Hello Little Red Kitchen world!  It has certainly been a while.  What can I say?  Holidays.  Finals.  Finals.  and MORE FINALS.  Life has been something very different these past several weeks.  But it’s starting to straighten itself out!  And what better way to celebrate than posting what is most likely the best sweet potato recipe you will ever eat????

Ingredients:
2 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled, quartered long-ways, and sliced into 1/4-inch thick pieces
4 tbsp. butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 tbsp. heavy cream
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
ground black pepper to taste

Serves 4*

What is it that makes this recipe so good?  It’s all in the technique.

Step 1: Add the butter, heavy cream, sugar, and salt to a medium-sized sauce pan and melt over low heat.  When it’s mostly melted, add the sweet potatoes and toss to coat.

Place a tight-fitting lid on top and cook for 35-45 minutes, or until the potatoes are falling apart when stirred with a wooden spoon or prodded with a fork.  At this point you can mash with a normal potato masher until you reach your desired texture.

Are you freaking out? Anxiety attack? What is going on!?  There’s no WATER in that pot!  What’s going to happen???

Believe it or not, sweet potatoes have enough of their own liquid to cook (or really, steam) themselves in their own juices.  This means that you won’t risk water logging them, which flushes out their flavor, or losing any of their great flavor and color into the boiling water.  Instead you are getting the pure and perfect essence of the sweet potato.  Notice the meager amounts of butter and heavy cream too, whereas normal mashed potatoes can call for 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of heavy cream.  Butter is wonderful, but again, these dairy products just mute the potato flavor.  What’s in that pot is the perfect amount, and it’s perfect for consistency.  A few hefty grinds of black pepper and these were ready to go.

My husband and I were genuinely shocked at just how delicious these were when we took our first bites.  I could possibly say they were the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had, sweet, russet, Yukon gold, or otherwise.  You will be hard-pressed to go back to boring old potatoes after you try these.  And we served ours with pork chops smothered in a bacon and onion gravy, and it was the SIDE DISH that stole the show.

Just when you thought you were getting a little sick of sweet potatoes this season, give this recipe a try and you will be right back on the bandwagon!

Happy holiday eating!

~Lauren