Sweet Potato

With two hues of cabbage and two kinds of apples, as well as carrots and yams, this multi-colored slaw will look gorgeous on a picnic or buffet table.

Ca ri ga Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table by Mai Pham and are part of our story on Lunar New Year. True to the Vietnamese style of curry-making, this recipe is milder and lighter than Indian or Thai curries. You can make this with chicken stock, but the coconut milk adds body and enhances the overall flavor. Depending on my mood and the time of year, I sometimes serve this with a warmed baguette (a French influence) instead of steamed rice. Other times, I just make the curry with more broth and serve it with rice noodles. Like other curries, it's delicious the next day.

Talk about convenient! Baking a whole sweet potato takes about an hour, but sautéing the grated potato takes only fifteen minutes from start to finish — and you end up concentrating the flavor to boot. This recipe dresses up your potato with Southwestern ingredients, but there's no reason not to go Asian (add ginger and soy) or Italian (add sage, brown butter, and pine nuts) as the mood strikes you. For that matter, you could swap out the sweet potato and use butternut squash instead.

The holidays are gone, and the relatives have left. You can also say farewell to the season's fatty foods with this veggie-loaded soup created by Lulu Powers, Madonna's caterer. One bowl dishes more than all of your RDA for vitamin A and 20 percent for potassium. Bonus: Eating soup before a meal means you'll consume fewer total calories.

Get a better body at the grocery store. Just as certain exercises strengthen your stomach muscles, certain foods protect specific parts of your body. (Your tummy gets benefits from sit-ups and garlic.) A top-to-toes rundown based on new research includes the following: Eggs banish blurry eyes. Cranberry juice brightens smiles. Chocolate is your heart's friend. Carrots preserve lungs. Water is a hipbone buddy. And you get all these super foods in one bowl.

Thanksgiving on a roll Here's a pilgrim's dinner you can make in minutes and enjoy year-round, not only on turkey Thursday. Straight from the menu of New York City's Chat 'n Chew Diner, this sandwich has all the flavors of a Thanksgiving meal without stuffing you full of calories. Use turkey leftovers this month or buy sliced turkey breast from the deli. Consider the result comfort food for the time-pressed.

This sandwich's secret ingredient is sweet potato, and the result is delicious, not your worn-out turkey on wheat. The recipe, adapted from the new cookbook Vegetarian Sandwiches by Paulette Mitchell (Chronicle Books), is super easy. (Boiling a potato is the only cooking required.) It's low in fat and loaded with fiber and beta-carotene — definitely a win-win dinner.

Often called a boniato, a batata is what most of the world knows as a sweet potato. White-fleshed and drier than typical orange, moist-fleshed varieties, the tuber has a delicate, slightly sweet flavor reminiscent of chestnuts. We like to serve them with a flavorful compound butter.

The chicken and vegetables are strained out for a clear soup. If you'd like, save some chicken and vegetables to serve along with the matzo balls in the soup.

In Trinidad and Tobago, crabs are traditionally cooked whole and the meat picked out. This sophisticated dish combines American-style crab cakes with the island flavor of callaloo, a green stew that's the national dish of Trinidad. Here, the stew becomes a sauce, creating an elegant starter or light lunch.

A thoroughly modern take on the classic baked potato with sour cream.

A variation on twice-baked potatoes, these are an eye-catching takeoff on a sweet potato casserole. The sweet potato flesh is pureed with butter and milk, returned to the hollowed-out shells, and topped with mini marshmallows before a final baking. You can puree the potatoes in a blender or a food processor; use the blender for an especially silky texture.

Try using Grade B maple syrup, which has a deeper flavor than Grade A, in this recipe. Look for it at natural foods stores.

Leftover ham in the fridge or sweet potatoes in the pantry? This clever brunch dish is the way to go.

This spread has a dose of fiber and heart-healthy fat, plus beta-carotene.

This slightly spicy, moist side dish is both deeply satisfying and nutritious. Sweet potatoes are rich in complex carbohydrates and fiber, giving them a low glycemic index (this means that they slow the body's absorption of sugar and help regulate blood-sugar levels). A bonus for weight watchers: All those complex carbs will make you feel fuller longer than white potatoes do.

Fresh ginger and yellow mustard seeds make these sweet potatoes much more worldly than their candied incarnations. The cilantro takes them in an unexpected but very welcome direction.