It's fall and time to harvest our sweet potatoes. We love growing them - they are a passive addition to the garden, and with square foot gardening and smaller spaces like our raised beds they can be grown with other plants to increase yield out of each bed. The potatoes grow underground and the greens above ground are vines that stay low - and the leaves are edible (check out a couple great recipes for HERE for sweet potato greens). They do grow pretty prolifically so they need to be cut back - the greens - a couple times in the summer in our garden. The greens are pretty frequently used in other parts of the world, but not so much here. We were excited to learn about them as a green from the garden - they can essentially be used a lot like spinach but are less astringent plus they are high in vitamins.

 

This makes a great "double veggie" given the use of the tops and the roots!

 

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 - 1 pound of sweet potatoes

1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Dash of vinilla extract

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup butter, melted

 

DIRECTIONS

1 - Wash and bake the sweet potatoes. Bake until they are tender and soft enough to be whipped.

2 - In a mixing bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, & cinnamon. Mix the mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, milk, and butter in a separate bowl. Blend the contents of the two bowls until they form a batter.

3 - Preheat a lightly buttered skillet over medium heat. Drop the batter mixture into the skillet in heaping spoonfuls (you choose how big you want each cake!). Cook until golden brown, turning just once.

 

We top ours with cultured butter we get at the NoDa Farmers Market and honey harvested from our beehives.