Sausage-Apple Sweet Potato Topper

A baked yam topped with sausage, apples and onions.

This is a recipe I looked over a ton of times in my Cooking Pleasures magazine due to the fact that it called for sausage.  I turned to it during our going meatless venture. While there is quite a bit of meat, relatively speaking, this dish will yield 3 oz of chicken (but actually less since it's sausage) per serving. And that's much less than what we typically consume during dinner.

Sticking to the recipe as closely as possible, I purchased Aidells Chicken and Apple Sausage, but used only three of the four links of the 12 oz package to make this.

Sausage-Apple Sweet Potato Topper

4 medium yams, about 2-2.5 lbs total

2 tsp olive oil
1 medium sweet or yellow onion, chopped
1 (9-oz.) pkg. fully cooked Aidells Chicken and Apple sausage links, chopped
1 medium Braeburn apple, unpeeled, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh sage
1/4 c lower-sodium chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt

Heat oven to 400°F.

Place yams on small rimmed baking sheet. Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until tender.

Yams always leak sweet nectar from an eye when baked. It's one way to tell they are done, but I try to catch them right before that happens in order to keep the sweetness locked in. I always fail but find that I keep trying.

Meanwhile, heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot.

Cook onion 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add sausage, apple and sage; cook 6 to 8 minutes or until apple and onion are tender.


Stir in broth; cook 2 minutes to heat.

Split potatoes down center; fluff (or not). Sprinkle with salt.

Spoon sausage mixture over potatoes.

Surprisingly, I found this to be very good. I put all thoughts of flies, chicken carcass processing, binders and other nuances out of the picture in order to enjoy this and I did so successfully.

Rodney, while he liked the taste and thought the flavors blended well, prefers to have meat, potato and vegetable/fruit separately. He seems to think his stomach can handle them better that way, but you and I know that is simply the way Rodney's accustomed to eating his food.

If we continue this road of going less-meat, I'll definitely put this into a regular rotation. And it'll be neat trying different sausage flavors.

Cost:

• yams: $1.98/2.51 lb
• onion: $0.5
• sausage: $4.99/12 oz
• apple: $0.77
• sage: $1.29/bunch

Total: $9.53 or $2.38 for each of four servings. That's not bad considering it's a full healthy meal in a serving.

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