As fall gets underway, do you know the difference between a sweet potato and a yam? The subject of much confusion, the orange-colored tuber that is often referred to as a "yam" is in fact, a sweet potato.
Posts with tag SweetPotato
Frittering Our Days Away- Feast Your Eyes
This potato fritter looks, in our humble opinion, exactly as a potato fritter should.
It's crispy around the edges with little shreds of potato and sweet potato trailing seductively from a perfectly golden brown, tender center. It sort of reminds us of the sun, or, less abstractly, of what we'd like to be eating right now. The fact that this fritter's creator, Molly Watson of The Dinner Files, originally intended for this to be a potato latke makes us love it even more.
We know the pain and sorrow of potato latkes -- indeed, our mother's first and only attempt to make the starchy little devils resulted in an unscheduled visit from the fire department -- so we can sympathize with the myriad frustrations Ms. Watson describes on her blog. And we can also relate to the unexpected joys of happy kitchen accidents that yield gorgeous fritters like this one, particularly if they're accompanied by a few spoonfuls of applesauce or tangy Greek yogurt. So please, go fritter some time away -- yes, we went there -- with Molly.
[Via The Dinner Files]
Win $1,000 in Sweet Potato Recipe Contest
Got a killer original sweet potato recipe? Well, post it to your blog and you could bag a more-than-sweet $1,000 prize. The North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission has just announced their 2009 Bloggers' Recipe Challenge. The $1,000 prize will be awarded to the creator of the winning recipe; five finalists will win $100 prizes.
Check out the instructions, directly from the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission, after the jump.
Sweet Potato and Cheddar Cookies
Seriously? Sweet potato and cheese cookies? That's what I thought when I saw this recipe too. But Dawn from Vanilla Sugar swears by them, and I'm inclined to believe her. I've always thought that the cheddar cheese + pie combo was highly underrated, so I can see how the sweet and savory flavors would work together much the same way in these cookies. Plus, since cheese has protein, you can eat the cookies for breakfast. Right? The recipe includes mashed sweet potatoes, shredded sharp cheddar, cinnamon, pecans and raisins. I won't have a chance to test these out myself until the weekend, so if anyone else tries them, please let me know how they taste!
Slashfood Ate (8): Fall bread recipes
Not everyone looks forward to the cooler weather of fall, and I'm one of them. I really prefer warmer temperatures, but I do look forward to fall food. All of the different squash dishes, puddings, and citrus flavors are so welcome that I can almost forgive the chill in the air. I've been searching for different fall influenced bread recipes and I think I've found some good ones. Check them out and you be the judge.
1. This fig and anise bread sounds so amazing, I'm planning on making this one soon!
2. What could be more fall than a pumpkin bread pudding?
3. It seems more difficult to find a pumpkin yeast bread, but I found one amid all the quick breads.
4. Chestnut rye is a little more unusual of a flavor, but that's what makes it special.
5. Sweet potato rolls deserve a place on everyone's fall table.
6. This cornbread from the Homesick Texan may not be strictly fall, but the cornbread dressing you can make with it sure is.
7. Orange yeast bread is also more rare than its quick bread cousin.
8. Sure cranberry is usually paired with orange, but why not let it shine on its own?
Vanilla flecked sweet potato puree
All the comments I've gotten on the Autumnal Casserole post have led me to believe that there are a lot of you out there looking for alternatives to the traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. So I thought I'd post another one of my favorites. This one originally came to me via 101 Cookbooks. Heidi found it in Artisanal Cooking by Terrance Brennan. It is a sweet potato puree that is flecked with vanilla and orange zest and it so good that you might think it belongs in a pie instead of along side your turkey.
I first made it two years ago to take along to my family's Thanksgiving buffet. I put the bowl down on the table and got hijacked into a conversation with my aunt. When I finally got back to the table half an hour later, the bowl was nearly empty. Last year I made it for Christmas dinner. While we were waiting for my dad to carve the turkey, my mom and I stood in the kitchen together and scraped the bowl of the food processor clean with our fingers, just so as not to let any of this puree go to waste.
Give up your sweet potato casseroles and try this puree. It will convert even the most devoted of the mini-marshmallow fans.
Sweet Potaoto - Savior of the 21st Century?
Can the lowly Sweet Potato answer the world's ever growing needs for food and energy
supplys and remain environmentally balanced? Japanese scientists seem to think so.
"With people scrambling for food and energy, environmental destruction will get increasingly serious," said Toyoki Kozai, president of Chiba University and an expert on sweet potatoes. "Sweet potatoes can solve these three major problems all at once."
The sweet potato can grow with little use of fertilizers (boosting its green credentials) and also using the same area of land yields five times more than rice in terms of weight. The food can also be used to make alcohol for fuel and biodegradable plastic. Unlike petroleum-based plastic, that made from sweet potatoes decomposes naturally through bacterial action in the earth. You can even buy hydroponics equipment to grow sweet potatoes designed for rooftop greening as a way to absorb heat. All in all it sounds a most benefical group on so many levels - I can't stand the taste though!
Vanilla Sweet Potato Puree
I just tried the Vanilla Sweet Potato Puree recipe from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks as a side to my holiday meal. After cooking the sweet potatoes until soft and tender, I placed them in a large bowl with cream, vanilla extract, a bit of orange zest and a bit of butter and whipped them with a hand mixer until they were smooth and fluffy.
You can see Heidi's batch in the photo above because her styling of this side is far more appealing than any of my attempts. Somehow, it seems that purees look much less glamorous than they taste. No matter, because this tasted fantastic. The vanilla flavor, though I used extract rather than infuse my cream with real vanilla beans, as Heidi did, came through very well. Its delicate flavor brought out the sweetness of the potatoes without having to add a lot of sugar. Whipping the whole mixture, combined with the cream, no doubt, makes it incredibly light and fluffy. This is a standout dish and is definitely worth a repeat. Or two.
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