Roasted sweet potato skins are perfect for the Fall and to celebrate Thanksgiving. Is it weird that I adopt foreign holidays and make them my favorite ones?
If I share my joy and delicious goodies with others it can’t be that bad right?
Right?
RIGHT?!
Pleeease let me just have THANKSGIVING!!
I can’t remember the first time I celebrated Thanksgiving, but it probably was at an American home, with lots of dishes and lots of people.. and probably in New York, in the Fall, with the beautiful Manhattan skyline and sunset coming in while we starved ourselves before a copious amount of food, the same food that we would stuff our faces with, thanking God and everything that brought us there and made it possible.
Yes, I have very strong feelings and heartfelt memories (both in my mind and stomach) about this holiday. And nothing and no one is going to change that. Except of course, increase those feelings.
With things like these:
*Drool*
This is my baby. It is the result of hours of research around Thanksgiving sides (can it be called research if I enjoyed it so much it felt as if I were eating the dishes I was looking at?). That and a little unleashing of my inner cheese-spirit. Because this dish is not only the caramelized beautiful veggies (cremini mushrooms, onions and Brussels sprouts), nor only the roasted-then-sautéed kabocha + sweet potato base… this dish lives because it has its sauce.
I didn’t know ricotta and truffled cheese could get along so well! And that they could bring others together into a magical experience of taste.
Ok. Let’s stop day-drooling. Here’s the recipe video for my Fall Harvest in Sweet Potato Skins experiment:
If you are one of those people that like simple things, you may just have caramelized Brussels sprouts — you may even go crazy and add some bacon bits to it. But I love not being simple, and recipes with long names, so these my friends is not your regular Thanksgiving side dish. It is a lot of them together in one! 
There are two serving options, as you can see: if you choose to go the way of sweet-potato skins, I’d recommend that you get reaaally big sweet potatoes. I started with medium-sized ones and couldn’t feature 1 of them because it was too small (I still ate it, just in secret! shh!).
So bowl it up, casserole it, either way I can assure you people will be talking about it ;).
What am I thankful for this year?
I’m thankful for Thanksgiving. For being able to call my best friend my “fiancé“. For my friends and family that put up with all this food-obsession gibberish. For my lovely and encouraging readers/viewers of course, and because this food blogging experience is growing into a bigger project. But most of all I’m thankful to be sharing goodness with others.
So share some goodness too! Tweet this out, pin it up, Snapchat it, Like it, etc. but above all: enjoy it!! 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving!!
Fall Veggies in roasted sweet potato skins
Ingredients
Squash base
- 2 big sweet potatoes
- 4 medium-sized sweet potatoes, skinless, cut into squares, roasted
- ½ of a kabocha squash, roasted, skinless, cut into squares,
- 4 tbsps olive oil to roast and sautée
Caramelized veggies
- 3 tbsps 3 tbsps butter (you might need more if you separate your veggies in different pans)
- 1 cup of cremini mushrooms
- 20 brussels sprouts
- ½ white or sweet onion
Sauce
- 3 tbsps of butter
- 6 garlic heads, chopped
- 6 tbsps of ricotta
- 2 tbsps of truffled, goat cheese
- ⅓ cup of water
- 1 tsps of thyme
- 1 tsps of sage
- ⅛ tsp of cardamom
- 1 tsp of salt
Instructions
- This dish takes four big steps:
1) Roast
- Roast the sweet potatoes two ways. A couple with their complete skins and another couple peeled and cut into squares. Make sure you poke them a little bit for the whole ones before putting them in the oven for 40 to 50 minutes at 375 °F. To save energy, you can roast your squashes or pumpkins simultaneously with the sweet potatoes.
- Once sweet potatoes are soft and mushy, let them cool down until they're at room temperature. Then, cut sweet potatoes in half and scoop out most of the sweet potatoes meat while leaving a thin layer of it inside. You can use this yummy scooped-out sweet potato and mix it with marshmallows or just butter and spices as a snack.
- When you have your bowls, put them on a baking sheet. Brush them a bit with olive oil, and then we'll stick them back in the oven for about 10 minutes. Now on to step 2.
2) Caramelization
- Caramelizing veggies make for the sweet-savory component of this dish. First, boil clean Brussels sprouts for five minutes and give them a cold shower. Then, chop them in half.
- Now, cut onions and mushrooms into big slices. Cook the veggies under medium heat to allow the sugars in them to caramelize steadily.
- Heat the skillet just into medium heat and melt some butter. Now, add the Brussels sprouts with their flat side down, without moving them. Let them brown for five minutes approximately. Then, add the mushrooms and wait five or so minutes between each stir.
- Depending on your pan's size, you can add the onions or cook them separately. Each round of veggies will take about 5 minutes to brown on medium heat. In the meantime, you can start doing step number three.
3) Sautée
- In a separate skillet with olive oil, mix the sweet potatoes and the squash until golden brown.
- Now that you got sautéed squashes and caramelized veggies, you'll need something that brings them together. That's why step number four is to create a creamy, cheesy spiced sauce.
4) Creamy, cheesy, and spiced sauce
- Add butter to a small pot. When it melts, add garlic and let it on medium heat for a couple of minutes or until golden brown.
- Now, add ricotta cheese and truffled goat cheese, and stir. Spice it up with some thyme, sage, cardamom, ground pepper, and salt. Finally, we'll also add a bit of water so that we have enough sauce.
- Let everything be on medium heat for some minutes so that all the flavors mix.
- To finish, mix everything in a bowl: the caramelized veggies, the sauce, the diced sweet potatoes, and the squash. Mix them well, and serve in the sweet potato skins. Top each serving with a scoop or two of creamy sauce, and it's done!
- Enjoy your fall veggies!
Video
Notes
If you liked this roasted sweet potato skins recipe, you might like some of my other recipes too.
And remember, if you try this recipe and want to share your pictures, tag me @lacooquette on Instagram. I’d love to share your pictures on my IG stories.
Note: We published this recipe originally on November 25, 2014. We shot the video about the same time, when we’re begginers. Still, the recipe is delicious :p
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