2 Sweet Potato Recipes: Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie

During the Christmas holidays sweet potatoes were on sale for $0.50 a pound. They are normally $0.99 per pound. So I bought a bunch and decided to bring mashed sweet potatoes to a dinner party I attended.

Normally we bake them and serve them (skins included) with butter and salt. But for this gathering I wanted to dispense with the skins and “party them up” without adding a lot of brown sugar or marshmallows. This is how I had them growing up.

Of course I checked the Internet to see how others prepared their sweet potatoes and there are literally 4,180,000 results. I was looking for simplicity and a certain taste, but sometime I will try this light recipe. And when I want to fuss just a little I will try this recipe which uses a vanilla bean and orange zest.

After reading quite a few recipes I settled on these ingredients. . . .

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

• 3 pounds sweet potatoes (about 6 potatoes)
• ¼ cup butter, room temperature (I used Earth Balance Spread Natural Buttery Spread.)
• ½ cup cream, milk, combination of the two, or non-dairy milk (I used almond milk.)
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon salt or to taste

Directions

1. Put water in a large pot and bring to a boil. (Some suggest you add salt. I didn’t.)
2. Rinse and peel the sweet potatoes. Cut each potato into eight pieces. Rinse them again.
3. Add the sweet potatoes to the boiling water. After 10 minutes check to see if they can be easily pierced with a knife. If not, give them up to 5 more minutes.
4. When tender, drain the sweet potatoes. Put them back into the pot.
5. With a hand mixer start mashing the potatoes. Add the butter, cream, cinnamon, vanilla and salt until you reach your desired smoothness.
6. Add more of any of the ingredients until you are satisfied with the taste.
7.  Makes 6-8 portions.

I ended up using 12 potatoes because I wanted to make sure I had enough. I did! Wahoo for left overs though. With the left overs I made Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie. I got the recipe suggestion from Amy at A Faithful Journey. She pointed me to this recipe from Taste of Home. 

Here’s my adapted version. . . .

Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients

•  2-3 cups leftover mashed sweet potatoes (see above recipe)
• 1 pound ground turkey (can use lean ground beef)
• ½ cup onion, chopped
• 1 can (8-3/4 ounces) whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 cup tomato sauce (I didn’t have any, but I did have canned tomatoes. So I put some in a blender and blenderized the contents of the can until  I had 1 cup. I don’t remember how much of the can I used.)
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• Optional: ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (I did not use this.)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Spray an 8″x8″ pan with cooking spray; set aside.
• In a large skillet, cook turkey and onion until meat is no longer pink; drain.
• Add the corn, tomato sauce, and spices.
• Put meat mixture into prepared pan.
• Top with leftover mashed sweet potatoes. Spread evenly over the meat mixture.
• Cover with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes or until heated through. 
• Yields: 4-6  servings, depending on how much sweet potato you put on top.
• NOTE: I do not normally care for ground turkey, but it was FABULOUS in this recipe.

Your Turn . . . 

1. How do you serve your sweet potatoes?
2. Do you have any recipes that use sweet potatoes? Share them with us.

Related Posts . . .

• Fall Harvest Soup
• Sweet Potato Lentil Stew
• Recipe Index