Cooking Green Goodness: Baked Sweet Potato, Shrimp and Avocado Toasts

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“The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.” Maya Angelou

“What The Heck Is Healthy?” This is the question asked in a recent article by Toronto based culinary Registered Dietitian (RD), Abbey Sharp. It’s an article in Ricardo Magazine that discusses topics like the many shades of health, the new healthy, problems with the new healthy, not-so clean eating, food shaming, food frauds, mindful eating, and how to make the new healthy…healthy.

What is healthy?

Is it cutting out fat, going vegan or vegetarian, eliminating carbs? Is it eating meat, going gluten-free or organic? Is there a moral weight designed to these dichotomous categories of food? When we share a photo of our clean paleo lunch, or green detox juice for example, are we implicitly defining our place in a classcist food system, where we are either “good” or “bad” based on what we ate? How healthy is defined, has changed enough times to make our heads spin as stated in the article!

“I like to eat a balanced diet that contain each of the food groups.”

Here’s what I like – food. I like tuning in to my body’s needs with good tasting food! I also like my green choices. I was inspired to explore these green choices to support a close family member’s lifestyle change to become a vegetarian. My personal diet however is by no means limited to any one category of food. Surprise! I like to eat a balanced diet that contain each of the food groups. I don’t agree that foods are inherently “good” or “bad” and neither are the people who eat them. There’s a bottomless ocean of internet personalities and celebrities masquerading as food authorities. Think about it. The latest miracle diet claiming to be good for you, is promoted through carefully curated, highly stylized social media feeds. How does one compete with sexy sensualized results versus a more moderate, mindful approach to eating? I just don’t. I move on to the next thing of interest, that can teach me how to cook a meal I’ve never tried before for example. The next thing that’s truly educational, inspiring – that makes me feel good.

With the holidays approaching, there are TONS of articles telling us how to prevent over eating to avoid gaining a few pounds here or there. So in other words, just stare at all that good food, but don’t indulge you hear! I’d like to learn more about preventing food waste, how to package and reinvent leftovers, instead of being shamed for possibly enjoying too much good food. In my family circle, it is the expectation that everyone bring their own empty tupperware to holiday dinners. No waste. No shame.

The New Healthy

Would you agree that we’ve graduated from an age of calorie counting and fat free, to placing “healthy halos” on food? Healthy halos such as raw, superfood, vegan, gluten-free. The “new healthy” focus also seems to be on foods that are identified as natural, detoxing, organic, clean and free from toxins, which is great! More than ever, people have access to learn how to cook and eat in relation to their dietary needs, allowing them to control what goes into their food. The next cool thing is, we now have more access than ever to a lot of nutritious GOOD foods that our parents never had a chance to taste. Foods like chia puddings overflowing with buzzy superfoods like hemp, berries, matcha. We can now whip up chips out of Kale leaves.

What I love about the blogosphere, is being inspired by everyone’s version of their healthy. I like seeing a wide range of recipes with fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish, eggs, pulses, nuts, seeds, wholegrains and so on. I appreciate that at its core, being healthy is really about being a happier you. Enjoy the recipe.

Baked Sweet Potato, Shrimp and Avocado Toasts

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients

  • 2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into approx. 1/8 inch thick slices
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 avocados, must be very ripe, halved and pitted
  • 16 – 18 shrimp, raw, peel and deveined
  • 8 slices whole wheat bread, toasted
  • 2 limes, cut into wedges
  • 2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced
  • 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, thinly sliced
  • 3 tablespoons jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Place the sweet potatoes on the prepared baking tray. Oil lightly with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes, or until tender and lightly browned.

Meanwhile, sauté the shrimp in a skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste, paprika, onion powder, and 1 tablespoon jalapeno.

Once the shrimp and sweet potato are cooked, place the flesh of half an avocado on each slice of bread and crush with a fork. Season well with salt and pepper. Drizzle with lime juice.

Top each slice of toast with sweet potato, then shrimp. Garnish with cilantro, mint, and jalapeno.

Tips:

You can save time and use precooked shrimp.

