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Simple Savory Wild Rice Sweet Potato Patties

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The midwest is hunkering down for a blizzard, the east is digging out from one and here in California, it is cold and rainy. A great time for these delicious, easy savory Sweet Potato Patties! This recipe is part of our cooked collection. Check out our cool recipe index to find all the recipes and search by type: Recipe Index

 

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My mother cracks me up. Born and raised in Minnesota, she is almost as much of a winter lover as I am. Sweaters, sitting by the fire while the snow swirls around the house, it’s such a cozy feeling. But I must say, she just hasn’t wrapped her head around the fact that in the Bay Area, we actually do have winter.

“Did you enjoy dinner on the deck tonight?” she asks. “No, mom, there isn’t any furniture out there. It’s cold and rainy. It’s winter here.”  She just laughs, thinking that our weather is like San Diego, 75 degrees year round.

We are being blessed with a cold, very rainy winter. It is so needed for California’s water starved land. Experiencing a historic drought up close is scary. Seeing reservoirs that are practically empty, hearing daily about how the water table is dropping to an unprecedented level that may never recover is frightening. Especially since a great percentage of the fruits, nuts and vegetables that the country eats are grown here. Thankfully, El Nino has arrived and we have been getting inches and inches of rain. Which translates to many feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. When that snow melts, the reservoirs fill.  It is a good thing.

 

Simple Savory Wild Rice Sweet Potato Cakes

 

But it is also a cold, wet thing and when it is cold and wet, I make more cooked food than raw. One of the problems I see with a raw diet is that when your body is needing more calories to stay warm, people tend to fill up on fats and nuts to try to stay raw. If you just add some super healthy, cooked food to the mix, you won’t crave all the fats to stay full.

I know that everyone doesn’t agree with me but I am bringing you what works for me after eating a mostly raw diet for over 8  years. In the summer, my percentage of raw increases dramatically. But in the winter, adding in some cooked food can be healthier than adding a ton of fat in the form of nuts and oils.

How I create recipes has been changing, evolving. I rarely use oil -this includes coconut oil- in my cooked or raw recipes. I don’t completely shy away from fats as I believe that nuts have wonderful health benefits. But I try to use them sparingly. If a recipe calls for a cup of cashews, it might seem like a lot. But many times, when you break it down to serving size, you are only getting a few nuts per serving. Well within the daily recommend allowance.

There are cooked foods that carry a wonderful nutritional profile. And in some cases, cooking the food releases nutrients that weren’t available when the food was raw. That is why I believe that a combination of cooked and raw gets you the biggest nutritional bang for your buck.

So, on this cold, rainy winter day, I am bringing you a simple recipe for sweet potato patties. You can actually make everything ahead of time, and assemble and bake when you need them. You can also freeze them after they have been baked for later use. My kind of recipe!

Sweet potatoes are the base, as I am trying to get a lot more of those in our diet. They are mixed with wild rice, onions and celery and some wonderful seasoning including sage. They are super happy sitting on top of a bed of simple sautéd spinach and garlic. Delicious!

This recipe makes 12, 5″ patties. You can cut the recipe in half or freeze the extras like I do.

ALSO! If you notice to the right of this post, there are pictures of things that I used in this recipe. You can click on those pictures and it will take you to the store for more information and to buy the product. We make a small commission (really small) off of the sales but it helps to support the website and we appreciate it!

 

Our friend the Sweet Potato!

Sweet potatoes are a nutritional powerhouse and even have cancer-fighting properties! Touted as one of the healthiest and cheapest vegetables on the planet, there are numerous reasons to include more of them in your diet.

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15 Comments

  1. hannah-phoebe wrote on February 22, 2016

    These look lovely susan!
    I know it depends somewhat on the individual but you have been “doing” raw food for a while so i expect you have insight – at roughly what point would you say “enough” with nuts? is it more like 1/4 or 1/2 cup a day? I worry because i will have a nut/seed milk and at least 1/4c nuts every day and wonder whether i should eat a bit more cooked food instead, or is that still a pretty normal amount?

    Many thanks <3

    Reply
    • Susan wrote on February 22, 2016

      Hi, Hanna, You can safely eat 1/4 cup of nuts a day. Im fact, nuts are great for you. They contain many health-giving properties! Cheers!

      Reply
  2. Barbara C wrote on February 3, 2016

    Susan:
    I too need warming foods in the winter here in Minnesota. I went through a winter raw, and I did not do well! Like you I tend to ear raw more in the summer and cooked in the winter. Learned to give my body what it needed. I love your site!

    Reply
  3. teresa wrote on February 3, 2016

    Hi Susan
    I’m currently in Mexico and cant find wild rice, is it possible to use brown rice?
    Also, what is rubbed sage?
    Thanks susan!
    Teresa

    Reply
    • Susan wrote on February 3, 2016

      Hi, Teresa! Great question. Brown rice will work just fine. Rubbed sage is just a type of dried sage. Ground sage is more of a powder where rubbed sage is lighter. It is rubbed instead of ground. If you use ground, you will want to use a little less. But taste as you go as you can always add more but never take away. 🙂

      Reply
  4. Lou Whitcomb wrote on February 2, 2016

    This is easy and so good…I have some in the freezer to have later. Thank you.

    Reply
  5. Larysa wrote on February 2, 2016

    Thank you for ideas!

    Reply
    • Susan wrote on February 2, 2016

      You are welcome, Larysa! Thanks for taking the time to comment. It means a lot. 🙂

      Reply
  6. Gemma wrote on February 2, 2016

    So good! I love sweet potatoes and baked a couple tonight…so I’ll halve the recipe and make a yummy dinner for tomorrow! Thanks for the great idea, these patties look delicious! 🙂

    Reply
    • Susan wrote on February 2, 2016

      So glad you like it, Gemma! Yay for sweet potatoes! 🙂

      Reply
  7. Maria wrote on February 2, 2016

    These look delicious Susan! Thank you. And wise words about cooked and raw food, oils, nuts, etc.

    Reply
    • Susan wrote on February 2, 2016

      Thank you and you are welcome, Maria!
      It is what works for me after all these years. Cheers!

      Reply
      • Judy E wrote on February 2, 2016

        The photos make this dish look enticing. I can’t find a way to save this recipe on my computer with the photos intact (without copying the entire page). When I click on “print this,” it’s a form witih no photos. How to save solely the recipe with the photos included?

        Reply
        • Susan wrote on February 2, 2016

          Hi, Judy,

          The print this function is tied to the recipe box. Since there isn’t any pictures in the actual recipe box, the pictures don’t print. Cheers!

          Reply
          • Jane wrote on August 16, 2016

            copy everything to a word doc and then save. You will have to copy the picture separately.

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