Today’s STM submission (complete with humorous tips and tricks!) comes from Mike Hollister, of Bellingham, WA. Mike completed his first Whole30 this summer, and writes:
“I completed my first 99% Whole 30 in June of this year. Even though I didn’t give up the heavy whipping cream in my coffee, I lost 10 lbs that had been rather stubborn; and more people noticed those 10 lbs than the 20 I’d lost prior to them. It was this month of eating clean that finally brought me to a place where I can look at bad food, anticipate how it’s going to make me feel, and choose to not eat it. My wife is fully on board with this style of eating and we’re slowly but surely transitioning our five children to a clean diet. My wife and I write about it, among other things, at www.righttomyopinion.blogspot.com.”
We understand today’s feature isn’t really a full “meal”, but we’ve decided to relax our guidelines a bit, and share any recipe that contributes in a significant way to your health and fitness. We think post-workout nutrition is paramount to optimal recovery, and Mike’s Whole30-approved recipe is a great way to prepare a week’s worth of PWO nutrition in an efficient manner. Don’t let the long cooking time deter you – the prep time is minimal (like, minutes), so they’ll bake while you putter around the house – perfect for a Sunday night. Pair a serving of Mike’s sweet potatoes with a lean protein source (like egg whites, chicken or salmon) and improve your recovery in a truly delicious way.
Steal This Meal: Post-Workout Sweet Potato Chews
Cast of Characters:
- Sweet potatoes. I thought these were yams, but apparently they are sweet potatoes. Whatever, I don’t really care. Just get the orange ones. The yellow ones don’t survive being baked and cooked.
- Cinnamon. I’ve read that it improves insulin sensitivity. It’s also delicious.
- Coconut oil. It imparts a subtle coconut taste that rounds out the flavor of the sweet potato in a truly marvelous way.
Now Do This:
- First, you have to bake the sweet potatoes, so preheat oven to 325.
- Spread a piece of aluminum foil on a middle rack and bake as many as you can fit for about an hour. You want them soft, so the skins easily pull away from the sides.
- After baking, let them cool in the oven until it’s convenient to move on to the next step. Sitting in the oven overnight is fine, in fact.
- Now you have to peel them. If you baked them long enough, you should be able to get most of the peel off with your fingers. Use a knife for any stubborn bits.
This will make MANY pans of sweet potato chews.
- Next, you need to slice them and arrange them on a baking sheet. You can use a pan liner (like Silpat) to make removal of the finished product easier.
- Cut them about 1/2 a centimeter thick. You want a uniform thickness if possible, and I find 1/2 cm gives me enough potato to keep it from becoming a mess when I transfer pieces to the pan.
- Arrange them flat side up.
- Now, melt your coconut oil and paint on your potato slices using a pastry brush.
- Give a healthy dusting of cinnamon (I really load up).
- Then back to the oven it goes for the “drying”. Cooking at 350 for 50 minutes brings about half the pan to an acceptable level. They sizzle nicely under the high heat.
- Usually, I’ll remove the done ones and throw the pan back in for another 10 minutes and that produces pretty good results. I’ve also done 300 degrees and 90 minutes. That works pretty well too and is more forgiving, meaning less crispy pieces. You may have to experiment a bit. If you go too long or too hot, you will have sweet potato crisps. Not bad, but I prefer the chewy consistency of soft dried fruit.
Partition slices into perfect PWO portions and pack them in Ziploc bags or covered glass storage containers. (I don’t know how long they keep because we’ve never had a batch last longer than a couple days.) Enjoy!
The finished product, perfect for PWO nutrition.
Got a delicious, simple meal (or recipe idea) for our next Friday STM feature? Send your Steal This Meal entry (along with photos and YOUR Whole30-inspired story) to recipes@whole9life.com. And if you’re looking for more delicious recipe ideas from Whole9 and our readers, just select “Recipes” from the category list on our sidebar!
“so they’ll bake while you putter around the house – perfect for a Sunday night”
or a wednesday afternoon if you happen to be in the unfortunate situation of being a healthcare worker on nightshift..
