Hottie Black Eyed Peas & Greens with Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples

A couple of us at work have started a weight loss club, and since being vegan I've found it quite easy to lose a few pounds.  Not through trying, but when you're vegan and eating out it often means you have to skip dessert, and also as I don't drive and rely on public transport to get around, I do a hell of a lot of walking!

However, over the last few weeks, through eating too much vegan cake, including the discovery of this vegan microwave brownie recipe as well as general overindulgence I've put on a few pounds.  So I'm trying to act early and get em back off!

So I grabbed Isa's Appetite for Reduction.

Someone recommended her Hottie Black Eyed Peas & Greens (at a Cake Liberation Front meetup) and the book recommends having it with Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples, so since I had the day off I thought I would give it a go.  If you haven't got the book, Isa has published the recipe on the PPK Blog.

The hardest thing about these recipes is the amount of peeling and chopping of vegetables, once that was done it was quite easy.  I just about avoided a disaster with the black eyed peas recipe, it calls for one cup of tomato sauce, which in my mind means ketchup. However, after googling "What does it mean in American recipes by tomato sauce" I found out what it actually meant was passata.  See what I mean by having to be careful with American recipes?!

Also, Isa suggests piling the kale leaves on top of each other to chop, however I can only find curly kale which you can't really use this trick with. I usually just grab a bunch off it, scrunch in up, do my best to roll it and then cut it finely.

I was a bit suspicious about adding apples to the sweet potato mash, but it worked really well, and The Boy was impressed with the whole thing, which is a win in my book. I think this will definitely become a favorite in this house, especially as it's low calorie and tastes amazing!