Fiber, protein, and polyphenols! What more could one ask for? Well, great taste and warm healthy goodness, which these deliver:

You will need

For the sweet potatoes:

• 2 medium sweet potatoes, cubed (we recommend leaving the skin on, but you can peel them if you really want to)
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt

For the black beans:

• 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed (or 2 cups black beans that you cooked yourself)
• ¼ bulb garlic, minced
• 1 fresh jalapeño finely chopped (or ¼ cup jalapeños from a jar, finely chopped) ← adjust quantities per your preference and per the quality of the pepper(s) you’re using; we can’t judge that from here without tasting them, so we give a good basic starting suggestion.
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp red chili flakes
• ½ tsp MSG or 1 tsp low-sodium salt

For serving:

• 8 small corn tortillas, or your preference if substituting
• 1 avocado, pitted, peeled, cubed, and tossed in lime juice ← we’re mentioning this here because you want to do this as soon as you cut it, to avoid oxidation
• Any other salad you’d like to include; fresh parsley is also a good option when it comes to greenery, or cilantro if you don’t have the soap gene
• Tomato salsa (quantity and spice level per your preference)

Method

(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

1) Preheat the oven to 400°F / 200°C.

2) Toss the sweet potato cubes in a large bowl with the rest of the ingredients from the sweet potato section above, ensuring they are evenly coated.

3) Bake them in the oven, on a baking tray lined with baking paper, for about 30 minutes or until tender inside and crispy at the edges. Turn them over halfway through.

4) While that’s happening, mix the black beans in a bowl with the other ingredients from the black bean section above, and heat them gently. You could do this in a saucepan, but honestly, while it’s not glamorous, the microwave is actually better for this. Note: many people find the microwave cooks food unevenly, but there are two reasons for this and they’re both easily fixable:

• instead of using high power for x minutes, use medium power for 2x minutes; this will produce better results
• instead of putting the food just in a bowl, jug, or similar, use a wide bowl or similar container, and then inside that, place a small empty microwave-safe glass jar or similar upturned in the middle, and then add the food around it, so that the food is arranged in a donut shape rather than a wide cylinder shape. This means there is no “middle bit” to go underheated while the edges are heated excessively; instead, it will heat through evenly.

If you really don’t want to do that though, use a saucepan on a very low heat, add a small amount of liquid (or tomato salsa), and stir constantly.

5) Heat the tortillas in a dry skillet for about 30 seconds each on each side, when ready to serve.

6) Assemble the tacos; you can do this how you like but a good order of operations is: tortilla, leafy salad (if using), potato, beans, non-leafy salad including avocado, salsa or other topping per your preference.

Enjoy!

Want to learn more?

For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

• White Potato vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?
• Kidney Beans or Black Beans – Which is Healthier?
• Coconut vs Avocado – Which is Healthier?
• Glutathione: More Than An Antioxidant
• Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits? ← we hit 4/5 today!

Take care!

As the name suggests, it’s a Maghreb dish today! Using sorghum, a naturally gluten-free whole grain with a stack of vitamins and minerals. This salad also comes with fruit and nuts (apricots and almonds; a heavenly combination for both taste and nutrients) as well as greens, herbs, and spices.

Note: to keep things simple today, we’ve listed ras el-hanout as one ingredient. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a spice blend; you can probably buy a version locally, but you might as well know how to make it yourself—so here’s our recipe for that!

You will need

• 1½ cups sorghum, soaked overnight in water (if you can’t find it locally, you can order it online (here’s an example product on Amazon), or substitute quinoa) and if you have time, soaked overnight and then kept in a jar with just a little moisture for a few days until they begin to sprout—this will be best of all. But if you don’t have time, don’t worry about it; overnight soaking is sufficient already.
• 1 carrot, grated
• ½ cup chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• ½ tbsp chopped chives
• 2 tbsp ras el-hanout
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp almond butter
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp white miso paste
• ½ cup sliced almonds
• 4 fresh apricots, pitted and cut into wedges
• 1 cup mint leaves, chopped
• To serve: your choice of salad greens; we suggest chopped romaine lettuce and rocket

Method

(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

1) Cook the sorghum, which means boiling it for about 45 minutes, or 30 in a pressure cooker. If unsure, err on the side of cooking longer—even up to an hour will be totally fine. You have a lot of wiggle room, and will soon get used to how long it takes with your device/setup. Drain the cooked sorghum, and set it aside to cool. If you’re entertaining, we recommend doing this part the day before and keeping it in the fridge.

2) When it’s cool, add the carrot, the parsley, the chives, the vinegar, and 1 tbsp of the ras el-hanout. Toss gently but thoroughly to combine.

