The common sweet potato could be the best bang for the buck in one of the small raised-bed gardens at the Carlsbad Senior Center community garden. After a year’s growth underground, one of the family’s beds produced over 50 brilliant orange potatoes, just in time for Thanksgiving.
After the fall harvest, November is also a great time to repurpose the sweet potatoes and begin a new crop indoors for next season. These tubers are so easy to propagate that a few slips (shoots) from the “mother potato” will produce twice the number of plants that produced crops this year.
How to propagate sweet potatoes
You will need (this process can be doubled or tripled depending on your space):
- Two large sweet potatoes, preferably from your own garden or from a local organic market
- Two quart glass Ball jars
- Two shallow clear beverage glasses
- Box of toothpicks
- Sharp knife
- Cut each tuber in half. Use the pointy end for the sprouting process, and save the rest to eat.
- Insert three or four toothpicks into each potato end so you can suspend the potato, cut-side down, into a large quart Ball jar filled halfway with water. Roots will emerge in two to three weeks, and new shoots will sprout out of the top of the mother potato.
- Gently remove slips and place in a short beverage glass. You can place a number of slips in each glass, with just enough water to cover.
- Place glasses in a warm place, changing water frequently.
- In a few weeks, new roots will emerge from the slips. Depending upon outdoor temperatures, the new slips can be held indoors for weeks, until the ground is ready.
- In North County, these new plants can go in the ground as early as March, when the soil begins to warm.
- We will follow our slips and give you more advice on planting outdoors in future articles.
Sweet potatoes for holiday dinner
My paternal grandmother, Grama VanDenBerg, was a consummate cook. With absolutely no professional training, she ran a kitchen that served over 50 veterans and their guests each weekend at the VFW Club on Milwaukee’s South Side. She had become a widow at 55 and supported herself with her cooking skills.
Her favorite family holiday was Thanksgiving, and somehow she squeezed two families into her three-room Milwaukee bungalow. Two large card tables were placed together to form the 6-foot adult table for six in the living room, and a third table was placed in her adjoining bedroom for the four grandchildren.
For the cousins, including myself, this arrangement was great fun. We did not have to watch our manners, and we could have as many helpings of mashed potatoes and homemade cranberry relish as we could eat. It was great fun to make mountains out of the potatoes, filling them with gravy to create moats.
We always left room on the plate for Grama Van’s sweet potato and apple casserole, which was made with local vegetables and homemade maple syrup.
Sweet potato and apple casserole (Edna VanDenBerg, 1968)
You will need:
- 4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
- 4 Granny Smith or McIntosh apples, thinly sliced
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup real maple syrup
- ½ cup apple cider
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- Medium casserole dish with lid (CorningWare or Le Creuset)
Process:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- After slicing apples and sweet potatoes, place slices in alternating layers in casserole dish (should total four layers)
- Melt butter in a sauce pan, adding brown sugar, syrup and cider.
- Pour mixture over apples and potatoes. Liquid should just cover the layers, add more if needed.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes. Check to see if apples and potatoes are done, continue until soft.
- Serve with Thanksgiving dinner or any special occasion!
Share your recipes
Take some time to browse through old family cookbooks to find the dishes that were important to your family during the holidays and send them to us. We might just include your family recipe in an upcoming article. Send to [email protected]. Thanks!
Jano Nightingale is a horticulturist and Master Gardener who loves to cook with garden vegetables and fruit. Contact her at [email protected] for upcoming classes.
