Fit Fare

Since I like sweet potatoes so much, I wanted to share another recipe. As noted in a previous post on sweet potato fries, the sweet potato dishes I grew up with in the South, laden with fat and sugar, were far from fit fare. While scanning through one of my cookbooks, Enola Prudhomme’s Low Calorie Cajun Cooking, I came across a recipe for sweet potato muffins I wanted to try.

I had the good fortune to eat this very item at her restaurant, Prudhomme’s Cajun Cafe, in Carencro, Louisiana. While we waited for our meal, servers bought out homemade cornbread, rolls and muffins to our table for sampling. According to Enola, the recipe from the cookbook is a lower fat version of the muffin offered at the restaurant. I served my muffins at a Memorial Day picnic to great reviews.

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and grated (3/4 c)
1 c all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Dash of salt
1 c skim milk
1/4 c reduced-calorie margarine, melted
2 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray nonstick muffin tins with non-stick vegetable cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the sweet potato, flour, sugar, raisins, nuts, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, mixing well. In a separate bowl, beat together the milk, margarine, and egg whites with a wire whisk. Slowly add the milk mixture to the other ingredients, stirring well with a fork just until the dry ingredients are mixed. Do not overmix.

Fill each muffin tin two-thirds full with batter. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the muffins comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the pan immediately and cool on a wire rack.