"SweetPotatoes" news and stories

• If your plate is larger than 9 inches across, you're probably eating too much.
• Many Kansans are quick to turn their noses up at turnips, but it seems everyone wants locally grown sweet potatoes.
• A small-town barbecue-joint bartender made it all the way to the big time -- sort of. He went before Judge Judy in a carding case.
• A mom on a budget hits three grocery stores to find the best deals.
• One writer says the numbers don't lie when it comes to determining our national sandwich -- and he believes the clear winner is peanut butter & jelly.

Few of us want to make a complicated lasagna for solo dining -- by day six, you'll never want to see lasagna again! In this series, AOL Food staffer Sarah LeTrent taste-tests simple recipes suitable for a "table for one."

When we think of peanuts, we think Virginia, ballgames and a top hat-wearing, cane-holding, monocled mascot. However, peanuts are also a staple in West African cooking and used prominently in many dishes. One such typical meal is a hearty stew made with tomatoes, sweet potatoes and peanuts.

This vegetarian version of the soup relies on the saltiness and creaminess of peanut butter -- the pantry staple and venerated American spread that is an often unsung hero in meals that don't include jelly or two slices of bread.

Presenting a new (and more acceptable) way to eat peanut butter by the spoonful.

Find the Peanut Stew recipe after the jump.

Sweet potato pie is a Southern food superstar, immortalized in song, celebrated in literature and beloved by American food authority President Barack Obama, who confidently called the filling his favorite while on the campaign trail. And then there's sweet potato cake.

Sweet potato cake is so thoroughly obscure that René Simon, spokesman for the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission, claims he's never tried it: "I've lived in South Louisiana all my life, and I don't think I've ever had sweet potato cake," Simon tells Slashfood.

According to him, the Pelican State's sweet potato scene is all pie, all the time. "Here, America means mom and sweet potato pie," Simon says.

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.

Sweet potato fries. Photo: Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission

Sweet potatoes, long touted for their nutritional attributes, are soon to make a cameo in the fast food world.

To keep up with the mushrooming demand for sweet potato fries -- a snack which about a decade ago was primarily available from eateries that stocked their condiment caddies with liquid aminos and stuffed their Reubens with tempeh -- ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston has announced plans to build the world's first large-scale facility dedicated to sweet potato processing. According to a release, the Louisiana plant will allow Lamb Weston to meet the sweet potato fry needs of the nation's "largest quick-service restaurant chains."

"Sweet potatoes are a strategic priority for ConAgra foods," CEO Gary Rodkin says in the announcement.

René Simon, director of the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission, isn't bothered that the deep-fryer has helped turn the spotlight on his state's signature Beauregard sweet taters (which, weirdly, many Louisiana farmers call "yams," a misnomer that entered the Pelican State's vocabulary at the behest of a 1950s marketing exec).

"This is the South," he laughs, telling Slashfood: "Don't we fry everything?"