The easiest and best way to make sweet potatoes, chit-chat, links!
When I was a child, I never ate a vegetable other than sweet potatoes. I was super picky (it was, I think, my way of controlling the chaos in my life). I thought eating a vegetable would probably kill me.
But I loved sweet potatoes, which is good because they are very nutritious and probably saved me from whatever you get when you only eat chicken.
Anyway, I’ve seen so many recipes and even methods for cooking and, specifically, roasting them, but none is as straightforward as the way I do it.
I mean, it’s so simple, I’m almost embarrassed…
Well, here it is:
Choose sweet potatoes that are not huge, just medium. They have to have been cured properly. If after you follow this method yours are bland and just meh, know it’s the fault of the ones you were offered, and hold out for a different crop and try again.
I promise you, done the way I say, a properly cured sweet potato will be very sweet, not starchy, and utterly delectable.
Plan on one per person, but make at least double, because after they cool, you can remove them from their skins and serve them mashed in a bowl another night. They also freeze well.
Line your baking pan (lasagna pan or baking tray) with foil. Properly cooked, the sweet potatoes exude sugary liquid which then chars and burns, and is very difficult to clean off your pan!
So line your pan with foil. (Not parchment — that’s expensive.)
Bake at 425°F for about an hour. You can do this early on if you think you’ll need your oven later at a medium heat (like if you were making a pork roast, with which these go perfectly).
Medium heat is not going to get you to sweet potato perfection. Your oven must be piping, blazing hot. (If you have to take them out for your roast, pop them back in while it cools — they have to be served hot!) (A crock pot won’t do it. Neither will an Instant Pot — I tried, and the first thing I did when my oven was finally hooked up was roast some sweet potatoes!)
When you see the juices burn — yes, burn! that’s the black you see there in the pan — and the skins are shattery, they are done.
Take them out and let them cool just a smidge (not too much, because, again, they should be served hot). Cut them open and put a pat of butter and a dash of salt on each one. You can do that on the plate too, individually, and then they will stay hot, but for a crowd it’s easier if you do it beforehand, while they are still in the pan.
Butter and salt. That’s all you need. Don’t add sugar because they don’t need it! They will be so very good.
Let the diner fork the innards out without scooping them out of the skin entirely, because the plate will be messy and burned underneath it, and you don’t want that bitterness mixing into your tasty bites. This is best eaten like a baked potato, right out of the skin, hot, buttery, and salty/sweet.
As I say, you can remove the flesh later, after they are cooled, for a less messy side dish, and that will be very good, but there’s nothing like a yam (as we used to call them) in its jacket for maximum effect.
To clean up, just roll the foil on itself and throw it away.
Try it! So easy, so good!
Kitchen Corner
If I can get the inside of this cupboard painted, I can move a bunch of things into it and out of the pantry, which will enable me to organize those pantry shelves, which will enable me to get some things off the kitchen counter that’s by the pantry.
Deirdre thought I should choose a fun and unusual color. I was thinking … white… so I could see what’s inside, but maybe I could do something light but different?
It was found when all the walls were pulled down. It had been covered up behind drywall.
Dining Room Corner
In other decorating news, I don’t think I told you that when the men had demo’d the kitchen, they had to move the sideboard and shelf in the dining room.
Here’s how it looked before the work started.
I don’t know why I never thought, “You know what could go here? A hutch, that’s what.”
Just never occurred to me. I liked the idea of a shelf above the (free to me) sideboard, and I actually had another, smaller hutch on the other side of the door (but not actually against the wall, because the one I got, also free to me, is too wide for the door to shut if it’s pushed back, so it was sort of kitty-corner).
When I went to put things back after we cleaned up the kitchen, I realized the truth! I needed a hutch.
After weeks and weeks of looking on Facebook Marketplace for one that a) fits the space and b) is dark wood because of my table, chairs, and floor and c) didn’t cost a fortune to buy and ship, I finally found one, quite locally! I just love it. Pictures can’t really do it justice (at least not my old iphone pictures!):
It does fit in that space — it’s just hard to get the right angle. It’s just slightly wider than the sideboard.
It’s got enough storage for me, but also display… it has a serving area, which is key (and why I liked the sideboard), since once we are all in there, there’s not room on the table for holiday food.
And it looks old, with lovely wood and dovetailed drawers, but is fairly new.
So once I get an outlet in there (old house problems!), I can plug it in and there are lights inside on top and a hidden outlet in the corner of the serving area for plugging in a warming tray or crock pot!
Have you ever heard of such a thing, haha!! I am wicked excited about this.
It was $350 and in perfect condition. I am over the moon!
You can see the other hutch there on the right. I have to figure out how to find it a new home.
Okay, on to our links!
bits & pieces
Stemming the tide of divorce
A good pep talk for mothers swimming against the tide of worldly care: Moms are like elite athletes. Here’s how I train. I enjoyed this spirited way of expressing the challenge, and not just because the author, Helen Roy, references my Summa Domestica!
I cleverly bought extra cranberries and put them in the freezer last Thanksgiving. This week I made this cranberry pumpkin bread (with home-grown pumpkin!) and it was excellent.
This was cute and I totally agree: 8 Reasons Starting Your Own Seedlings is a Complete Waste of Time & Money
Unbelievable trickle of truth, from the New York Times (seems to be an unlocked article): As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do. Like I’ve been telling you, transgender is an ideology, and a death-dealing one. The overwhelming evidence is even creeping into the legacy media!
from the archivesMaybe last week’s technical difficulties made it so you missed these posts: Countertop Materials and Poetry Day Thoughts. The latter post finishes up with our recommendations for poetry anthologies children will love. It’s available in PDF form as well, for printing out and sharing with your homeschool group.
At the 2023 Catholic Family Conference in Kansas, I spoke about how Beauty Will Save the Neighborhood. You can listen here. Unfortunately, you won’t see the images I used because it’s not video, but you can view this album and use your imagination to fill in the blanks!
How to store seeds? Ditch the plastic — here’s how I do it and why.
What children can do — a guide. They can actually do way more to contribute to family life than I say here, but it’s a start if you’re timid or uncertain!
liturgical living
St. Scholastica (and our Bridget’s birthday!)
Mea Culpa — even though a kind reader reminded me, I still forgot to post last week about the Seven Sundays of St. Joseph. Well, you can catch up! “Go to Joseph,” the Lord tells us in Scripture!
Ash Wednesday is coming! You can do it — you can do your Valentine’s on Tuesday or Thursday. Be strong, be brave! Take a look at our Lent archives for thoughts on how to live this season well.
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My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!
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