Never Give Up on the Sweet Potato

Let's face it, everyone has a vegetable, meat, grain, sweet etc., that they just don't like. You can't say why you don't like it and you've tried a million different preparations; yet you still just can't add it to the list of things you can't wait to eat.

I am no different than everyone else. There are few foods I don't like, most of them are processed foods like those Jenny-O turkey roasts, Velveeta cheese and instant mashed potatoes (unless of course they are mixed with Stove Top Stuffing, no I don't know why I like that either). But when it comes to fresh food, aka vegetables, okra, lima beans (outside of vegetable soup) and French cut string beans just send me hiding.

Then there are the ON THE FENCE foods, the ones that I can't believe I have a hard time enjoying; like olives that aren't brined in vodka or stuffed with garlic, bleu cheese (really, there is mold put in there on purpose, come on now)and Sweet Potatoes.

Don't get me wrong, mash them up, fold in a bag of mini-marshmallows and you will need to pry the empty bowl out of my fingers. I feel the same way about them when they are french fried, but pretty much any other preparation and I am just not going to knock you over to get to them. It is sad really, they are so rich and full of vitamins, they are easy to prepare, you can steam them, boil them, bake them, saute them, wrap them in pasta, bake them in a pie, mash them, grill them and french fry them; they are inexpensive to boot.

We made sweet potato ravioli a few months ago that we topped with sauteed sausage and cauliflower and it was good, but it just didn't jump off the plate as my next favorite vegetable like fennel did when I made that for the first time.

The story is the same for all the different squashes out there; acorn, spaghetti and pumpkin. I love love love zucchini, but my lack of love for all the others just mystifies me.

But here at the Wanamaker House we are not quitters and although I will continue to try and vindicate all the different squashes out there, I am starting with the sweet potato first.

Here is what we had for dinner last night. It was good, even David said it was good despite the sweet potatoes...poor orange spud, I promise not to give up on you yet.

Smothered Sweet Potatoes

4 thick slices pancetta, diced
1 lb. Apple Sausage, removed from casing and broken into bits
2 lbs. sweet potatoes (peeled and cubed)
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
5 fresh sage leaves
4-6 tblsps. butter
4-6 tblsps. olive oil
salt/pepper to taste
eggs (1-2 per person eating)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel and cube sweet potatoes, place in a 13x9 inch baking dish and set aside.

In a large heavy bottomed skillet on medium-high heat combine 3 tblsps. of olive oil and 3 tblsps. of butter. Saute garlic and sage leaves until garlic is transparent and sage is a dark green and a little limp.

Pour olive oil mixture over sweet potatoes, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss till all the cubes are coated.

In the same pan that you heated the oil/butter mixture, saute the pancetta and sausage until the pancetta is just starting to crisp and the sausage is almost completely cooked, but not quite. Salt and pepper to taste. You may need to add a little more oil to the pan if it is too dry.

Pour sausage mixture over sweet potatoes, cover with foil and bake until sweet potatoes are fork tender.


In the same frying pan that you sauteed everything else, fry one or two eggs sunny side up (dippy at my house) per person. Spoon sweet potato mixture onto your plate, top with fried eggs and enjoy. The point of the egg is to provide a simple sauce to the whole dish.


I also made some pan sauteed asparagus to go along with it because I love the drippy sauce of the eggs with asparagus.

Sunny side up eggs, asparagus spears and zucchini fritters makes a fantastic breakfast, especially if they are the zucchini fritters my mom makes from the zucchini we grow in the garden. I'll post that recipe when we get into zucchini overload season.

I hope those of you that are already sweet potato lovers will enjoy this and maybe those of us who are on the fence will keep trying new ways until it hits us that we just can't live without them.

Hugs,
dina