How to bake a good sweet potatoe?

[shrinkinguy]

LyndaB, that's funny. I read through this entire thread thinking to myself "I've only seen Yams around here, are they the same thing as a sweet potato"? Then I read your comment. Still curious, I did some searching. It looks like yams are really something entirely different:

The Yam
The true yam is the tuber of a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and is not even distantly related to the sweet potato. Rarely found in US markets, the yam is a popular vegetable in Latin American and Caribbean markets, with over 150 varieties available worldwide. Generally sweeter than than the sweet potato, this tuber can grow over seven feet in length. The word yam comes from African words njam, nyami, or djambi, meaning "to eat," and was first recorded in America in 1676.

The yam tuber has a brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety. They are at home growing in tropical climates, primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Yams contain more natural sugar than sweet potatoes and a higher moisture content. They are also marketed by their Spanish names, boniato and ñame.

[LyndaB]

shrinkinguy, thanks very much for your input. I'm certainly not going to be stuffing any 7 foot tuber into my convection oven... LOL...

Rarely found in US markets? Then what IS that that I've seen at the store? Isn't it possible that they've crept over the border?

The good thing is that they rate pretty much the same on the GI scale.

[blosinlv]

I don't have the secret to the sweet potato/yam question but I do have my own way of baking sweets. I rub them with olive oil just as Bob does, but I make a slew of them at one time. Make sure to put them on a jelly roll pan covered with foil or you will have a smoky house. Make sure to bake them long enough to carmelize them. I make 6 or 8 at a time and freeze them in sandwich bags, and then take them out when I need them. Defrost them first, then nuke them till hot and they will taste exactly like fresh baked.

[grace-e]

LyndaB, You're not crazy...well, at least about the sweet potato quandry.
In the U.S. there are two kinds of sweet potatoes. One is the original...pale,thin yellow skin which is neither very sweet nor moist. The second has darker, thicker skin with an orange, sweet moist flesh. The latter is the one that we CALL yams in the U.S. It is only called that b/c the original importers needed a name to distinguish them from the first type. Today, some grocers call them both sweet potatoes and some use the terms sweet potatoes and yams, so you just have to learn how to choose the one you want. You could buy one of each and do a taste test, but I can almost guarantee you'll choose the darker orange-fleshed "yam". If you're going to bake with them, like a pie, use the darker one for sure. It's less "stringy".

You store them in a cool, dry, dark place and they last well...3-4 weeks. Don't refrigerate...too cold.
Can you tell this is a subject near and dear to me? Hope this has helped. GRACE

[prazteam]

I have loved sweet potatos all my life, no matter how I've tried them-(Did you know that most organizations use them to thicken brunswick stew?)
I must admit that I too had mostly had them with something sweet like sugar, cinnamon, butter, casseroles with marshmellows or nuts and brown sugar...
Tonight I decided to try the advise here and I peeled, cubed, and coated in olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. OH MY GOSH!!!
My dh and I felt like we were doing a major cheat!
I'm going to try them with a little cayenne next time, you know-the hot and the sweet... kinda like us "Beachers", too hot and too sweet!

[startingfresh]

I actually prefer the lighter fleshed potato, but can't find them very often here. I slice them up into french fry or steak fry shapes, spray some olive oil on, toss some onion powder and salt on them, mixing well to coat. Then I put them on a foil-lined cookie sheet in a single layer, put it in the oven at 350 to 400 (my oven is lame, so it's always a gamble), and bake until they're crispy on the outside ... mmm ... the "yam" doesn't come out the same way, but I still enjoy them.

[itsallaboutme]

has anyone seen the sweet-n-easy microwave ready sweet potato? it says to just put it in the microwave oven for 7 mins then eat. isn't it bad to eat foods cooked in plastic in the microwave? couldn't i just take it out of the plastic and wrap it in foil and bake?

[grace-e]

Itsallaboutme, I don't know about the plastic wrap/microwave connection but I'll bet they charge more for the wrapped potatoes. You can just buy a sweet potato, poke it the way you would a white one, and nuke it for 6 or 7 minutes. GRACE

[recipelover]

I just added this thread to my recipe summary. So you can always find it there.

[wildgrits]

I have to agree that Texas Roadhouse has the best Sweet Potatoes. They seem like they are steamed.

My personal fav for years has been Sweet potato fries with ranch dressing. You can get close to the same outcome of a fry if you sliced them, brush with oil and bake.

I just made Sweet Potato Latkes this morning. Very filling.

[RedRox]

has anyone seen the sweet-n-easy microwave ready sweet potato? it says to just put it in the microwave oven for 7 mins then eat. isn't it bad to eat foods cooked in plastic in the microwave? couldn't i just take it out of the plastic and wrap it in foil and bake?

We use these all the time. They work fine. When we microwaved regular potatoes we wrapped them loosely in plastic wrap anyway. Curiously, you are NOT supposed to poke these kind at all. I have no idea why not, other than to not break the plastic wrap at all and keep the steam in presumably. They don't explode though! If all that you were going to do was take them out of the plastic, wrap in foil and bake them anyway, I don't know why you would buy this type to begin with though. But if you want a micro ready sweet potato, these work fine as is.

[blosinlv]

I have to agree that Texas Roadhouse has the best Sweet Potatoes. They seem like they are steamed.

My personal fav for years has been Sweet potato fries with ranch dressing. You can get close to the same outcome of a fry if you sliced them, brush with oil and bake.

I just made Sweet Potato Latkes this morning. Very filling.

OK, your not going to get away with not giving us the recipe for the latkes. Do you make them just like white potato latkas with the onion and eggs? They sound scrumptious.

[recipelover]

The recipe was in another post just a little farther down the page. Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.southbeach-diet-plan.com/for ... hp?t=22719

[blosinlv]

Thank you so much recipe lover. I could have used that screen name many years ago. I recently gave two shopping bags full of recipe books to our local library. Whenever I sat down to read a book, it was a recipe book.

Can't wait to get a hold of some sweet potatoes so I can try it.

[recipelover]

I have already given away lots of cookbooks to a charitable cause book sale. The problem--I still have a ton more, and I pick them up every time I go to Barnes and Noble and think about buying new ones. I read lots of other books, but I still love reading through recipes and collecting them. I even made my own 3-ring binders full of recipes that I cut out of magazines. I have about 8 binders full and organized by categories. I just enjoy it, but I will never be able to cook everything I have in them.

I am glad to hear that I am not alone.

And here is my favorite sweet potato recipe. I don't even like sweet potatoes, but I love the fries:

Parmesan Sweet Potato Baked Fries:

We make sweet potato fries all the time. I just coat them with a little olive oil, sprinkle on some Kraft jarred parmesan cheese, salt and pepper; mix well. Place them in a single layer on a sprayed cookie sheet. Bake them at 375 for 20 min.; stir them; bake them another 20 min. The cheese helps them to get crisp. (we do the same with turnips and sometimes jicama)