"sweet potato salad" news and stories

It's as fruity as you want it to be. This sweet-potato salad recipe from vegalicious.org, a good resource for vegans, is loaded with bananas, apples and dried apricots, and has a sweet, citrusy dressing -- which reminds us that the sweet potato isn't fit only to be served plain and baked or, in Thanksgiving fashion, stuck in a casserole and smothered with marshmallows.

One of the most delicious ways to serve sweet potatoes is to roast them, then toss with a lime-cilantro mixture -- a Gourmet recipe that even my sweet-potato-casserole-loving mom asks me to make again and again. For the savory counterpart to the fruity salad above, try a sweet-potato salad recipe heavy on tomatoes, snap peas, onion and celery.

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Whether you read the New York Times or not, you know Mark Bittman. He's the Minimalist, the man who's vegan until dinner and the popular writer who has published a number of ultra-handy cookbooks. Recently, he wrote a blog post about Sweet Potato Salad, taking the predictable white-potato-and-mayonnaise variety and turning it into healthy, colorful fare. Thanks to YouTube, you can watch him make it.

This is not your everyday cooking show. I mean, the guy turns pitas into turntables! But he gets down to business -- after a hilarious rap-star opener -- and relays the intricacies of his sweet potato salad. Rather than slopping a whole bunch of mayo in a bowl with veggies, this salad gets an updated oil-and-lime splash with some spicy Southern sass.

And maybe it's less than hygienic, but I dug watching him dip his finger into the dressing, licking it and then just wiping it on a tea towel. It's not the most PC prep etiquette, but it's a lot more realistic than 20 shots of the cook cleaning his hands.

Has Bittman charmed you with his modern potato salad? Tell us in the comments.

Call me crazy, but I never think of the winter being a time for salads. To me, the winter is for soups and hearty meals and hot meals and hot tea and hot chocolate. Salads are for the spring and summer, the time of leafy greens and lighter dinners. Christmas is for turkeys and hams and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

But the people over at Cooks Recipes would certainly disagree with me. They've come up with a huge list of various salads that you can eat at Christmas. Most of them incorporate the flavors of the season, including the Cranberry Apple Salad, the Holiday Sweet Potato Salad, and Grandma's Winter Fruit Medley. Danish-Deli-Food.com has a Winter Salad made with figs, cabbage, oranges, and pecans that sounds interesting. But the Layered Lettuce Salad? Not festive enough.

Oh, and Ambrosia Mold sounds like the name of a Bond girl.