These sound amazing! However, just wondering about the coconut oil… shouldn’t we limit our fat intake post-workout? Or is this minimal so it should be fine?
Has anyone tried these without the coconut oil? Do you think that using cooking spray is sufficient? I guess I would need to look at the ingredients to see if cooking spray is even something I should really be eating anyway.
I tried these today instead of my usual batch of plain baked sweet potato – soooo good! Even my two year old loved them!
Ahh, love it! I’ve done them fried in a pan w/coconut oil. I’ll try this next time.
@Rachel: Smart girl, good question, two points to make. First, the amount of coconut oil you’ll be getting in a single serving of sweet potato chews is minimal – just a tiny bit brushed on each individual piece. No worries on that front.
Second, since we last saw you, we’re rethinking our stance on “no added fat” in all PWO nutrition. We’ve expanded our workshop materials to cover when added fat is of benefit, and when it’s to be avoided. We’ll see you at CrossFit Fort Vancouver in October – you’ll hear it all then!
Best,
Melissa
These sound awesome. I am always after different ways to prepare sweet potatoes, and this is just different enough to fit the bill. I may do half a batch with cinnamon, and the other half with a mixture of cinnamon and cayenne…
As an aside on the coconut oil thing-I put it in my Misto with just a smidge of olive oil to keep it from re-solidifying, and that way you can do a fine spray if you’d like. Works really well. (Can’t remember where I saw that, but it is definitely not my idea. Someone smarter than me figured that one out.)
I don’t have the info in front of me right now, but anyone making these may want to do some investigation into cinnamon. If I remember correctly, there are different types – sold different ways and there’s a particular type that was shown to help with insulin sensitivity. I don’t remember what it is, but it was NOT the kind that you traditionally pick up in the spice aisle, or can pick up in bulk containers.
Just made these tonight and they tasted delicious! I put cinnamon on most of them and then put pumpkin spice (allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon) and a few others and both tasted fabulous. Added bonus, it made the whole house smell very festive since fall is definitely upon us here in Germany. Great recipe Mike and thanks for sharing!
YUMMY!!! Herm & I are loving post wod sweet potatoes. Can’t wait to try them this way =)
Perfect PWO: tasty, handy and Whole30! Whipped up a batch the other night and loved the easy prep to fantastical deliciousness ratio! Thanks!
These are going to take some practice. I didn’t pay close enough attention and half my first batch burned. Wonder how they would turn out in a dehydrator.
Made these tonight to have after day 2 of the PTP workout. I mixed cinnamon with allspice and ground cloves to top them off with, delicious!
As a bonus, when making these, your house will smell like Thanksgiving!
How many slices makes a portion? I’m thinking I could throw back quite a few…
Lisa,
It depends on if you’re using them as a PWO carb source or not. If so, eat about a half a sweet potato’s worth, and see how it feels for you. If it’s just a delicious snack, eat way less. Enjoy!
I stopped by the store on the way home, got some sweet potatoes. Bake ‘em, peel ‘em, find out they’re the yellow ones. Hmm… well, trying them anyway. I’ve got some that came out ok, if a bit burnt, er… ‘carmelized’, on the bottom. Others are just staying mushy. *sigh* I can see the potential though. I’ll eat up what I can from this batch and will certainly be doing another one.
I eat this after every sealfit wod but with unsweetened applesauce in place of coconut oil. helps with resotoration of liver glycogen! its amazing! if you haven’t tried it this way, its a must.
Hi Melissa and Dallas @Whole9
I’m looking for gaining lean mass (5’4″ around 110-112lbs) and currently doing home workouts from http://www.bodyrock.tv with Paleo eating style. Should I still limit sweet potatoes as post workout meal or I can just eat them anytime? Also what do you think about other tubers like cassava/yuca roots?
Thanks!
@ Liz, RE: cinnamon varieties
There are basically 2 varieties of cinnamon, ceylon cinnamon and cassia. American’s use cassia for the most part. Ceylon cinnamon is a specialty item and should be quite obvious when purchasing. Cassia, the commonly used cinnamon, IS the one that helps with insulin sensitivity. Enjoy!