Rustic Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Carrots:
A Recipe to Love

On Valentine's Day, the 'Veggie Evangelist' expresses her new love, a marriage of sweet potatoes and carrots.

Call me fickle but with each new year, I fall in love with a new vegetable, not the slick new-guy vegetable who rides into town but the boy-next-door vegetable, the one who’s been around forever but is suddenly appreciated with new tastebuds, progressing fast from infatuation to devotion and promises of everlasting love.

And then I move on. In 2006, my true love was beets. In 2007, I fell in love anew with green beans. In 2009, first the unlikely radish and then cubes of butternut squash captured my heart, spurred by finally figuring out how to safely cut up a butternut squash.

In 2010, my heart longs for a pair of ubiquitous root vegetables – everyday, inexpensive sweet potatoes and carrots – which merge like soulmates right in the cooking pot, even while maintaining distinct identities. Roughly mashed with a little butter, a pinch of sweet cardamom and a sprinkle of good salt, theirs is a marriage that will last a lifetime.

They don’t call me the ‘Veggie Evangelist’ for nothing! If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetables, it’s called A Veggie Venture and is home to 1000+ vegetable recipes.

ALANNA’s TIPS My old stove took for-evah to boil water. To move things along, I learned to heat an inch or two of water in the cooking pot, then add boiling water from a tea kettle. Worked like a charm!

If there’s no cardamom in the cupboard, cinnamon and nutmeg work too, so does cumin for a savory version.

Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences.

Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com.

How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe.

Become a Kitchen Parade fan on Facebook!

RECIPE for
RUSTIC MASHED SWEET POTATOES & CARROTS

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 45 minutes
Makes 3 cups

Water to cover
1 tablespoon table salt
1 pound carrots, trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

1 – 2 tablespoons butter
1/8 teaspoon cardamom (see TIPS)
Salt & pepper to taste
A sprinkle of ‘finishing salt’ such as Maldon or fleur de sel

In a large pot, start the water to bring to a boil (see TIPS), add the salt. Add the vegetables as they’re prepped, cover and bring to a boil. When the water boils, reduce the heat to maintain a slow simmer and let gently cook until the carrots and sweet potatoes are cooked through and quite soft.

Drain and return the vegetables to the hot pot. (If the vegetables are soggy, turn the heat on for a minute or two to cook off some of the liquid.) Mash with a hand-held potato masher or a meat fork – you want the mixture to be mostly mashed but still hold visible bits of both carrot and sweet potato. Stir in the butter and cardamom. Taste, then add additional cardamom if needed, then salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with finishing salt. Serve and savor!

NUTRITION ESTIMATE (How many calories in Rustic Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Carrots? How many Weight Watchers points in Rustic Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Carrots?) Per Half Cup, made with 1/2 tablespoons butter: 112/129 Calories; 2/4g Tot Fat; 1/2g Sat Fat; 5/10mg Cholesterol; 107/120mg Sodium; 22g Carb; 4g Fiber; 7g Sugar; 2g Protein; Weight Watchers 1.5/2 points