Sweet Potato Taco

Edith would NOT have used a flour tortilla but I liked this one charred a bit over the open flame 

Maybe Deb won't have to feel quite so hurt if she knows I also made one of her recipes today, right? Because I'm sure she's secretly reading here every day, just waiting for me to tell the world how much I love everything she does and find her recipes way better than anyone else's.

This one is super easy and, like more and more of Deb's post motherhood recipes, something you can play with, improvising with whatever you happen to have on hand without having to carefully measure out an exact amount of some exotic ingredient. Definitely suits my way of cooking.

When Emily became a vegetarian I pitied her, knowing she never be able to eat any more of my mom's tacos. The joke in our extended family was that Edie B. was so obsessed with fresh ingredients that she insisted the cow be slaughtered on the day of her taco making. That's how seriously she took slinging out 50 or more tacos on a night when family and friends were around to eat them. As she got older and more feeble, the daughters-in-law were enlisted to do a lot of the sous chef prep for her tacos but just because she wasn't personally doing every bit of the chopping, slicing and frying doesn't mean she didn't still insist on the best and most perfect of ground beef for the base of her tacos.

I loved my mom's tacos but once Emily began eating hers without the meat, I made an astounding discovery. Most of the satisfying taste of a taco comes from all that stuff besides the meat. The tortilla itself becomes a receptacle for just the right amount of onions, cheeses, tomatoes, beans (to replace the meat), and sauce to pile high and then devour. Everyone probably has their own idea of what is the best part of a taco. For me, it's the meltedy cheese and onion, topped with a mild taco sauce. Other than that, I'm flexible on what goes inside my tortilla and mouth.

The sweet potatoes formed an excellent base for this taco. Even coated with the olive oil and salts, you could still taste the ever so subtle sweetness of the potato, against all the other fixins'. This paired well with the avocado and saltier black beans. Because my version of tacos need some sort of cheese, I grated cotija over the top of the tortilla and ended up very pleased with how it balanced out the mildness of the other ingredients.

Are they as good as Edie's tacos? No...but will there ever be any tacos that rival hers? I doubt it. That gold standard aside, these were excellent. And those potatoes? They were pretty good, just by themselves. I could easily see following  Deb's roasting instructions and doing a batch of those as a solo side dish/lunch.

Sweet Potato Tacos
from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
2 pounds (about 4 medium) sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 to 3/4″ cubes
Olive oil
1 heaped teaspoon kosher salt
1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 to 3 teaspoons chili powder, to taste (see Note)
Chipotle powder, cayenne, or shakes of hot sauce, to taste (I didn't do any of this)
1/2 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
12 small (6-inch) or 6 medium (8 to 9-inch) flour tortillas
1 15-ounce can refried black beans
1 lime, in wedges
Sliced avocado, pickled red onions, pickled jalapenos, chopped fresh cilantro, hot sauce, Lazy Taco Slaw, or your choice(s) thereof, to finish

Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Toss sweet potatoes with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, then add salt, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, chipotle powder, and paprika and toss to evenly coat. If you’d like to roast the vegetables (for easier cleanup) on parchment paper, line a large baking sheet with it and spread the potatoes in a single layer. If you’d like to roast them directly on your baking sheet (I find they get more crisp this way), first coat it with 1 more tablespoon of olive oil, then spread potatoes in an even layer.
Roast potatoes for 40 to 45 minutes, tossing once or twice for even color.  (I forgot to toss them but they turned out fine anyway)

To assemble, if you have a gas stove, I love running flour tortillas over an open flame to give them a little char and complexity. Otherwise, you can wrap the stack of them in foil and let them warm in the oven while the potatoes roast for 5 minutes.

Schmear some refried black beans on each tortilla. Add a big spoonful or two of roasted sweet potatoes. Squeeze a little lime juice over the potatoes and black beans (don’t skip this, please), and finish with toppings of your choice, shown here with a shake of hot sauce, sliced avocado, pickled red onions, and cilantro.