A Thanksgiving Beauty Feast, with Sweet Potato Pecan Risotto
November 14, 2012 by Jolene
Filed under *Featured*, Beauty Foods, Eat Pretty: Recipes
When you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, eating for beauty probably isn’t the first thing on your mind. Securing yourself a second helping of stuffing is far more important. But if you approach your holiday meal with a little know-how about the fall foods that are best for your beauty and body, you’ll come away with a satisfied belly AND a beauty nutrition boost. Why miss an opportunity to look and feel your best?
A holiday celebration can be a minefield of skin-sabotaging foods, but you’ll probably also find plenty of beautifying seasonal foods to fill up on, like:
- root vegetables (think beets, potatoes, carrots)
- squashes and pumpkin
- kale
- onions and garlic
- sweet potatoes
- cranberries (but beware, the sauce can be a sugar bomb!)
- nuts
This Thanksgiving, you might want to stack the deck in your skin’s favor by throwing together this Sweet Potato Pecan Risotto (I promise, it’s easy!), a powerhouse meal for youthful, clear skin. This risotto also makes a special vegetarian main dish (for those veggies who get tired of eating just the sides).
Sweet potato is loaded with beauty nutrition (just one cup has 769% of your daily vitamin A, a critical nutrient for healthy cell turnover, glowing skin and fewer blemishes, plus beauty minerals like iron, potassium and calcium). The classic sweet potato-pecan combo reminds me of traditional Thanksgiving pies and baked sweet potato side dishes that are usually loaded with sugar. For a more beautifying take on sweet potatoes and pecans, this dish skips the sugar, in favor of a warm, creamy, savory risotto that you’ll want to make again and again, all winter long.
- 2 medium sweet potatoes
- 1 tsp coconut oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- heaping ½ cup chopped pecans
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- ¼ tsp turmeric
- 2 cups Arborio rice
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- scant ½ tsp ginger
- sea salt
- black pepper
- Preheat oven to 400. Scrub sweet potatoes and cut away any inedible areas of skin. Pierce sweet potatoes with a fork several times and wrap individually in aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes or until soft.
- When potatoes are finished baking, remove from the oven. Mash one potato until smooth and cut the other into bite-sized chunks. Remove any large pieces of potato skin (leaving some small pieces of skin), and set potatoes aside.
- Melt coconut oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic until golden, about 5 minutes.
- Add pecans and toast over medium heat, 1 minute, then stir in maple syrup and turmeric. Add rice and deglaze with 2 cups broth.
- Stir frequently until almost all liquid is absorbed, then add 2 more cups broth and continue stirring.
- When liquid is absorbed, add the final 2 cups broth, mashed sweet potato, ginger, sea salt and pepper to taste, and stir until just absorbed.
- Remove from heat and add remaining sweet potato chunks.
Looks really nice! I need to try this dish as I’m vegetarian, almost vegan:) and I’m constantly looking for new cooking inspiration. thank you for sharing:)