Sweet Potato Two Ways
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I have never made sweet potatoes before. Never. Not for Thanksgiving – someone else brings that horrible, orange dish. Not ever.
I do not make sweet potatoes as I do not like sweet potatoes. Not even with marshmallows. OK, especially with marshmallows. Which belong in cookies and ice cream (Mallomars & Phish Food, for example) and not potatoes, in my book.
But in my weekly CSA Farm Share I kept getting sweet potatoes. Along with info about how healthy sweet potatoes are: that they have as much Vitamin A and Beta-Carotene as carrots, and other such stuff. So I decided to search for a sweet potato recipe that looked even vaguely appealing.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I found not 1 but 2 easy and delicious (!) sweet potato recipes from Cooking Light.
My favorite was Curry Spiced Sweet Potatoes.
It was not the prettiest dish (mine were not beautifully textured like this picture – because I don’t enjoy lumpy potatoes, I whipped them with a hand mixer which maybe wasn’t the best plan), but it was easy to make and incredibly flavorful. I served it with my new favorite oh-so-easy chicken-in-a-bag and happily ate leftovers of both for lunch all week. Thank you, Cooking Light – always my go-to source for low fat yet delicious recipes.
If curry is not your thing or you are looking for a sweet potato dish that’s a tad more traditional, then you should give Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Onions a whirl. I found this recipe on Cooking Light as well, but frankly, it’s so easy it doesn’t even need a recipe. Just crank the oven to 425, drizzle olive oil on the large-bite-size diced sweet potatoes and onions, add some pepper and diced garlic and roast for about 30 minutes. My one small quibble with this Cooking Light recipe is that it calls for 3/4 teaspoon of something called ‘garlic-pepper blend.’ Instead, use freshly ground pepper and a few cloves of diced fresh garlic for great, fresh flavor and no additives. Done this way, this sweet potato dish was tasty enough for my 16 year old. Which as you know is no small feat.
The only trouble I had with these dishes was my suggestion to serve them at Thanksgiving. My idea to replace the 13x9x2 pan bubbling with an orange mess of marshmallowed-brown-sugared sweet potatoes was rejected. Indeed, laughed at.
OK, the curry one, I get. Even I wouldn’t serve them to my 85-year-old in-laws on a holiday. But the oven roasted sweet potatoes and onions dish I thought had possibilities.
Apparently, not so much. No one wants to mess with tradition. So I will maintain my traditional stance of hating sweet potatoes – the ones with marshmallows.
Then I will come home and make these sweet potato dishes to have with leftover turkey. Maybe my son will even join me.
