HEALTH

Avoiding the One Pound Stick

By Lauren, age 18, California

Rum Whipped Sweet Potatoes
Healthy Christmas Recipe

Ingredients

1 large can sweet potatoes or yams or 1 pound fresh yams
1 orange - use the zest and juice
A few drops rum flavoring
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (or to taste)
1/4 cup brown sugar (or to taste)
Pinch of salt

Preparation

If using fresh yams, peel, then chop into chunks, and boil until soft. If using canned yams, drain the liquid. Mash the yams.

Zest an orange.* Add the zest to the yams. Squeeze the orange to add the orange juice (a couple of tablespoons of juice).

Add cinnamon to taste - 1/4 teaspoon or more, although it is good without it if you are sensitive to cinnamon.

Add a few drops of rum flavoring and a pinch of salt.

Add brown sugar - 1/4 cup or more to taste, depending also on whether you used yams already in syrup.Whip the yams with a mixer or a food processor. If you need more liquid, just add water or some more orange juice.

Heat in microwave or oven (300 degrees F) or saucepan (medium low heat) till warm throughout.

Nutritional Information

One cup of sweet potatoes has over 200% of the RDA for Vitamin A and beta-carotene, 20% of the RDA for Vitamin C, and 5 grams of protein in addition to its 59 grams of carbohydrate - a fantastic natural source of vitamins. One cup of sweet potatoes without the added brown sugar (and without being packed in syrup) has 258 calories. This recipe has 124 calories per 1/2 cup serving.


* Epicurious describes zest as "The perfumy outermost skin layer of citrus fruit (usually oranges or lemons), which is removed with the aid of a citrus zester ..." You know, that's an OK definition, but it's not entirely accurate the way I see it. When the perfumy outermost skin is still on the fruit, it's not called Zest. It's called skin. It only becomes zest when you use the zester.

You've probably seen it used in recipes a hundred times ... lemon zest, lime zest, orange zest, grapefruit zest. When you use a zester or a microplane grater against the skin of a fruit, you are essentially peeling loose that layer of skin about a hundredth of an inch thick. In citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges, that outermost skin is very flavorful and aromatic and can often add as much flavor to your dishes as the juice of the fruit itself.

This definition of 'zest' is courtesy of meninaprons.net.

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