Easy Sweet Potato Salad

There are a lot of points and positions that the Paleo diet might recommend, such as trying to avoid gluten, grains, inflammatory oils, dairy, and refined sweeteners, but I like to think of it more as working consciously at simple, fresh, non processed foods that takes a more common sense stance on sugar.  To avoid gluten, for example, is a tough task when you consider gluten is a naturally occurring protein from grains.  The idea that clean meats are good and that a vegetarian diet doesn't actually occur in any of our ancestry, is basically a cook's dream.  To add the prospect that we can follow these rules within the tradition of an ancient Mediterranean diet is downright fun.  The simple recipe for the side dish of

'easy sweet potato salad' brings this to light.  Take four medium size sweet potatoes (or yams in many midwestern grocery stores) and decide how best to cook them soft and cut them into bit size chunks that are not too mushy but soft and maintain their shape.  This time around I cut the yams first then slowly fried them in a pan with avocado oil and a few pinches of salt.  The recipe calls for a dressing of diced red onions, ginger, vinegar and cilantro, so I got a headstart on this and placed a hand full of diced onion into the pan and let it slowly cook and brown with the bite size sweet potatoes.  I added a few dashes of ginger (skipped the cilantro since nobody here likes it), and drizzled the combination with more avocado oil.  Sweet potatoes, when just barely browned on the outside and soft in the center, are a surprisingly easy but flavorful side along with baked shrimp.