Sweet Potato Awareness - Since 2006

Sweet Potatoes at Thanksgiving!

2008-11-18T12:25:00.003-06:00

You might get a bunch of funny looks if you suggest something other than candied yams, but there's so many other options for sweet potatoes this holiday season. Here's some I've dug up, starting with the recipe I'll be debuting at the table on November 27th. Share any recipes you have in the comments!

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup via Elise at Simply Recipes

A list of other sweet potato recipes via Elise at Simply Recipes

Sweet Potato Lyonnaise by Gordon Ramsay

Sweet Potato, Spinach And Feta Frittata by Gordon Ramsay

Classic Sweet Potato Pie by Alton Brown

Sweet Potato Waffles (yes, waffles) by Alton Brown

Chipotle Smashed Sweet Potatoes by Alton Brown

Sweet Potato Fries

2008-11-18T11:44:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine made these delicious sweet potato fries for me during her last visit. They are awesome.

Ingredients:

1 - 2 Sweet Potatoes (or 1 gigantic Sweet Potato)
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel sweet potatoes (optional) and slice into thick strips (like steak fries.) A sharp knife will be helpful here. Drizzle olive oil over baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange sweet potato fries in one layer on baking sheet, turning fries over to coat in olive oil and add more if necessary (but not too much or they will be soggy.) Salt and pepper to taste once more. Bake for 20 minutes, then flip fries over for maximum crispiness. Depending on your preferred level of char, cook for another 15 - 30 minutes, or until fries are done to your liking.

AOL Food -- again!

2007-11-20T23:20:00.000-06:00

Head on over to AOL Food again if you would -- there's a little blurb from yours truly about the history of Sweet Potato Awareness. I've pasted it below.

It was around Thanksgiving three years ago when I first realized that there was some huge misunderstanding about sweet potatoes. I had asked my father to pick up yams at the store, for the candied yams recipe I would be making. I said "yams" at the time because, well, it's what the dish called for. When he returned and announced the purchase of sweet potatoes, those three tapered, pale-skinned tubers in the clear plastic, I reprimanded him. "We need YAMS for candied yams, Dad," I had said to him, "not sweet potatoes!"

Apparently I had to buy the yams myself if I wanted them bought at all, so I set out for a different grocery store to right my father's wrong. There in a bin was a mountain of familiar-looking tapered tubers, clearly labeled as "YAMS." I became suspicious and doubtful; was this some sort of yam scam I was unearthing? Was this something I should have learned in school? I hoped my family wasn't the only one who had fought over yams VS. sweet potatoes, but something told me we weren't alone.

Tentatively, I brought my bag of clearly-labeled yams to the check-out stands, heading straight for the one without a line. A self-check-out kiosk, that happens to clearly enunciate whatever produce you enter, for the store to hear. But what the robotic female voice said was not "yams" as I had expected, since I had taken the tubers from a bin with that name. Instead, she instructed me, "move your, SWEET POTATOES, to the belt." Right then and there, as my hands flew to my head in confusion and frustration, I knew that something needed to be done.

How many families had quarreled on the eve of Thanksgiving when they thought their candied yams would be ruined by sweet potatoes, when the recipe doesn't use yams at all? How many husbands had stood in front of the produce bin, warily reaching for what was labeled "yams" when their shopping list said "sweet potatoes," not knowing that the terms had become interchangeable? How many Americans thought they were digesting yams instead of sweet potatoes as they ate Aunt Cindy's candied yams? In our culture, yams and sweet potatoes are both the same thing: orange-fleshed, light-skinned, sweet and moist tubers with tapered ends. You say tomato, I say tomatoe -- it's the same logic.

You say yam, I say sweet potato.

As I dug deeper, it became clear that sweet potatoes needed to be appreciated year round, not just near the holiday season. Sweet potatoes -- not yams -- have twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, four times the recommended daily allowance for beta carotene, and if eaten with the skin intact, they contain more fiber than even oatmeal. And hey, they taste good with brown sugar and marshmallows; what's not to like?

Had the USDA not stepped in to require that all products labeled "yam"
also carry the label "sweet potato," perhaps things wouldn't be as confusing as they are now. But many years ago, when the familiar bright orange sweet potato was introduced to our country, we already had many other lighter-fleshed varieties of sweet potato. To properly differentiate between the types, we began calling them yams despite the fact that actual yams are very different. Who knew this would become so confusing?

When you buy a can of candied yams, look at the label closely and you'll see the words "sweet potatoes" somewhere on it. Instead of allowing it to confuse you, consider instead that it's simply translating, as if to say, "I am not made from yams at all; I am made from sweet potatoes."

Nutritional Deliciousness

2007-11-20T23:14:00.000-06:00

The numbers for the nutritional sweet potato speak for themselves: almost twice the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A, 42 percent of the recommendation for vitamin C, four times the RDA for beta carotene, and, when eaten with the skin, sweet potatoes have more fiber than oatmeal. All these benefits with only about 130 to 160 calories!

-- Foodreference.com

Blogs on Parade

2007-11-17T19:36:00.000-06:00

While I've been out of the country to Japan for the past nine days, apparently this blog got some recognition:

Slashfood and AOL Food both were kind enough to link over here. Thanks and hello to any new visitors!

