Sweet Potato

Gina: Calley Anderson is Shelbi’s best friend, in large part because Belinda Anderson, Calley’s mother, is my best friend. Calley is an excellent student but the girl is a chef at heart. Baking is her first love, and one day Calley made this sweet potato pie for our family, and it knocked me off my feet. The filling relies on two sweeteners, brown sugar and maple sugar, for an incredible flavor. Warm spices and pure vanilla create an intoxicating perfume, and fresh lemon juice helps cut the sweetness and balance the flavors. So, I swallowed my pride (along with another slice of pie) and asked her for the recipe. Here I am, an adult asking my daughter’s friend for a recipe—pretty funny, huh?

Pat: Gina’s grandmother loved cane syrup, which is a sorghumlike syrup that has a deep bittersweet flavor. If you can’t find cane syrup, use an equal amount of dark-brown sugar plus 2 tablespoons molasses. This dish gives a new twist to a classic Thanksgiving side. The gooey marshmallows and brown sugar keep the kids happy, while the “big kids” will love the addition of orange liqueur, warm spices, and pecans.

Pat: When Gina and I are on a fitness kick and determined to lose a few pounds, I love having healthy, vibrant vegetable soups on hand. The soups help us fight the flab without sacrificing taste. And they fill us up, too! We often serve soup as a nourishing lunch or first course, and this carrot soup is one of my favorites. It has a velvety texture and an orange color that pops, and it includes a secret ingredient (sweet potato) and warm spices like cumin, coriander, and cayenne to give it depth and an irresistible aroma. Puréeing this soup in a blender instead of a food processor makes it especially silky. It’s great hot, but it’s also good chilled, topped with a swirl of plain yogurt or sour cream, during our sultry Memphis summers.

Pat: This creamy corn chowder, packed with vegetables and spices, has more sass than your average chowder (and the sweet potato and spices give it a distinct orange hue). The ingredients smoky bacon, fresh herbs, and a little Neely kick (cayenne pepper) combine for an over-the-top, out-of-this-world chowder flavor. When corn is at its peak, during the summer, we use fresh kernels straight from the cob. But since we crave this soup all year long, we use frozen corn as well and get great results. If you use frozen corn, look for the white kernels—they are particularly sweet.

French fries are maddeningly delicious, but consider that a large order of McDonald’s French fries contains about 500 calories and 25 grams of fat before you dip them into ketchup or mayo. I think it’s time for French fry rehab, don’t you?

I learned that sweet potatoes are the single healthiest vegetable. They’re loaded with carotenoids, vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. You can dress them up a bunch of different ways, but this simple puree is ideal.

There are two basic types of potato salad: mayonnaise-based and sugar-and-vinegar-based. I have always preferred the latter because of the sweet-and-sour element—plus it has bacon in it. This alluring sweet-and-sour salad replaces not-so-nice white potatoes with sweet potatoes (much nicer for you), and the texture of the salad has been bulked up with cauliflower.

Gnocchi are small dumplings made with cooked potatoes and just enough flour to hold them together. I swapped the traditional white potatoes for far-more-healthful sweet potatoes and paired the gnocchi with broccoli. The color combo is fabulous and so is the flavor, thanks to a sprinkling of Parmigiano-Reggiano. And while many gnocchi recipes include a cream- or butter-based sauce for tossing, these are served in a garlicky broth stirred together with a bit of Greek yogurt instead. They take a little while to make, but given the great taste and the powerhouse nutritional value of sweet potatoes—and just under 350 calories per serving—they’re more than worth the trouble.

The unhealthy parts of deviled eggs are the yolks and the devilish amounts of fat—usually in the form of mayonnaise—that most recipes call for mixing into the yolks. These deviled eggs are yolkless. The traditional seasoned mashed yolks have been replaced with seasoned mashed sweet potatoes mixed with mustard. They look just like the real thing. No one will miss the yolks—or the fat and cholesterol, either.

This stoup will quickly become one of your comfort food favorites, promise!

Another B, L, or D meal: good for Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner.

We like to make whole wheat sandwich bread at home. We use a pain de mie bread pan, a French loaf pan that comes with a lid so the finished bread has perfectly square slices (although whether or not we use the lid depends on our mood). Sometimes perfect squares are desirable; sometimes we prefer a slightly bigger piece of bread. This dough will work either way. As for flour, we are partial to the King Arthur white whole wheat for its flavor, but you can use the whole wheat flour of your choice. This is a wet dough that will bake up into a moist, cakey loaf, excellent for toast and sandwiches.

I like the surprising blend of sweet potato with ginger and chili pepper.

In this Moroccan salad, the curious mix of sweet and spicy is quite delicious. It is nice as it is but you may add, if you like, a handful of black olives, the chopped peel of a preserved lemon (see page 459), and a tablespoon of capers.

Sweet potatoes are very popular in Morocco. In this recipe, their sweet, delicate flavor marries well with the mixture of aromatics.

I’d like to champion these underused (and often maligned) vegetables by urging you to try them roasted. Roots are naturally sweet and become even more so during the roasting process.