What I am doing with our wonderful Purple Sweet Potatoes....

Here is a purple sweet potato that we grew in our garden this year.  I think we ended up with about 2/3 of a bushel of them from FIVE plants.  They did amazingly well. As I’ve told you before, sweet potatoes (orange or purple) are very easy to grow, and, at least where we live, are very productive.  All I have to do is dig them up, let them cure (I do it on the garage floor) for a week or two, and then place them in baskets or paper bags or cardboard boxes and set them in the house.  They will easily stay nice until the next harvest.  They are not sensitive to light like Irish potatoes, but they don’t like to get cold, so don’t keep them in a cold cellar or in your refrigerator.

These potatoes are much dryer than the orange variety. They also are sweet, but not as much as the orange ones.  However, what they might lack in taste (on their own) pales in comparison to the nutritional benefits. I assume you are familiar with the fact that blueberries are very rich in certain antioxidants? This purple color reflects a rich concentration of those same phytonutrients that we find in blueberries.  If you garden, then this is an easy and very inexpensive way to be able to eat those on a regular basis.

One morning, recently, I was laying in bed pondering what I might do to use more of the Purple sweet potatoes.  I do like to boil them, peel and mash with a little lime juice, some butter and sour cream and maybe some sort of sweetener.  I have also made very nice Purple sweet potato pie a few times. On the  morning in question, I decided to try making powdered Purple sweet potatoes.  It worked out perfectly.  If you have a dehydrator and a good blender, you can do this too.

I cut the Purple sweet potatoes into large slices, covered them with water and boiled them until they were tender when pierced with a sharp knife.  Then, I drained them, let them cool and removed the skins.  Next, I put them in my mixer and used the “paddle” attachment and added a bit of water and mashed them thoroughly.  Next, I spread them on fruit roll trays in the dehydrator, not very thinly, actually, and dehydrated them at 135 F. It only took a few hours.  When they were nice and crisp, I put them in the blender and turned them into powder.

Next, I put them in a glass jar and covered it tightly.

Here is a picture of a little bit of it in a spoon so you can see what the powder looks like:

So, you may ask, what do I do with this powder?  You can add it to anything you wish!  I’ve been adding some to bread, I sprinkle it on yogurt, or in a sandwich on top of something else. I’m sure it will be lovely in smoothies.  It is mild in flavor and packed with nutrients.

That pint jar was filled by just 3 of the potatoes.  Like I mentioned, they are quite dry, so they yield a lot in comparison with other vegetables and fruits.

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