For Your Edification

2007-11-17T12:46:00.000-06:00

To clarify:

NEW FLYERS HOORAY

2007-11-06T10:10:00.000-06:00

I've updated the look of the flyers from last year, edited some things, removed others and added some new information. I also changed the recipe for sweet potatoes to a sweet potato cornbread dressing, which I plan on using for the vegetarian dressing for Thanksgiving this year.

It's black and white so it won't use much ink, and I've included cropmarks so you know where to cut in order to get three mini flyers.

Download the flyer here!

Here's how it looks when printed on neat Greengrocer's Brown Bag Paper in Kraft:

NOVEMBER

2007-11-02T11:47:00.000-06:00

Well, it's officially November.

HAPPY NOVEMBER SHOULD BE SWEET POTATO AWARENESS MONTH EVERYONE.

I have updated the flyers for this year, so I'll post those in the next few days.

I'd love to hear your sweet potato or TRUE yam recipes! Please feel free to comment with them and I'll post them and give you credit.

Okinawan Sweet Potato Recipe!

2007-09-13T09:25:00.000-06:00

Thanks to EmilyB for the wonderful recipe link, and to Reid over at 'Ono Kine Grindz for the Hawaiin recipe.

Okinawan Sweet Potato and Haupia Pie

(Haupia is a coconut milk-based Hawaiin dessert.)

This recipe utilizes sweet potatoes found in Okinawa, Japan. Okinawan sweet potatoes, when cooked, develop a purple flesh and a delicate taste.

You can find Okinawan sweet potatoes at Asian groceries (or in Okinawa, har har), and be sure to ask an employee if you can't find one!

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I'd also like to thank everyone for their kind sweet potato and/or yam encouragement: thanks, everyone!

I LOVE hearing from people who plan to pass out the fliers, so please don't hesitate to comment and let me know where you intend to distribute them.

Flyers, flyers, flyers!!

2007-02-19T12:21:00.000-06:00

I've begun to notice an increase in downloads of the Sweet Potato Awareness Flyer. Hooray!

To celebrate, I thought I'd give actual non-crappy instructions on how to print.

First of all, some of you may have an option on your printer to print DUPLEX. That means that it will automatically print page one, suck the sheet back into the printer, and print page two. No work required. Just poke around your settings to see if you have a DUPLEX setting.

If not, continue on:

• First, print page one -- JUST page one!
• Then simply turn the sheet 180 degrees, so that the end that came out of the printer is still closest the printer.
• Re-insert the sheet blank-side up without fiddling with it!
• Print ONLY page two.
• Cut into three flyers.
• Distrubute anonymously so no one thinks you're a loser like me!

Hooray!

yams = evil

2006-11-29T15:38:00.000-06:00

Man uses can of "yams" to break into store.

If by yams they mean cadied sweet potatoes.

Don't get any ideas!!

Flyers are done!

2006-11-17T16:43:00.000-06:00

Even though Kinko's has a problem with not sucking, the flyers are done! I only have 120 of them which isn't many at all, is it? Hopefully I'll run out and have to get more made. But how hard is it to print a two-sided page and cut at cropmarks without cutting crooked WITH A MACHINE WHOSE PURPOSE IN LIFE IS TO CUT STRAIGHT ALKSJASAS

Flyers hooray!!

Recipes!

2006-11-15T13:53:00.000-06:00

It's hard to find YAM recipes, but it's easy as SWEET POTATO PIE to find sweet potato recipes! Please ignore any instances of the word "yam" because, I assure you, they're all talking about sweet potatoes.

FOR THE RECORD: Some people call the deeper orange, red-skinned sweet potatoes (Garnet Yams [not a yam]) "yams," but call the lighter-skinned and paler-fleshed sweet potatoes (Jewel Yams [not a yam]) "sweet potatoes," to differentiate between them. But they're both just sweet potatoes, okay?? OKAY??

Sweet Potato Pie with Pecan Topping from Simply Recipes

Maple-Glazed ~~Yams~~Sweet Potatoes with Pecan Topping also from Simply Recipes

Sweet Potato and Cornbread Stuffing, which was ALMOST the recipe I featured on the flyers.

A slew of other recipes from the same site.

Sweet Potato Pie from Tigersandstrawberries.com, which IS featured on the flyer.

Sweet Potato Apple Casserole from Food Musings.

Down with the man

2006-11-15T10:12:00.000-06:00

Submitted for your approval:

Resources!!

2006-11-14T21:38:00.000-06:00

No one will download this but on the off chance that you'd like to spread the word about sweet potato rights, here's a way to print your own flyers!

Download the .pdf of the flyer here.

You can print this at home or at a print shop, like Kinko's, whatever. If you take it to Kinko's just be sure to tell them it's duplex, or double-sided printing. You can even choose cool paper there but I hate Kinko's so try not to give them too much money, but a little is okay.

If you print it at home, just take the stack of print outs after you've printed JUST PAGE ONE, hold them straight out, and turn them to your right so that the blank side is facing up. Then load them into the printer without changing the direction of the paper, and print JUST PAGE TWO.

Then just cut them twice between the margins, and there you go!! You're as big of a nerd as I am, hooray!

Yams

2006-11-14T20:47:00.000-06:00

Yamsyamsyamsyamsyamsyamsyamsyamsyams