I really like the fall orange vegetables available this time of year. I particularly like sweet potatoes and will pop one in the toaster oven for a meal. I’ll season it with cinnamon, various curries, nutmeg, or whatever suits me at the moment. Recently, I saw a recipe for Mashed Sweet Potatoes with vanilla. Made a few changes and served it up for Thanksgiving. It was well received.

Vanilla Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

• 4 large sweet potatoes or 6 medium sized ones
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg, fresh grated is best
• 1 tsp. grated orange zest

Directions

1. Cut ends off sweet potatoes and bake in oven at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hr or until done.
2. Remove potatoes from oven and cool long enough so that you can handle them to peel skins off. Cut in chunks and place in medium sized bowl.
3. Put milk and orange zest in small cooking pan. Split vanilla bean lengthwise and scrap seeds. Put all in milk mixture, bring to just simmer, and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the long vanilla bean. (the aroma of this is just heavenly!)
4. Add milk mixture, butter, and nutmeg to peeled sweet potatoes. Using an immersion blender, puree until smooth. Add more milk if mixture is too thick for you. Serve with sea salt and white pepper for additional seasoning if desired.