I got the original version of this recipe from my daughter Sara, who has a great collection of vegetarian cook books. I am proud to say that both my daughters have become really good cooks. We seem to have inherited this trait from  my grandmother on my mother’s side, who was always able to make the most delicious meals out of nothing. My mother (whose biggest hobby is cooking, even at age 85) told me that  in the WW II  and post-war years, when starvation was common in Austria and people could only obtain a very limited amount of groceries with food stamps, my grandmother somehow managed to make every meal delicious, no matter how meager the ingredients available. This gene seems to have been passed on in our family even into the third generation  – we just use our imagination to adapt recipes, if we don’ t have all the ingredients or want to change them into healthier versions,  and we often make things out of our head.

SWEET POTATO CAKES

Ingredients:

• 1 kg sweet potatoes, peeled & cut into large chunks
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari
• 100 g spelt flour (or a mixture of any of these flours: spelt, quinoa, rice, buckwheat…)
• Hymalya salt or organic herbal salt to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut blossom sugar or erythritol
• 3 tablespoons chopped spring onion or 1 chopped onion
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped red chilli (or more, if you like it hot)
• organic, cold pressed coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil
•  serves 4

Method:

1. Steam the sweet potatoes until very soft; leave them to drain in a colander for at least an hour
2. Place sweet potatoes in a mixing bowl & mash them
3. Add all other ingredients (except the oil) and mix everything together  – do not over-mix (mixture should be sticky – if it is runny, add more flour)
4. Brush a baking tray with coconut or olive oil.
5. Shape round patties out of the mixture and place on baking tray
6. Brush the cakes with oil and bake in the oven until light brown and crisp on the outside (turn the cakes half way through)
7. Serve with eg: coriander & mint pesto (see recipe further down in this blog), or basil pesto, or a Greek yoghurt sauce (mix with olive oil, lemon juice, chopped coriander, salt & pepper to taste), or any other pesto or sauce you fancy.