Whipped Sweet Potatoes

It's winter time, and my favorite vegetables seem to be dark green & bright orange!  Get ready for my next few recipes to consist of those colors.  I am so happy to get this post done right now... The challenges of my first year as a PhD grad student seemed to have gotten the best of me & my time, and my recipes have been piling up!
I recently had the pleasure of purchasing a handful of gorgeous, large sweet potatoes from the Roanoke City Market; and felt like spicing up my typical way of cooking them.  Usually I'll clean them up, prick with a fork, wrap 'em in foil & throw it in the oven until their ready, but recently tried a new way that turned out absolutely wonderful!  By rubbing sugar, spices and butter over the skin and wrapping tightly in foil, the skin gets very soft when baked and breaks apart easily.  You can't even tell there's skin in the finished product.
And now for some nutrition tidbits... Keeping the skin on is an easy way to boost the fiber content.  Another plus: sweet potatoes (NOT yams!!) are one of the best sources of vitamin A & provitamin A Beta-carotene; which are fat-soluble.  This is why it's important to have some (**key word: "some") healthy fats with your veggies.  On a molecular level; vitamin A plays a critical role in the synthesis of rhodopsin & light receptor pigments inside of your eyes; basically we need vitamin A for night vision.  Vitamin A is also important in cell growth, bone development, and plays a role in the immune system, in case you were wondering.
Okay, enough of my nutrition rant.... let's get to the good stuff!

Whipped Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 4 medium to large sweet potatoes; scrubbed clean
• 2.5 Tbsp butter, softened (I prefer using Smart-Balance butters - blended w/ canola or olive oil...it's already soft & gives you a better variety of healthy fats!)
• 1.5 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice*
• 1 Tbsp dark brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup

Garnish: chopped, toasted pecans
Other materials needed: aluminum foil, mixer with flat beater attachment (a hand blender or food processor would work as well)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
After rinsing & scrubbing sweet potatoes, wipe dry & prick the surface all around with a fork; set aside.  Tear off 4 sheets of aluminum foil, large enough to fully wrap your sweet potatoes in; set aside.  In a small bowl, mix together softened butter, pumpkin pie spice, syrup & sugar.  With your hands, rub the sugar & spice-butter mixture around the outside of each sweet potato.  Tightly wrap each potato in aluminum foil, place on a baking sheet and put in the oven to bake at 350 degrees for 45 - 60 minutes; flipping potatoes over after about 30 minutes of baking.

To tell if the sweet potatoes are cooked through, they should be easily pierced through with a knife.  Don't worry though...overcooking won't hurt these!  After they're done, remove from the oven, open up some of the foil, allowing steam to escape, and let cool slightly for about 10-15 min.

While they're cooling, set up your blender with the flat beater attached.  With your hands, pinch off the hard tips/ends of the sweet potatoes & discard.  The rest of the skin should be very soft.  Break the sweet potatoes in half & toss into the mixer bowl, making sure to pour any of the buttery-syrupy juices (from inside the foil) into the mixing bowl too.  Beat on medium-high speed with a flat-beater (or whisk) attachment until potatoes are soft, fluffy with a whipped-like texture.  Spoon & serve.
For a little crunch, garnish these spuds with toasted, chopped pecans.

*Note: If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, here's an easy substitute:

• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves