Sounds decadent right?  It tasted like it too, but without the guilt!  I woke up one Saturday morning and decided to make my husband and I something other than the normal day-starter we usually rush through.  (Our breakfast rut?  Whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, glass of milk and a banana for me, and dinner leftovers for Phong).  Yes, it was time for a change.
I usually buy a sweet potato or purple potato every time I go to the grocery store.  My dad doesn’t cook, but he showed me that you could nuke a potato (please poke holes in it first with a fork unless you want mashed potato all over your microwave) with a little water, wrapped in plastic wrap for a few minutes and – tada! – instant comfort food.  When Phong and I went to Vietnam, we ate sweet potatoes grilled over a makeshift campfire and that was the best thing on that freezing day in the Sapa mountains.  I’m seriously veering off track.  Now you know how much I love sweet potatoes – they’re also bursting with Vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene, complex carbs, and lots of fiber if you eat the skin.
So back to my Saturday morning – I had a random sweet potato.  Here’s what I did with it:

2 slices of center-cut, lean bacon, cut in ¼ inch slices

1/2 tsp brown sugar

½ cup onion, thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups peeled, shredded sweet potato (I do this quickly through the food processor)

3 eggs plus 2 egg whites, lightly beaten (just enough to break the yolks)

Salt, pepper, and garnish with cilantro to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F.  With an oven-safe pan (if you don’t know whether that rubber handle melts in extreme heat, don’t put it in the oven!), turn the heat to med-high on the stovetop.  Throw in the bacon and let them sweat for a little, just till they become a little crispy.  Sprinkle the brown sugar over the bacon and crack some black pepper on them – they’ll look super appetizing.  When a lot of the fat has sweated out (I don’t know how else to explain it!), pour some of the fat out of the pan and start cooking the onions, for about 3-4 minutes.  Make sure you toss and turn them a bit until they get soft and a little caramelized.

Next, add your shredded sweet potato.  This takes a while to cook, and you may have to add a tablespoon of water now and then till it softens the potato and cooks it down.   Cover the pan with a lid; the steam generated inside the pan will speed up the cooking.
When the sweet potato is tender and slightly browned (just take a bit and bite it! It should not taste like a raw potato), pour the eggs and egg whites over the sweet potato mixture.  Don’t scramble them.  Continue cooking the eggs for a minute on the stove, then transfer to the preheated oven.  After about 4 minutes, the whites will set and (with an oven mitt, please!), take out the frittata.  Allow to cool for a couple minutes, then you can slide the whole thing out onto a plate.  Garnish with black pepper, chopped cilantro, and salt (just a sprinkle – the bacon adds salt already).  Cut into 4 pieces, serve with a slice of whole-wheat toast and 1/2 cup of sliced strawberries to round it out.  One serving: 1 piece.