Ok fine, you caught me. I’m on a cheesy kick. And by cheesy, I don’t mean my bad jokes, I mean my love affair with creating dairy free cheese recipes in order to fill the void. I guess for me, cheese is something that I just can’t emotionally get over. But I also feel like I shouldn’t have to be sad over food, even if I can’t have that food. I feel like it’s just a challenge to recreate it as best I can.

So as I strolled through the grocery yesterday, I locked eyes with the sweet potatoes and realized that an au gratin recipe was sort of a must have. But I wanted it to get bubbly and brown on top. I know, I can be real high maintenance but luckily I am creating my own recipes so I only have to answer to myself. It can get a bit sticky but so far we (I) have worked it out.

Once it was decided that this had to be done, I gathered my supplies and headed home to cook. Luckily I have geeked out on faux cheese enough lately that I had some ideas how to make this work and I nailed it on the first try. To be quite honest I probably would have eaten a flop too because it smelled so good, but I was rather pleased that round 1 was the winner. Oh and yes, this one is AIP friendly so happy dancers get out your best moves.

Ingredients:

• 1 large sweet potato, peeled and sliced thin with a mandolin
• 2 tablespoons ghee or preferred cooking fat
• 1 onion diced
• 2 cups of dairy free milk (coconut for AIP)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/3 cup tapioca starch

1. Begin by sauteing the onion in the ghee over high heat until the onions are soft and golden brown
2. While onions are browning, combine the milk, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, sea salt and tapioca starch in a small saucepan
3. Heat them over medium/high heat until the sauce thickens, if there are lumps you can use an immersion blender to get the consistency smooth, then turn heat off
4. Preheat the oven to 350
5. Now combine the browned onions into the cheesy sauce and give it a quick stir
6. Next begin layering the potatoes and the cheesy sauce in a casserole dish – you’ll divide the layers into as many as you need to fill the dish and use up the ingredients (it does not need to be beautifully arranged); save a little bit of the sauce to put on top after baking
7. Bake the potatoes for 40-50 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. The cheese will bubble but will not have browned yet
8. Remove the casserole dish turn on your oven broiler.  Top with the remaining cheese sauce and spread it evenly
9. Place the casserole dish back into the oven and allow it to broil for 5 minutes, keeping a close eye on it so the top does not burn. Remove it from the oven and allow it to set for about 10 minutes.