I like sweet potatoes over yams... and I grew up in the south. To me, anything orange and moist (and maybe canned) is a yam. The outer skin is usually red or brown. My favorite is the beige skinned yellow flesh sweet potato. .... Here is a great recipe... (ok, you can use yams if you must...

Sweet potato pecan pie.
Sweet Potato Pecan Pie
Dough: (or commercial crust)
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 whole egg
2 tablespoons cold milk
1 cup flour
Sweet Potato Filling:
2-3 sweet potatoes (1 cup cooked pulp, baked or boiled, skin removed)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 whole egg
1 tablespoon cream
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Pecan filling:
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup dark brown corn syrup
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch salt
pinch cinnamon
3/4 cup pecans, coarsely chopped or halves
For dough, beat butter, sugar, and salt until creamy. Add 1/2 egg, beat for 30 seconds. Add milk, beat high for 2 minutes. Add flour, beat till blended only.
Refrigerate 1 hour or overnight.
Roll crust and place in a cake pan. You can also use a commercial crust (9-inch deep dish), but the recipe volume may not match every store-bought crust perfectly.
For the sweet potato filling, combine all ingredients and beat till smooth, 2-3 minutes. Do not overbeat. Set aside.
For the pecan filling, mix all ingredients on low speed until the syrup is opaque. Stir in pecans.
To assemble the pie, fill half of the pie shell with the sweet potato filling. Pour pecan syrup on top. Do not overfill shell.
When finished, the pie should be half sweet potato on the bottom and half pecan on the top.
Bake at 325 degrees about 1 hour, 45 minutes. Cool.
If desired, serve with whipped cream. Almond, vanilla, and fine citrus liquor flavorings in the whipped cream complement the flavor of the pie - 1/2 teaspoon of the selected flavor, blended into the whipped cream, usually works.

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They're all sweet potatoes, guys, just different varieties. Grocers started calling the "yams" so people would not expect a regular potato (white flesh). A yam is a tropical vegetable: large, hairy tough skin, white on the inside, tasteless, and without much food value. The various sweet potatoes are orange, tasty, and chock full of food value.

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Here's a recipe for which you use different varieties of sweet potatoes. (BTW, in the comment above "the" should be "them" at the obvious spot.)

Bourbon Sweet Potatoes

4 1/2 lbs mixed varieties of sweet potatoes
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup bourbon
2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup (or more) walnuts, coarsely chopped

Bake potatoes in jackets in a hot oven for 1 hour or until soft. Scoop out the meat and beat it with the soft butter, bourbon, and salt. Don't overdo the bourbon---I did once and it tasted too strong. Put the mix in a shallow, greased baking dish. Dot with butter and walnuts. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

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Sweet potatoes are pretty much a staple for me year 'round. I don't think I've ever had a yam.

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LeisureGuy is correct. That "yam" you are eating is really a sweet potato, of which there are two main variations. The pale sweet potato is dry and crumbly, much like a regular russet potato for which it can be substituted. The darker variety has a sweet, moist flesh, and this is the variety most used in cooking. Canned "yams" are actually sweet potatoes, and yams are not widely available in the U.S.

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Yams as we know them in the US are sweet potatoes. Everything we call "yams" or sweet potatoes are all varieties of sweet potato. Real yams are huge tubers (several feet long)that grow in West Africa and DO have food value. They are a huge part of the West African diet and are prepared in many different ways, but they are not related to sweet potatoes, nor do they look or taste anything like them. From what I've seen, it seems that what we call "yams" are usually sweet potatoes that are canned or already sweetened and prepared, as in candied yams.

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"Yam" is a special term in the U.S. trademarked by Louisiana sweet potato growers for their orange sweet potatoes. It's difficult to find an African yam in American grocery stores, and you would be surprised if you bought it. For one thing, African yams can be huge, and they are very starchy.

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Can someone please tell me how many cups of mashed sweet potato it takes to make 2 pounds?

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