When my children were babies they both used to love sweet potatoes. I would cook huge batches, puree them and freeze in ice cube trays (perfect one ounce portions) to feed them over a few weeks. But lately neither of them will eat, or even try sweet potatoes. Knowing how good sweet potatoes can taste, and especially how good they are for you, I was determined to give it another shot tonight. I remembered how well they were complimented by cinnamon. I baked some sweet potatoes, then chopped them into cubes, tossed them with a bit of butter and cinnamon sugar and they kids loved them. My 3 year old even surprised me by saying "thank you for making this best dinner ever daddy" and then ran into the kitchen to give me a hug! Now that' a good review if I ever heard one. Of course you could get kids to eat just about anything by pouring sugar on it, but the sugar in this was minimum, there is enough natural sweetness in the potatoes that is brought out by the cinnamon and sugar. And lately I'm thrilled to see them eat anything besides cheese, cereal and pasta.
The cinnamon thing was good for the kids, but when it came to dinner for me and my wife we don't need cinnamon sugar to make our potatoes taste good, do we? You bet we did! I just couldn't look at the kids eating it that way and have some, and it really was delicious! I served our sweet potatoes with chicken breast with Jamaican spices, and sauteed spinach and onions (with a splash of sherry) and all of the flavors meshed extremely well.
Baked Sweet Potatoes with Cinnamon Sugar
sweet potatoes
1 pat of butter per potato
aluminum foil
cinnamon sugar (mix 1/2 cup granulated sugar with 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon)
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• Pre-heat the oven to 350ยบ
• Wash sweet potatoes, wrap each potato individually in allunimum foil
• Bake for 45 minutes, or until potato becomes soft
• Remove potatoes from the oven, remove foil and cut in half to let cool for a few minutes
• For kids, cut into bite-sized cubes by making cuts horizontally and vertically (see picture to the right), or cut potato in half, lightly butter the halves and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, or any other toppings you may like.
• If making cubes toss with a bit of butter (to taste) and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, enjoy!
I LOVE sweet potatoes made that way Jeff! I've often tried to NOT put cinnamon and sugar on them, but I just have too! haha! They are SO good that way! I guess it comes from years of living with a sweet potato field behind us in the fall! We've moved since then and I can't tell you how much I miss all those sweet potatoes we used to eat! They leave so many behind in the fields after they pick them! It's really amazing how many are wasted because they are not the right size and shape!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea, Jeff. We love sweet potatoes but I haven't served them this way in a long time. We're currently an a black bean and sweet potato kick and use them as a filler in pretty much any Mexican dish we can come up with.
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