Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Cranberries, Walnuts, and Goat Cheese

You know that feeling the week after the holiday season, or a vacation, when you just want a bowl full of veggies, because you haven’t had enough recently? Because I do! And salads like this are the answer. A bowl full of greens, but also sustenance — sweet potatoes, walnuts and goat cheese!

This salad is one even veg-haters will like (said it already, but: potatoes, cheese, nuts… I mean is it even a salad? You don’t have to tell them there’s — ehem - kale under all those potatoes). The whole thing is drizzled with an apple cider vinaigrette which has shallots and dijon mustard and even a little bit of honey, for just the right balance of sweet and acid. It’s a pretty classic vinaigrette and one that you can use on just about any kind of salad or with any veggie (not just this salad!).

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Cranberries, Walnuts, and Goat Cheese

Published January 8, 2018 by Caitlin Sherwood

   Print This Recipe

Serves: 6   |    Active Time: 50 minutes

---

Ingredients:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes, roughly diced

1 tablespoon oil, such as avocado

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

6 cups kale, stems removed and torn into bite-sized pieces

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup walnut pieces, toasted

1/4 cup goat cheese crumbles

For the vinaigrette:

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 teaspoon honey

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/16 teaspoon salt

1/16 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Roast sweet potatoes: Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss potatoes in 1 tablespoon oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Spread in a single layer on a sheet pan. Roast in oven for 40-45 minutes, until sweet potatoes are soften all the way through and crisping on the edges. Set aside to cool.
2. Prep the kale: place torn kale pieces in a salad bowl. Drizzle with lemon juice. Using your hands, massage the kale with the lemon juice until the kale is bright green (Why do this? It makes is softer, easier to digest, and nicer to eat).
3. Top kale with sweet potatoes, cranberries, walnut pieces, and goat cheese crumbles.
4. Make vinaigrette: combine all ingredients for vinaigrette in a jar and shake to combine. Drizzle vinaigrette over salad, and serve.

Eggnog Panna Cotta with Cranberry Sauce

My dad would buy eggnog as soon as it was available on the stores. Giddily, we'd drink a half a glass for dessert. Tis the season! This is what December is for! Sugar and spice and a whole lot of cream. 

I still love the stuff, but not just any old eggnog. You know the "grown up" versions? Or as some may argue, the "real" version? The ones with bourbon? *Cringe*

I guess I still have some growing up to do before I'm ready for grown up eggnog. To me, the acid of the alcohol and the tinge of bourbon ruins a perfectly good glass of creaminess. Maybe I just haven't had the right glass of eggnog yet. 

Either way, I'm making the most out of this eggnog season with a dessert I've been dreaming up since--I'll admit it- the middle of summer. While it wouldn't've been that unusual for me to just get to work on an eggnog panna cotta recipe right then and there, I showed a little bit of self restraint and put it on my to do list instead. And my calendar, just for good measure. (My calendar pretty much rules my life: I go where it tells me and do what it has planned. With out it I'm a disaster).

In any case, this calendar thing is working for me, and five months later I finally got to work on an eggnog panna cotta. This recipe is the perfect light dessert that will use up any extra eggnog you may have from last week. It's simplicity and sparkle makes me think of New Years Eve, too. 

Eggnog Panna Cotta with Cranberry Sauce

Primal, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free    |   Caitlin Sherwood    |   

Eggnog is turned into a panna cotta and topped with bright cranberry sauce.

Serves: 4   |    Total Time: 30 active minutes

---

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup milk of choice
• 1 3/4 cups eggnog of choice (homemade or store-bought)
• 1 tablespoon Great Lakes Gelatin
• Nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1 cup cranberries
• 2 tablespoons honey (or 1/4 cup if you like your cranberry sauce sweeter)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup orange juice

Directions:

1. Put milk in a small saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin over top, and heat over low heat. Do not boil— just barely a simmer. Stir constantly until gelatin is dissolved, and stir in eggnog. Stir until combined, then remove from heat. Pour liquid into 4 ramekins, and cover with saran wrap. Place in fridge to set for a whole day.
2. Make the cranberry sauce for serving: heat cranberries, honey, orange juice, and cinnamon in sauce pan and bring to a boil. Stir until honey dissolves and cranberries begin to break apart. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
3. For serving: Grate fresh nutmeg over each eggnog panna cotta, and top with a spoonful of cranberry sauce. Serve.

Tuna Power Salad

Long lunch tables were puzzle-pieced together in the the Mesa Elementary cafeteria just so. They were the kind with benches attached to them, and each measured at least 14 feet long. Three of them together must’ve held something like 70 children, with ease. 

A long line would form where food was served, single-file, except for when a kid dodged to the side, trying to get a sneak peak at what was getting served that day. It was a line I barely knew—lunch was packed, just about every day, by my mom or my dad. 

The menu of the day almost always included leftovers, for me. Leftover pasta salad, leftover chicken, leftover sushi. Some people dislike eating leftovers but I never did, aside from the slight embarrassment I felt when kids asked what I was eating. Looking back they were probably just genuinely curious, but when you’re 7, explaining yourself can feel like the most painful thing in the world. Um… it’s called pomegranate. The other kids: It looks like a brain. 

Despite my fancy sack lunches, my palate could never get over the taste of canned tuna. Gross! I’d opt for salmon salad over tuna and steer far away from anyone that tried to turn it into a sandwich. Crackers were my vehicle of choice. I supposed I set myself up for being asked why my tuna salad was pink.  

I eventually learned to like tuna salad, the way everyone else learned what a pomegranate was. 

Tuna Power Salad

Paleo, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free,    |   Caitlin Sherwood    |   

A little sweet and a little savory! Cranberries, apples and walnuts make this tuna salad a star.

Serves: 2   |    Total Time: 20 minutes

---

Ingredients:

For the tuna:

• 2 cans of tuna
• 2 tablespoons paleo mayo or, for primal version, yogurt
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 2 teaspoons poppy seeds
• Salt & Pepper to taste

For the salad:

• 4 leafs red lettuce
• 1 cup cabbage, sliced thin
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1/2 cup diced cucumber
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1 apple, diced
• Optional: squeeze of lemon juice and drizzle of olive oil
• 1 apple, diced

Directions:

1. Drain water from cans of tuna and place fish in a bowl. Mash with mayo/yogurt, mustard, onion, and poppy seeds. Add salt & pepper to taste.
2. Arrange lettuce on 2 plates. Pile a scoop of tuna salad over lettuce on each plate. Arrange remaining salad ingredients around tuna salad.
3. I like to mix everything together when I eat this, which means I don’t really need a salad dressing, but if you want one, or you prefer to not mix everything together on your plate, drizzle the vegetables with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.