Sweet potato BLAT (bean curd, lettuce, avocado and tomato)

BLAT method

1. Peel or scrub sweet potato, slice into ½ cm pieces lengthways. Toast in toaster on highest setting, 2-3 times until tender. This may take up to 20 minutes, so prepare toppings in meantime.
2. Top sweet potato toast generously with avocado (spread or sliced). Sprinkle on gomasio (see below).
3. Add several slices of smoked tofu or trout/salmon. Layer with grated beetroot and carrot, then green leaves, then tomatoes.
4. Sprinkle tomatoes with extra gomasio. Garnish with nori.

Gomasio method

1. Heat a non-stick frying pan or skillet on medium. Add salt, toss in pan for a minute. Remove.
2. Add sesame seeds, stir non-stop for 2-3 minutes until they start to crack/pop, but do not burn. Remove from heat.
3. Add seeds, salt and seaweed into a seed grinder/small food processor, blitz until combined (do in batches if needed).
4. Store in an airtight container in the fridge or cool dry place and use instead of salt.

Nutritional information

By Jean Hailes naturopath and herbalist Sandra Villella

A variety of brightly coloured vegetables are a major part of a diet promoted as anti-inflammatory. This recipe includes almost all the colours of the rainbow, providing the many different phytochemicals (plant chemicals) that work together to create anti-inflammatory properties. The anti-inflammatory diet is often about cutting processed foods from our diet, and often gluten.

This sweet potato toast is a bread-free option, and the smoked tofu a swap for bacon, creating a wholefood, gluten-free variation of the BLT (bacon lettuce and tomato) toastie.

Gomasio (or gomashio) translates to ‘sesame salt’. It’s a Japanese macrobiotic seasoning used on foods instead of table salt. It’s still salty but packs extra nutrients, especially with this seaweed variation. Seaweed has the important anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acid EPA.