Lightly Candied Sweet Potatoes

For my family, a holiday dinner was not complete unless we had baked sweet potatoes. Mom baked them next to the turkey or ham, cut each lovely potato in two or three pieces and taught us how to peel them, mash them with our forks and smother them in butter.

For Jerri’s family, on the other hand, a holiday dinner featured a casserole made by mashing canned sweet potatoes, mixing them with sugar and butter and topping the mixture with marshmallows before baking it in the oven.

“Horrible,” I said, as Jerri served our very first Thanksgiving dinner in Charlottesville, Virginia, nearly 1,200 miles from her home in Kansas. The marshmallows smirked at me with their toasted cheeks.

Looking back at that time, I realize that I was very lucky we were so far from Kansas. Also that it was not a very diplomatic way to express my appreciation for the hours she had spent in the tiny kitchen of our terrace (almost a basement) apartment. Also that Jerri has been incredibly patient with my prejudices and lack of flexibility about certain foods.

My friend Bob, who shares my lack of flexibility, is married to another patient woman. “Every successful marriage needs flexibility,” says Bob. “Jody is the flexible one in this marriage.”

Jerri is the flexible one in ours. Like Bob, I am blessed.

We have baked sweet potatoes with plenty of butter for the holidays. But we also have candied sweet potatoes from time to time, just not out of a can. Jerri likes these better than baked sweet potatoes, and you may also.

INGREDIENTS:

3 medium sweet potatoes
1/8 tsp. salt
3 – 4 T brown sugar
3 – 4 T butter
1 T water

PROCEDURE:

Peel and quarter the sweet potatoes lengthwise, then cut the quarters into half inch slices. You should have four to five cups of chopped sweet potatoes. Put the potatoes into a heavy saucepan with a tight fitting lid.

Spread the salt, brown sugar and pieces of butter over the potatoes. Add a tablespoon of water, cover tightly and put the pan over moderate heat until the water starts to steam. Turn the heat to low to cook the potatoes until they are tender. Check every four or five minutes to make sure that the pan does not boil dry. If necessary add a little more water.

After 15 minutes, test for doneness with a fork.

NOTES: If you find that the potatoes boil dry very quickly, check to make sure that you have the heat at its lowest setting. You can also start with two tablespoons of water but keep in mind that you want to steam the sweet potatoes, not boil them.

With our “waterless” cookware, the sweet potatoes release water as they cook, so we end up with a very nice sauce. We tend to use the smaller quantities of sugar and butter, but you may prefer a sweeter sauce.

Although I have never done so, I am sure that you could taste a potato and if it was not sweet enough for you, add a bit more sugar. Cook a minute or so to make sure that the sugar is dissolved before serving.

I suppose you could melt some marshmallows on top.

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits

Having been taught how to make baking powder biscuits by my sister Patsy, I soon started thinking about the wonderful whole wheat baking powder biscuits that our friend Toni made. Toni had a little hand-powered mill that she used to grind her own whole wheat flour. The freshly ground wheat berries gave a wonderful nutty flavor to the biscuits.

I don’t have a flour mill or Toni’s recipe, but these biscuits have  that nutty flavor anyway. The whole wheat, butter, sugar and buttermilk work together to produce biscuits that are light, fluffy and tasty.

They are great with sausage gravy or eggs for breakfast or with soup for lunch or dinner, and they are just sweet enough to make you want to pop one in the microwave for a few seconds, spread it with butter and gobble the little morsel before you go to bed.

Here’s how to make them.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 T sugar
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup butter
3/4 – 1 cup buttermilk

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thoroughly mix the flour with the baking powder, soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into half inch pieces and blend it with a fork or pastry blender into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse corn meal.

Stir the buttermilk with a fork into the dry ingredients, adding more buttermilk if necessary to moisten the flour. The dough should be moist but not wet.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and turn it with a spatula to coat the outside lightly with flour. Flour your hands and knead the dough 12 to 15 times, then pat it out until it is about ½ inch thick. Cut the dough into rounds with a biscuit cutter or a floured drinking glass. Knead and pat the trimmings lightly and cut more rounds.

Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and bake them for 10 to 12 minutes.

NOTE:  As with regular baking powder biscuits, do not knead the dough more than just enough to get it to pat out on the counter or breadboard.  Kneading too much makes for tough heavy biscuits.