3) Make the dressing, which means putting ¼ cup water into a blender with the other 1 tbsp of the ras el-hanout, the garlic, the almond butter, the lemon juice, and the miso paste. Blend until smooth.

4) Assemble the salad, which means adding the dressing to sorghum-and-ingredients bowl, along with the almonds, apricots, and mint leaves. Toss gently, but sufficiently that everything is coated.

5) Serve on a bed of salad greens.

Enjoy!

Want to learn more?

For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

• Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet ← including an anti-inflammatory version, which is functionally what we’re doing today. As an aside when people hear “Mediterranean” they often think “Italy and Greece”. Which, sure, but N. Africa (and thus Maghreb cuisine) is also very much Mediterranean, and it shows!
• Our Top 5 Spices: How Much Is Enough For Benefits?
• Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!
• Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!

Take care!

You’re not obliged to eat this every day, but you might want to. The reason we called this one this, is because it’s a super simple recipe (don’t be put off by the long ingredients list; it’s mostly spices making it look long) which, after you’ve done it a couple of times, you could practically do it in your sleep quickly and easily.

The name “lentil daal” is a bit like “naan bread”—a redundant tautology repeated more than once unnecessarily, but it helps for international clarity. The dish is usually served with naan, by the way, and rice. We don’t have room for those today, maybe we’ll do them another day; for now, you can just cook rice how you normally do, and buy naan if necessary.

Writer’s note: I love strong flavors; many people don’t. For this reason I’m going to give a “basic” version. Please feel free to multiply the spices if you feel so inclined. Where I give “one teaspoon” of a spice below, I’d use a tablespoon at home. Chili peppers can vary in heat a lot even within the same type, so what I do for any given batch is taste one (raw), judge the heat, and use an appropriate number of peppers accordingly. If you don’t want to do that, I suggest just guessing low (as per the instructions below) and if you find at the end you want more heat, you can always stir in a little hot sauce. I know that sounds heretical, but at the end of the day, the primary goal of cooking is to have the meal you want at the end of it.

You will need

• 1 1/2 cups red lentils
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large bulb garlic, minced
• 1 oz ginger, grated
• 2 hot peppers (e.g. serrano), chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp garam masala (this is also ground, but it doesn’t come any other way)
• 1 tsp chili flakes (omit if you’re not a fan of heat)
• 2 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 tsp salt ← I wouldn’t recommend multiplying this one unless later, to taste. In fact, instead of 1 tsp salt I use 2 tsp MSG, which has less sodium than 1 tsp salt. But “1 tsp salt” is the “easy to find in the store” version.
• 2 large or 3 small tomatoes, chopped (or 1 can chopped tomatoes)
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 lime
• 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, or if you have the “that tastes like soap” gene, parsley, chopped
• Coconut oil for cooking (if you don’t like coconut, consider springing for avocado oil—if you use olive oil, it’ll add an olivey taste which changes the dish a lot; not inherently bad, but it feels a lot less like traditional daal; seed oils are less healthy and we don’t recommend them; ghee is a traditional option and not bad in moderation, but not as healthy as the oils we mentioned first)
• Water for cooking the lentils

Method

(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

1) In a saucepan, boil water and add the lentils; let them simmer while doing the next things.

2) Sauté the onions until translucent. This should only take a few minutes.

3) Add the garlic, ginger, and hot peppers, and keep stirring for another couple of minutes.

4) Add the ground spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala) chili flakes, and cracked black pepper, as well as the salt or MSG if using (not both), and stir them in quickly but thoroughly.

For the next step, you may need to transfer to larger pan if your sauté pan isn’t big enough to take the volume; if so, that’s fine, the sauté has done its job and can have a rest now. If your sauté pan is big enough, just carry on in the same pan; this is perfect.

5) Add the lentils with the water you cooked them in (there might not be much water left now, as the lentils will have absorbed a lot of it; this is fine) as well as the chopped tomatoes.

6) Simmer until it has the consistency of a very thick sauce (you can add a splash more water here and there if it seems to need more). In the West it’s common to serve lentils “al dente”, but in the East it’s usual to (for dishes like this) cook them until they start to

7) Add the juice of at least 1/2 of your lime, or the whole lime if you feel so inclined.

8) In a pre-heated skillet, flash-fry the sliced shallots and the seeds (cumin, coriander, mustard, black peppercorns) at the hottest temperature you can muster. Don’t worry if the oil smokes; we’re only going to be at this tadka-making stage for a moment and nothing will stick provided you keep it moving. When the seeds start popping, it’s ready. Add it all to the big pan and stir in.

9) Add the cilantro-or-parsley garnish once you’re ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Learn more

For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

• Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)
• How Much Spice Is Right?
• Tasty Polyphenols

Take care!