More than one way to prepare a sweet potato!

Mom has been very busy in the kitchen this week, but has temporarily diverted from her focus on BCC experiments to make some of her famous, old favorite dishes in order to bring comfort and love to a grieving family in our community. 

Nevertheless, she did make time to try something new. She recently harvested the last of the crop of sweet potatoes from her backyard garden... Now, mind you, we have a freezer full of prepared sweet potato dishes already, and there were two more full buckets sitting on the counter by the end of the harvest. What do you do when you've run out of ideas for ways to prepare sweet potatoes? Why, you consult your trusty BCC, of course!

Orange-Glazed Sweet Potatoes (from p. 440 of the BCC): Most of Mom's sweet potato recipes involve cooking and mashing, but this one was faster and easier. The recipe said to pare the potatoes (which means skin them, for anyone as culinarily illiterate as myself) and cut them lengthwise in half and put them in a casserole dish. After you make the orange glaze, you pour it over the potatoes, cover it and bake it for an hour. And voila! - a new and improved way to get your vitamins A and C! 

The glaze was marvelous - made from orange juice, sugar, corn starch, butter, salt, and orange peel slowly stirred together and boiled until thickened. Mom served this dish with pork chops, and I just smothered my meat and drowned my whole plate in the glaze. I think I could have eaten it on anything... maybe drunk it straight from a bowl, like soup.

And look how beautifully glossy and bright it makes the sweet potatoes! The color orange is supposed to represent strength and endurance... So what's your favorite way to prepare orange foods, like sweet potatoes?

And that, my friends, is the end of our first month of BCC adventures. I can't wait to see what delightful flavors are in store for us in October!