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I love sweet potatoes. I eat them all year baked with a little butter, or as oven fries with various spices, depending on my mood. On Thanksgiving, I make a rich pie with butter, eggs, cream, brown sugar, spices and maple syrup in a crust. I also make them in the fall roasted, with other root vegetables.

Oh, honey. I could eat a plain baked sweet potato out of hand like candy.

I like to make croquettes out of sweet potatoes. Add nutmeg and cinnamon to mashed sweets and a stiff white sauce, coat in flour, egg, flour, bread crumbs and deep fry. Sweet potato hash browns also come to mind.

This is what I made last T-Giving after becoming desperate for something new to do with sweets.

Chiffonade's Sweet Potato "Crisp"

For Casserole:
5 lbs. Sweet potatoes
12 Oz. Evaporated Milk
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
several scrapes fresh..nutmeg..- or 1/4 tsp. dried
1 tsp salt
pinch white pepper
4 tbsp. butter, melted
2 eggs
For Topping:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup pecans, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick very cold butter, cut into small dice

Slice sweet potatoes thinly and parboil 3 to 4 minutes... Do NOT skip this step... Drain sweet potatoes and transfer to a baking dish (not too shallow) that has been sprayed with PAM or buttered.

Mix together evap milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, S&P, melted butter and eggs, pour evenly over potato slices... Bake 20 minutes at 375... Make topping.

In a bowl, mix together 2 cups graham cracker crumbs, 1 cup chopped pecans, 1 cup brown sugar and 1 stick very cold butter that has been cut into small dice. With your fingers, press butter into dry mixture... It's OK if the mixture still looks dry but you'll also have some pea-sized pieces...

Increase oven temp to 425.

Scatter topping all over top of potatoes and return to hot oven for 15-20 minutes or so until the top is crisp...

Boiled (or baked) and mashed with butter, cinnamon, minced chipotle (the kind in a can with adobo sauce). It's a good side for Mexican food, or even a filling for a quesadilla.

I remember reading about a guy who lived to be over a hundred years old who claimed it was due to eating a sweet potato each day of his life.

I like to make a sweet potato recipe once in a while that might keep one going strong till they were pretty old because it has collards in it too. It's James Haller's Sweet Potatoes Stuffed with Bacon and Collards (finished with fresh buttered breadcrumbs and currants).

In my mind I think of this recipe as "Bergdorf's Yams". :)

Right you are, BaHa. The botanic name for sweet potato is ipomoea batatas (batatas reminds me of how my Italian ex-MIL said the word "potatoes", actually!). The botanic name for yam is dioscorea which sounds a little scary. Dioscoria trifida is the only native American yam cultivated to any extent, and according to The Oxford Companion to Food it is known as the cushcush yam. The OCF also notes that "yam" is often used in a general sense to embrace other tropical root crops such as sweet potato, taro, oca, etc.

The history of both the word and yams and/or sweet potatoes themselves is a fascinating one.

Maybe a book should be written, like the one on salt and the one on cod.
Title?

Yam - A Wham Bam Fabulous History of the Ancient Tuber of the World.

I do an adaption of Michael Chiarello's
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_24964,00.html
I change out a few things. I also use 2 gingersnap cookies in the rub. (pulse them in the food processor)(OMG) I change the chili powders I use depending on the guests. Chipotle for the spicy ones and ancho for the not so spicy ones. The ginger snaps have ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg so you do not have to add those.
You can actually use just the sugar and gingersnaps and some chili powder if you do not feel adventurous. What the gingersnaps lend to this is a nice brown crust and flavor. Michael's recipe without my changes is very very good. My people like sweet and spicy together so I adapted it.

i love them as oven fries with different herbs/spices sprinkled on top...or double wrapped in foil and thrown into the fire at bbq's and fished out when the coals are done...then eaten plain...soo good!

I love to roast them with olive oil and salt. They are so flavorful, the roasting bring s out their sweetness and they don't need anything else.

we do a version of a roasted souffle...roast 4 sweet potatoes and scoop out the flesh. Mix with brown sugar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, butter and an egg. Beat til its creamy and sprinkle more brown sugar, pecans, butter and a swirl of maple syrup over the top. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes til puffy and hot.

Thanks for all the comments on your favorite ways to prepare & eat the sweet potato---some new Thanksgiving ideas for many of us :)

Thanks Karen :)

Karen Resta, you beat me to it! I was reading that passage yesterday. :)

Sweet potatoes are a staple at my house. Usually roasted or mashed. If I have leftover mashed, I make a sweet potato gnocchi by adding some egg, flour, and grated nutmeg. After they are simmered, I put them in a buttered casserole and top with more butter and some parmesan cheese. I pop them in the oven just long enough to make sure everything is hot. They are a big hit!

i love sweet potato with fage yogurt and a dash of cinnamon

Bake the sweet potato in the oven.
Meanwhile, saute some sliced onions and minced garlic in a little olive oil until soft; fry a couple bacon slices until really crisp; drain. Set these toppings aside.
When potato is soft, squeeze open, add toppings and plenty of ground black pepper. Delish!

My personal favorite is roasted whole until the skins are chewy/crisp, split, lots of butter and some S&P. MMMmmmm...

My mom makes candied yams for The Big Day, which I've always detested. I'm already not big on sweets and those are just way over the top for me.

Many years ago, when I began making Thanksgiving dinner, I came up with a compromise. It's a custard-like dish, but leans toward savory -- nice contrast to the already perfect sweetness of the yams.

Peel and cube, cook tender in salted boiling water, drain, mash, add plenty of milk/cream and butter, a beaten egg or two, a hint of cinnamon, and a very small amount of brown sugar or pure maple syrup (just enough to enhance the sweetness and flavor, but not to actually sweeten the dish), plenty of S&P (very important). Sometimes I add sauteed onions, too. Beat until creamy (sometimes I beat whites separately and fold in to give a souffle-like consistency). Bake until starting to brown on top. (If you use a lot of milk and eggs, use a water bath.)

It's been a huge hit. I failed to make it one year and the whining was deafening. I've done the same thing with winter squash. Very popular.

Sweet potato waffles, yummy.