What does "sweet potato casserole" mean to you? Does it mean opening a can or so of sweet potatoes, mashing them, adding brown sugar, putting them in a casserole dish, topping the whole thing with marshmallows and baking it for a while? Nowadays, that doesn't seem very healthy. It doesn't taste much like sweet potato, either. To my taste, anyway, the ones in the can are already too sugary and overcooked.
Here are some ways of cooking fresh sweet potatoes that are not only healthier, but tastier. You can add a little brown sugar if you like, but none of these recipes really needs it. Don't go overboard, or you'll make them less healthy.
Boiled sweet potatoes
Peel a sweet potato (or more, depending on how many servings you need). Cut them into smaller pieces. Boil them for 10-20 minutes until they soften. Drain them, and then add a little butter or olive oil to the pan to coat them. (In other words, boil them like any other potato.)
The leftovers are good simply warmed over. With slightly more effort, you can cut cooked potatoes (sweet or regular, for that matter) into even smaller pieces and brown them in butter or oil. Very good.
Lots of people cook potatoes to mash them. You can make mashed sweet potatoes, too, and the same way: add a little milk and butter or olive oil. You can add all kinds of other ingredients to mashed sweet potatoes either just to add flavor or to make a no-bake casserole:
• apple sauce
• canned crushed pineapple (juice and all)
• chunks of leftover meat or poultry
• other vegetables like corn or peas, preferably cooked from fresh or frozen
Seasoning can include vanilla, cinnamon, or ground cloves.
Roasted sweet potatoes
Peel as many sweet potatoes as you need and slice them about 2 inches thick. Combine the following ingredients in a bowl:
• 2 tablespoons melted butter or olive oil
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
• cayenne pepper to taste (for my taste, it's none at all, but the recipe I adapted had 1/4 teaspoon of it.
Coat the slices of sweet potato in this mixture and then arranged them in a single layer on a lightly greased baking pan. Roast for about 20 minutes at 350º.
Or, if you want roasted sweet potatoes with turkey or some other roast, wait until about an hour, or hour and a half, before the meat is done and arrange the slices around it. Baste with the pan drippings two or three times for added flavor.
Baked sweet potatoes
It takes about 30 or 40 minutes at about 400º to bake a sweet potato. Be sure to scrub the skins and prick them with a fork several times for each one. If you're serving baked sweet potatoes with a roast that cooks at a lower temperature, put them in the oven for a longer time. One important difference between baked sweet potatoes and roasted potatoes: the baked ones are whole and kept separate from the dish the meat cooks in.
If you don't have half an hour to bake a sweet potato, five minutes in the microwave is enough to cook one medium sized sweet potato.
If you want to be fancy, you can serve stuffed baked sweet potatoes. Cut a small slice off the top of each one. Scoop out most of the flesh (but not all of it--leave enough for a baking shell), mash it, and put it in a mixing bowl. You can add applesauce and/or crushed pineapple with seasonings, as explained under boiled sweet potatoes above), or you can add the following. The measurements are enough for four stuffed sweet potatoes.
• 2 tablespoons of melted butter or olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of grated orange peel
• 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
• 2 beaten egg whites
Mix everything together and return it to the shells. Sprinkle shredded or grated Parmesan chess over the tops and return them to the oven. If the oven is at 400º, cook for about 10 minutes. Leave them longer if the temperature is lower.
Fried sweet potatoes
No one considers fried potatoes healthy, but you can cook sweet potatoes any of the same ways you can cook regular potatoes. To fry them do one of the following:
• Cut them into strips like French fries and deep fry them. (Don't use olive oil; it smokes at too low a temperature for frying)
• Cut them into fairly thin slices and fry them in a little oil in a skillet.
• Cut them into very thin slices and fry them in a skillet for sweet potato chips
For a healthier alternative, cut them any way you like. Coat them in oil and put them in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake them in the oven at 400º until done. Check frequently, and keep in mind that the roasted sweet potatoes were much thicker and are finished at a lower temperature in 20 minutes. That will be way to long for your oven-baked fries.
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