Noodles with Sweet Potato and Almond Butter Sauce

I was on the NYTimes.com website and of course came across something food related.  I came across Mark Bittman's Top 12 Make Ahead Dishes page and skimmed it quickly.  I love sweet potatoes!  I also love soba noodles.  And I also love dishes I can make after I come home from an "early" night at work and not worry about ruining my metabolism because I ate less than 2 hours before going to bed.

I started by boiling my peeled sweet potato - this actually took a long time.  Like 25 minutes for it to get soft (soft enough to put a fork through it).  25 minutes? How is that supposed to be quick?

Blending up my sweet potatoes in our faux food processor

My faux food processor got a little too full, so I had to remove some of my sweet potato bliss

Almond butter and sweet potato

The recipe called for peanut butter, but I switched it up with my favey fave almond butter!

Noodles with Sweet Potato and Peanut Butter Puree, adpated from Mark Bittman's Top 12 Make-Ahead Dishes

• 1 medium sized sweet potato
• 1 tbsp. nut butter.  The recipe calls for Peanut Butter, but I used Almond Butter
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 1-2 scallions
• 5-8 oz. noodles (the recipe called for Soba noodles, but I used pad thai noodles)

The list above will make you enough for 2 servings...so either dinner for two, or dinner for one TWICE! 

Wash and peel the sweet potato, and then boil it till soft.  This was the most "time consuming" part of the dish.  

While the sweet potato is boiling, start boiling the noodles too.  Should only take 4-5 minutes.  

Once the sweet potato is soft, blend it in a food processor or blender.  Add some of the cooking water to make the puree a bit more liquidy.   Add the chopped garlic and process some more.  Then put in about 1 tbsp. of your selected nut butter.  Blend even more.   You saw the picture above! 

Your noodles should be done boiling about now.  Once you drain them, put them back into the pan and then mix with the puree.  Garnish with some chopped scallions.  

This was quite tasty - and probably packed with all kinds of beta carotene and protein.  A bit bland, but nothing some nutmeg or cinnamon might spice up!