, dry mustard and flour in your food processor and process until smooth.

Slice the sweet potato very thinly on your mandoline.
 
Place a little of the creme sauce into the bottom of a loaf pan. Top with sliced sweet potatoes, tofu and then more cream sauce. Continue layering ending with cream sauce. Cover the top with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour. Test to see if the sweet potatoes are tender by piercing the lasagna with a paring knife. If you get not resistance the sweet potatoes are tender.

I baked the dish uncovered for 15 minutes to help the dish set. Ideally you will wait 20 minutes before slicing this and plating (so that it has a chance to firm up a bit).

I served this with walnut parmesan on top.

Nutritional Information (without the walnut parmesan):

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 227.6
Calories From Fat (42%) - 96.57

Total Fat - 11.56g
Saturated Fat - 1.54g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 101.39mg
Potassium - 374.81mg
Total Carbohydrates - 20.93g
Fiber - 2.81g
Sugar - 2.66g
Protein - 13.89g

Comments:

This dish has a subtle flavor, which was intentional. I wanted to make something that was pure comfort food. It needed the walnut parmesan to bump up the flavor but I think this was quite good. We both enjoyed it and could have eaten double this amount but decided to show a bit of restraint.

You could also make this with whole wheat pasta in addition to the sweet potatoes but you will need a larger pan as any more in my loaf pan would have gone over the side while baking since tofu expands when it cooks.

To accompany the torta I made a simple salad of romaine, Roma tomato, avocado and red wine vinegar.

Breakfast this morning:

We woke up this morning to a 48 degree day. Brrrr. Needless to say Dan wanted oatmeal this morning rather than a smoothie and I can’t say I blamed him.

While Dan got ready to leave for work I packed his lunch of leftover chili topped quinoa, a simple salad of shaved cucumber, shaved carrot, diced tomato, and minced parsley topped with the Dijon, red wine vinegar and stevia, frozen grapes and trail mix. No I didn’t make fresh veggie and fruit juice this morning. *rolls eyes*. I really need to get back to doing that everyday. *shakes head*

After exercising I decided to make myself a small bowl of quinoa topped with the end of the chili. I wanted something warm this morning and not oatmeal. This was accompanied with a double green tea with ascorbate C.

I am feeling the urge to cook returning.  Hopefully I will have time to post a new recipe later today.  I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday.