Thursday, January 26, 2012

New Obsession: The Sweet Potato

i know i know, you're probably thinking "sweet potatoes? really? what's so new about sweet potatoes?" 

nothing.   it's just that i never liked them before, always had my 5-year-old tastebuds telling me they were gross, so i never ate them.  i tried them with my (nearly) 25-year-old tastebuds, and loved them! end of story.

(well kind of)

mr p and i tried making a sweet potato soup a few months back and it was AWFUL! i mean, it just didn't suit our tastebuds.  i managed to eat my first portion, but mr p couldn't even make it halfway through without saying he can't eat the rest, and ate something else for dinner. (see!! even WE make bad recipes sometimes!)  so, i still had it in my mind it was totally because of the sweet potatoes.

last weekend when we went to philly and ate at sabrina's, my meal came with sweet potato fries (yay! good for detox plan) and i actually liked them.. scratch that... i LOVED them!!  who woulda thought?

so last night when i decided to make (our own version of) bubble and squeak, i split it between two pans, and made mr p's with regular russet potatoes, and mine with sweet potatoes.  sooo good!  it was the first time i had made it in a while, and we definitely used too much butter and oil, but i think i will stick to having sweet potatoes in mine... and i think i will be eating them MUCH more often!

(well... why did you like them now but not a few months ago or when you were little??)

mr p explained it to me like this:
savory is for dinner, sweet is for dessert.  don't mix the two.

he's totally right!  i had only had them prepared sickeningly sweet (ugh, like paula deens recipe for sweet potato bake here... check out the ratio of potatoes to sugar and butter... makes me nauseous!! )  when there's almost a 1:1 ratio between the sweet potatoes and the sugar and butter, there's something wrong!!  even the soup we tried had some maple syrup in it... sweet potatoes are sweet enough!! zero sugar needs to be added to it to be tasty!! ...or... zero sugar should be added for a dish to be a part of a meal instead of a dessert.

my point is, sweet potatoes are delicious when just baked and eaten plain.  or turned into fries just like regular potatoes. or fried into a hash sort of like bubble and squeak.  just like regular potatoes!

(ok ok, so now you like them. what's the big deal? why do you WANT to substitute them for regular potatoes??)

i always heard they were good for you, but i didn't know why.  so last night during dinner i looked it up here, but here's a quick breakdown.  just 1 cup has:

- 7 grams of fiber (need 25-ish a day)
- 4 grams of protein
- 769% daily vitamin A
- 65% daily vitamin C
- 8% daily calcium
- 8% daily iron

craziness!!

(at least we had some roasted broccoli to go with this hearty meal to feel like we were still getting some greens!!)

once we perfect the art of the right about of butter and oil for bubble and squeak, we will share the recipe.  until then, my friends, i urge you to try using sweet potatoes in a dish that normally calls for regular potatoes (nothing different), and let me know what you think!!!

toodles.
j&h

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