Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes are a versatile fall and winter ingredient that taste wonderful in sweet and savory dishes. Keep some of these root vegetables on hand in your pantry to use in a variety of weeknight dinners. Use them in a main dish or as a wonderful side for those winter get-togethers and potlucks coming over the next few months.
Fun fact: Sweet potatoes, yams and potatoes might seem related, but each belongs to a different family. Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family and, unlike potatoes and other nightshades, you can eat the leaves of the sweet potato (plants in the nightshade family have poisonous leaves).
Selecting: Look for firm tubers with fairly even skin and no soft spots. Small to medium sweet potatoes usually have creamier flesh when roasted as opposed to larger sweet potatoes, which can be starchier.
Storing: Store at room temperature (not in the refrigerator) in a dry, dark location. Sweet potatoes stored this way can keep for a couple of months.
Pairing: Allspice, anise, apple, bacon, basil, beans, bourbon, brandy, brown sugar, butter, caramel, chestnuts, chives, chorizo, cilantro, cinnamon, cloves, coconut, coriander, cranberries, cream, cumin, curry, dates, dill, feta, figs, garlic, ginger, greens, Gruyère, ham, honey, kale, leeks, lemon, limes, maple syrup, mint, molasses, mushrooms, nutmeg, olive oil, onions, orange, paprika, Parmesan, pears, pecans, pineapple, pine nuts, potatoes, pumpkin seeds, raisins, rosemary, rum, sage, tarragon, thyme, vanilla, vinegar, walnuts, whiskey and yogurt.
Roasted Sweet Potato Platter
Sweet Potato Leek Gratin
Sweet Potato Muffins
Sweet Potato Corned Beef Hash
Web Exclusive: Irresistable Sweet Potato Biscuits
Warm Barley Salad with Sweet Potato and Savoy Cabbage
Butternut Squash
Roasted with maple syrup, butter and cinnamon is the way many first meet the butternut squash—a simple and delicious introduction to a vegetable that can take many forms, both savory and sweet....
Brussels Sprouts
You might have bad memories of boiled Brussels sprouts from your school cafeteria days. Overcooked, mushy and off-tasting, these once-misunderstood vegetables were regularly mistreated on the menus...
Garlic
There is no end to garlic’s usefulness. Try the garlic recipes here or simply roast some in the oven and eat with your favorite bread, olive oil and a bit of good salt. Pour a glass of wine and...
Beets
Many years ago I took a train from Moscow to Beijing in late fall. While sightseeing in Moscow before the trip, I ate at a restaurant with a buffet of traditional salads. Storage vegetables...
Onions
I firmly believe if you go into the kitchen and start chopping an onion, an idea for dinner will soon follow.
Heirloom Apples
“Almost all wild apples are handsome. They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusted to look at. The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye.” —Henry David Thoreau
Chestnuts
Have you ever eaten something for the first time and it felt familiar and homey—like something you might have eaten in a past life? I first came across chestnuts in a smoky food stall in Beijing,...
