Savory Sweet Potatoes

I know I've said this before, but one of the things about the CSA is that it is strangely liberating to have no choice in what you get. You must cook the sweet potatoes, even though you'd never have bought them in the first place. So you try to find a way to like the sweet potatoes (or fill-in-the-blank with your own personal bête noire).

Yesterday, when faced with a need to make dinner and a need to address the largish bag of sweet potatoes, I turned to Twitter/Facebook, and asked for help.



The replies poured in. Apparently people have strong feelings about sweet potatoes. Go figure. However, there’s no consensus! Lots of people want to turn them into something so sweet that it might as well be dessert:

• Brown sugar, but not a ton, butter, and cinnamon if your tastes go that way.
• Add butter and brown sugar, LOTS.
• With pecans and brown sugar. Tastes like candy.
• Marshmallows baby, marshmallows.

Then there was the mashed and/or fried contingent:

• Two tone potatoes (complete with a link provided by Thordora)
• Mash & add some fresh lime juice--brightens them up. Or sweet potato latkes.
• Mashed. Or make 'em like baked french fries in the oven.
• I love sweet potato fries.
• Sweet potato fries, made with olive oil in the oven, plus salt.
• Sweet potato fries. Why does anyone make fries with regular potatoes?

There were a bunch of outliers:

• Pie 'em.
• Roasted together with various other potatoes and balsamic vinegar.
• I make a savory gratin: thin slices, some crumbled sausage and seasoning between layers, pour white sauce over, top with bread crumbs, bake covered except the last few minutes.
• Roasted with olive oil, sea salt and brown sugar.
• I always love them in a casserole. No marshmallows, but with walnuts and bourbon.
• Sweet potatoes are nice in stew. Or candied.
• Go to Japan and get a roasted sweet potato from the yaki imo man! Delish!!!

But Midlife Mama had a whole mess of suggestions:

Roasted with rosemary, red peppers, and regular potatoes. Or cut into "fries" and roasted with a spicy mix--chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, salt. Or sliced in rounds, layered in a shallow casserole with leeks also sliced into rounds and lots of butter (sweet potatoes anna). Substituted for squash or pumpkin in breads, muffins, cakes. Then again, I love them, so anything is good.

I riffed on her first idea, and came up with something that even the husband liked - earlier he'd been insisting that sweet potatoes would make him gag. I peeled and chunked some white potatoes, some sweet potatoes and an onion. I chopped up some garlic, and a sweet red pepper. We still have rosemary in the garden, so I minced a spring of it, and tossed everything together in a baking dish, with a glug or two of olive oil, and some kosher salt. It went into a 350° oven for about 45 minutes, at which point I tossed in some chopped cooked bacon that was in the freezer, and baked it for another 15 minutes. We ate it on top of some toothy polenta that I'd found at the Greenmarket last month, with a green salad alongside. And it was good.