Sweet Potato Chili Bake

I visited Mama twice this week. She has been declining—the aide has been calling more often with small updates, the kind that are individually minor but collectively significant, the kind that a daughter translates into: the trajectory is pointing somewhere. She is eating less. She sleeps more. The good days are less good and the difficult days are more difficult, and the window of recognition—the moments when she knows me—is narrower than it was in the spring.

I sat with her for two hours on Wednesday. She was in the middle-ground state, present enough to track conversation, not present enough to be sure she knew who I was. I cooked beside her the way Bernice used to cook beside me—I brought her the smell of food rather than the food itself, a small jar of just-warmed spices, the cinnamon and nutmeg that are her fall spices, that are the spices of her sweet potato pie and her pound cake, and I held it near her and watched her face change. The smell reached her somewhere memory hadn't gone. She inhaled. She said, "That's the pie." Not my pie, not your pie—just the pie, as though the pie is a place rather than a thing, a destination that smell can locate even when the map is mostly lost.

I went home and made sweet potato pie. I made two—one for the nursing home visit Saturday, one for us, for Calvin and me and the October evening and the fact that we are here and Bernice is going somewhere and the pie is the thread that runs between us. I put the same pie on both tables. Same recipe, same hands, same love crossing whatever distance is growing between my mother and the kitchen she gave me. The pie reaches. The pie always reaches.

Sweet potatoes were already on every surface of my kitchen by Friday—two pies cooling, the smell of cinnamon still hanging in the air—and I couldn’t bring myself to put them away entirely. There is something about the way a sweet potato holds warmth, the way it carries spice deeper than almost any other vegetable, that felt right for the week I’d had. This Sweet Potato Chili Bake is what I made for Calvin and me on Thursday night, before the pies, before Saturday—a savory version of the same comfort, the same ingredient running like a thread through all of it. If the pie is for Mama, this is for us, for the ordinary evening, for staying fed and grounded while the harder things are happening.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1 lb lean ground beef (or ground turkey)
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
Sour cream and sliced green onions, for serving

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Parboil the sweet potatoes. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the cubed sweet potatoes and cook for 6–8 minutes, until just barely fork-tender but still holding their shape. Drain and set aside.
Brown the meat. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking it up with a spoon, until browned through, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat.
Build the chili base. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion to the skillet with the meat and cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Add the chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne (if using), salt, and black pepper and stir to coat everything evenly.
Combine and add liquid. Stir in the black beans, diced tomatoes with their juices, and tomato sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes to let the flavors come together. Remove from heat and fold in the parboiled sweet potatoes and 3/4 cup of the shredded cheddar.
Transfer and top. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread into an even layer. Sprinkle the remaining 3/4 cup of cheddar evenly over the top.
Bake. Bake uncovered at 375°F for 25–30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling and the edges are lightly browned. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.
Serve. Spoon into bowls and top with sour cream and sliced green onions. Crusty bread or cornbread alongside makes this a full meal.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sweet Potato Chili Bake — The Thread That Runs Between Us