Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes-Secret Recipe Club

I am finally back.  Hopefully the ISP and life issues are behind me, and I can get back to the business of posting regularly.  Thanks to all for your patience with me.  As always,I appreciate that you are reading this blog.

Today is Secret Recipe Club’s group B reveal day.  In Secret Recipe Club we are assigned another blogger’s blog to visit and choose a recipe to make and post about.  On our assigned day we post the recipe and let the blogger know we had their blog.

This month I was assigned the blog “A Spoonfull of Thyme.”  Kate has been blogging since 2009, posting many delicious recipes.

I have actually made several recipes from Kate’s blog.  The Chocolate Peanut Buddy Bars rated a “10” with my coworkers.  I made the Lemon Sauce from this post to serve with some Chicken Schnitzel.  There are a number of other recipes I want to try.  One is General Tso’s Chicken which I think would be great with the Pineapple Rice in this post.

There are several reasons for choosing the recipe I am posting today.  I am trying to eat more veggies; and hubby and I like yams and eat them often.  In our area of the country, orange potatoes like this are called yams.  Second, through my Just4U at Safeway I can buy yams for a special sale price this month, so I am planning to buy them often.  Third, this recipe (very good as is) has great potential for variation.

My first variation to the recipe was to add 1/2 t. coarsely ground pepper; but there are many other spices and herbs that I want to try such as Chinese 5-spice, curry powder, cumin and rosemary.

I warm the honey slightly in the microwave to make it easier to measure and to make the glaze mixture a little more liquid so it is easier to mix with the potatoes.

After I made this the first time, Hubby said that he would like a little more glaze so I now use 3 T. each olive oil and honey.  Try it both ways to see which you like best.

Thanks, Kate, this recipe will be on our table often.

 Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes
2 lbs. sweet potatoes (yams), peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2-3 T.  olive oil
2-3 T. honey
1-1 1/2 t. lemon Juice
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. or so coarse ground pepper or other spice or herb of choice

Place yams (sweet potatoes) in a 9x13-inch baking dish.  In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, honey, and lemon Juice.  Add the salt and coarse ground pepper or other spice/herb as desired.  Pour the mixture over the potatoes and toss to coat.  Bake at 350 degrees, stirring every 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Kate says this will serve 6, but to tell you the truth, this amount makes barely enough to feed the 2 of us.  I would make two pans if I was serving
6.

Improv Cooking Challenge-5-Spice and Honey Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Today is the third Thursday in November and time for Improve Cooking Challenge hosted by Kristen at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker, so this is post number two.

The ingredients for the challenge this month were sweet potatoes and honey.  Sweet potatoes are one of those things that there is some confusion about.  Here in the northwest yellow fleshed sweet potatoes are called sweet potatoes, and orange fleshed ones are called yams but are, supposedly, actually a variety of sweet potato.  Confusing, I know.  Anyway, I chose to make my recipe with the orange fleshed potato as that is the one my family likes.

In searching the web for inspiration for this ingredient combination, I found a short video by Tyler Florence where he was making what he called sweet potatoes (they were the orange ones) roasted with honey and cinnamon.  The video was my inspiration for this recipe.  There were no ingredient amounts or oven temperature given in the video.

I love Chinese 5-Spice seasoning with its slightly licorice undertones so chose to use that in this recipe.  I will be trying other spices such as Pumpkin Pie Spice, Apple Pie Spice, Nutmeg, and Ginger (I probably will need to reduce the amount of spice for this one.).  5-Spice can be a little difficult to find in the grocery store, but I know that Spice Islands still makes it.

Although I used whole pecans in the dish I made for the photo, in the future I will use coarsely chopped nuts.  Any other nut of choice could also be used, or the nuts may be omitted.

All in all, I am very pleased with the result and have a recipe that I will use often.  The not-too-sweet glaze really lets the flavor of the sweet potato shine through.  Personally, I just kept eating these like popcorn and could not stop.  If you like true sweet potato flavor, I think you will like this.

5-Spice and Honey Glazed Sweet Potatoes
2 1/2-3 lbs. sweet potatoes or yams
1 1/2 T. olive oil or melted butter
1/3 c. honey
1 t. 5-Spice seasoning
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. coarsely ground pepper
1/2 to 3/4 c. coarsely chopped, toasted pecans or other nuts (opt.)

Peel and slice potatoes into 1-inch slices.  Quarter slices.  Place sweet potatoes in a large mixing bowl.  Drizzle olive oil or melted butter over the potatoes and mix until they are well covered.  Pour honey into a glass measuring cup and warm in microwave about 30 seconds.   Add 5-Spice, salt and pepper to the honey and stir well.  Pour honey over the sweet potatoes and mix until they are well covered.  Turn into a foil-lined 10-15-inch baking sheet and spread into a single layer.  Bake at 375 degrees 15 minutes.  Carefully stir and turn sweet potatoes so that they are well coated with the liquid (honey will still be quit liquid at this point).  Return to oven and bake about 15 minutes more.  Stir and turn potatoes again until they are well coated with glaze (honey will be glaze consistency at this point).  Sprinkle nuts over potatoes and return to oven for about 10 minutes until potatoes are tender.  Remove from oven and place in a serving dish.  Makes 6 to 8 servings  (Unless you are me, then it make a serving for one.)

 If you like to join in the fun of this challenge, you can find all the necessary information on Kristen's Improv Page.  December's challenge is chocolate and marshmallows.  The recipe does not have to be original.