We are not huge sweet potatoe fans. That being said, whenever I see a sweet potatoe, I just have to buy them be in the raw vegetable or the recently new thing called sweet potatoe air fried chips.

I never eat them though, they just chill in the cupboard and then eventually it just disappears into thin air and I repeat the process ALL over again… fun isn’t it.

I was paging through Aarti Paarti;s cook book when a picture caught my eye, it was so colourful and I seriously just wanted to have one of these immediately. Upon close inspection I found out that it in fact was a sweet potatoe baked and then stuffed with deliciousness.

I was going to bypass the recipe and never come back to it again, but every time I opened the recipe book, the book seemed to open on this recipe, screaming at me from the page to make it make it make, I eventually gave in.

I was clever though, I made it on a fasting day so that everyone including me would have to eat it or else starve till a meat eating day.

Let me just set the record straight here, I always nuke my potatoes in the microwave when I am making baked potatoes, I do not and I repeat do not bake them. Imagine the fright my parents would have when they see the electrical bill. Baked potatoes in our house is like bread and butter, we are always having it, be it for a snack or just something to nibble on. It is always drowned in butter and covered with layers of cheese and then nuked till everything is nice and melted.

So when this recipe said to bake, I was a bit dubious and I will not lie, I was going to nuke it, but then I thought what the hell, seeing as I going through all the trouble of making everything what would an hour in the oven do? I mean if I nuke it for too long in the microwave it will become hard like a rock and I would have to start all over again. The oven it was.

Wow who knew an oven, could make such beautifully soft potatoes, no more microwave for me. They were soft and warm unlike the microwave ones that tend to combust and splatter the entire fluffy insides of the potatoe all over the inside of the microwave.

The best part of this dish was the filing and wow I was so shocked then I didn’t cut right through the potatoe, I am for everlasting underestimating the cut and cutting the entire potatoe in half, not this time around.

My mother loved it, the crunch on the pomegranates and the tang of the lemon and of course her all time favourite chick peas, what is normally a snack in our household had now turned into a main dish. I gave my mother two massive potatoes with filling, she only managed to eat one.. shh the other one I wrapped up and hid away for my dad’s lunch tomorrow, he is going to kill me when he opens the foil packet.

When he saw what I was making for my mother he just rolled his eyes in his head and said that it not a baked potatoe, there is zero cheese and no butter… it just looks to healthy.

Ingredients:

• 4 x sweet potatoes.
• 2 x tbsp. Olive oil
• ¼ x cup tahini paste.
• ¼ x cup boiling water.
• Zest of 1 lemon.
• 2 x tbsp. lemon juice.
• 1 x tsp honey.
• 1 x can chick peas, drained and rinsed.
• 3 x tbsp. parsley, chopped.
• 2 x tbsp. pine nuts.
• 2 x tbsp. pomegranate seeds.
• Salt and pepper to season.
• 1/8 x tsp cinnamon powder.

Method:

• Rinse and scrub the potatoes clean.
• Pat dry with kitchen towel.
• Using a fork, poke holes all over the potatoes.
• Rub some olive oil over the potatoes and place on a baking tray.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 45 – 60 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
• To make the filling, whisk together the tahini paste, water, oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and cinnamon powder.
•  Mix in the remaining ingredients till well combined.
• Carefully slice the potatoes in the center.
• Drizzle a little olive oil in the cavity.
• Heat in the microwave till nice and warn.
• Fill the cavity with the filling.
• Season generously.