You can now print this recipe card. Hit ‘PRINT’ on the above to keep it handy.

Optimally ripe avocados are typically known for their silky, creamy texture and rich flavors that could be described as “nutty” or “nut-like.” In Jamaica, this fruit is popularly called ‘pear’. Pear is what I knew the avocado as growing up, and I enjoyed eating it as a compliment to Ackee and Saltfish (Jamaica’s National Dish), and as a spread on hard dough bread, instead of butter.

Avocados must be picked from the tree before the ripening process starts. Choose avocados that yield to pressure – this means it’s ripe and ready for use to make dishes like a classic guacamole. Unripe avocados make horrible guacamole!

See more: Cooking Green Goodness

38 thoughts on “Cooking Green Goodness: Baked Sweet Potato, Shrimp and Avocado Toasts”

  1. Great post! Those pictures are MOUTH WATERING!!! I love where you’re going with this…It’s important to remove foods that don’t serve you. All food is either alkaline or acidic forming. If your body is more acidic, you are more prone to disease, illness, bacteria and viruses. One of the things that always scares me is….if you think about that one food you crave, that one food is the one causing the most damage to your body! Scary thought!
    Kassy | https://syrahandsmoothies.com/2017/05/be-the-change/

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thanks Kassy! Appreciate you reading the post and providing your insight.
      To be honest, this journey in food has, and is becoming more of an eye opener. When I shop for groceries now, I’m more conscious about where the food/ingredients came from. I now lean more towards being a vegetarian, not because I don’t enjoy meat, but what’s in it and the process behind it. Now I eat meat and seafood in moderation. It also helps that I genuinely like eating vegetables more than anything.
      “Healthy” holds different meanings depending on the individual. I’m now learning to cook without salt as I’m now more aware of the health effects of too much sodium. The learning never ends.
      Thanks again for stopping by and for commenting. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Pingback: Sweet Potato, Shrimp, Avacodo Toast – Yummy! – Wild Cabbage Works

  7. Pingback: Cooking Green Goodness: Baked Sweet Potato, Shrimp and Avocado Toasts – The OM Project

  10. Great points there Eartha. We never got the whole GF madness, from people who have no sensitivity to gluten whatsoever:) For us, healthy is using natural ingredients, with no chemicals and additives and cooking at home. And moderation. We won’t eat mac and cheese every week. Or smother everything with sugar or cream. And we try to make healthier choices, like using EVOO, pure butter (instead of margarine), oats, whole grain/multi-grain bread, organic eggs, veggies and fruits. And lots of pulses and fish as well(avoiding over consumption of tuna and salmon because of the heavy metals and preferring smaller white meat fish fished locally).
    Now; your toasts are to die for! WE LOVE, LOVE your combo of shrimp and avocado. Avocado is new to us (we only use it for about a year now, since it wasn’t produced locally until very recently), and we’re always looking for new ways to incorporate it in our diet.
    Fantastic job sweetie, excellent post.
    Lots of hugs,
    Mirella and Panos

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Eartha – I agree with you completely! “With the holidays approaching, there are TONS of articles telling us how to prevent over eating to avoid gaining a few pounds here or there. So in other words, just stare at all that good food, but don’t indulge you hear! I’d like to learn more about preventing food waste, how to package and reinvent leftovers, instead of being shamed for possibly enjoying too much good food. In my family circle, it is the expectation that everyone bring their own Tupperware to holiday dinners. No shame.” — genius!

    would like to add – that am frustrated by how cunning food industry is about getting people addicted to unhealthy foods. have you ever watched ‘supersize me’ documentary about one guy’s experiment with fast food & how even he experienced immense trouble getting back to his old self once he was done with the project? its available at library.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Hi, Daal! Nice to meet you. I did watch that documentary. Here you have a guy who deliberately chose to eat a specific kind of food for 30 days straight, knowing what the ingredients were. The results were inevitable. There was no balance.
      Thanks for stopping by my blog and for your feedback. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  16. Pingback: Cooking Green Goodness: Baked Sweet Potato, Shrimp and Avocado Toasts | My Meals are on Wheels

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