This is another low histamine dish that you can cook with very little effort and makes you feel really full and happy. That’s the great thing about comfort food – or just potatoes in general, right? They make you feel full and that makes you feel happy. Or at least it does me.

While waiting for the sun to set and the air to cool in this otherwise perfect Tennessee town, I decided to grab all the low histamine ingredients I could find in my fridge and make what I think will be a weekly standard moving forward. I do love a pesto – and I adore watercress. It’s not the easiest to find (only one Publix out of the three we go to carried it…), so you can use pea shoots or kale – or any lettuce you prefer/can tolerate. Otherwise, the ingredients are all easily located and can be repurposed time and again in your home.

You Will Need:

• Sweet Potatoes (organic if you can swing it)
• Mozzarella (I’m aware that fresh is better than shredded but it’s what we had)
• Ricotta
• Brussel Sprouts
• Dried Basil
• Salt
• Garlic (optional -I used minced garlic but moving forward I know that fresh is better – you can roast it ahead of time or just use it as is)
• Olive Oil
• Watercress (please see above paragraph for alternatives)
• Macadamia Nuts (if you prefer, you can sub with hazelnuts as they’re both low histamine)
• Butter (optional)
• Cauliflower Rice (frozen or fresh)
• Broccoli Rice (optional – frozen or fresh)
• Bell Peppers (frozen or fresh)
• Zucchini (optional – frozen or fresh)

The potatoes (regardless of how many you cook) will take an hour to bake so you’ll want to start with those first. I suggest using sweet potatoes for this as it’s not a nightshade vegetable unlike white potatoes, for example. If you’re really going low histamine do yourself a favor and start loving sweet potatoes… This can also be substituted with squash. If you’d like to instead use zucchinis as boats to fill and bake, or stuff butternut squash (I have a recipe for that here which you can use these ingredients for instead – although the ones in that recipe are also low histamine).

Take the potatoes and stab them a few times with either a knife or fork. Place them in a casserole dish or on a baking sheet and roast at 400 for an hour.

While those cook, get a blender or food processor and start to make your pesto. Pesto has become a MASSIVE help to me since I can’t eat tomatoes right now… You can basically make a pesto out of anything but, this one was especially good and loaded with vitamin c – a huge help during this histamine detox time.

In your vessel, add two handfuls of watercress, two handfuls of macadamia nuts, a bit of garlic (I used a half tablespoon of minced garlic though like I said earlier, moving forward since it has citric acid in it, I’ll be using fresh / roasted garlic cloves) – as much garlic as you prefer or omit entirely – roughly chopped Brussel sprouts (I used six), two tablespoons of basil and some shakes of sea salt. I then added a handful of mozzarella and a couple glugs of olive oil and blended. If the machine has a difficult time blending add more olive oil.

Once blended I added two tablespoons of ricotta and blended again.

Then taste. You may want more salt, more basil, more… something… Up to you. This pesto is customizable in that way but, this is the consistency you’ll want.

Set it aside in the fridge and prep your veggies. I get all my veggies frozen however, if I do get some fresh (zucchini, for example), I cut them down and freeze them when I get home. They last longer and I don’t feel stressed about them “aging” in my fridge. In this case, I used my frozen veggies that had the most vitamin c with the least histamine.

Throw your riced veggies, bell peppers and chopped zucchini in a pan with some butter (or olive oil) and sauté.

Once cooked completely, take off the heat and add some salt and dried basil.

The potatoes should be done by now, take them out and let them cool just a bit so you can handle them. Slice them down the middle length-wise.

Scoop out some / most of the insides and place them with the cooked veggies.

Combine and mush the potatoes a bit so they really incorporate.

Take a spoon and place some of the veggie filling back into the potatoes. Treat this like a lasagna: you’ll do one layer of veggies, then a layer of pesto, then veggies again, finishing with a top layer of pesto.

Right before placing them back in the oven, top with more mozzarella (I needed to transfer to a larger casserole dish at this point).

Bake on 350 for 30 minutes.

While those cook, get out your dishes and start to chop down your watercress or lettuce base.

Drizzle just a bit of olive oil over the lettuce or watercress right before you plate the potatoes; not too early before so the leaves stay crunchy and don’t sit and soak up the oil. The potatoes will come out with a gooey center and a crunchy flavorful top. If you’re not ready to eat yet, keep the potatoes in the oven on 160 degrees so they stay warm without any bacteria building.

I placed a potato on each bed of watercress (my husband got pea shoots) and drizzled just a teeny bit of oil overtop one last time.

You can see the layering inside the potato:

So filling… big smiles… And a perfect go-to meal that really takes no time at all. The leftovers in the fridge like any leftovers with low histamine diets, should be eaten within 24 hours though, I think a bit longer is okay as these are just veggies which would have realistically sat in your fridge for longer than that – were you not using them yet.

Try this pesto with rice, flash frozen salmon or pasta!

The napkins are from Williams Sonoma. The silverware is Napoleon Bee. The glasses are Crate and Barrel. The crystal is Waterford. The bowls are Fortessa.