For many years we tried adding stuff to plain mashed potatoes to make them more interesting. There were mashed potato king, not exactly mashed potatoes, not exactly mashed potatoes revisited, more mashed potatoes in the oven, and goat cheese/sundried tomato mashed potatoes, some of which record multiple recipe variations. bob is the mashed potato fan in the cooking team, but this comfort food is not an efficient carb, well known to be a problem for weight control (a consideration for ms_ani), perhaps less well known that it tends to convert easily to sugar levels in the blood stream (a brutal surprise for dr bob). In 2011 we learned that this is quantified by the glycemic index on a scale of 0 to 100: low 80s = bad. Sweet potatoes have a GI about half that = good, and they are full of antioxidants (also good). And other nutritional pluses. Ironically the 'sweet" potatoes deliver much less sugar to the bloodstream, which is an important consideration for aging eaters who run into problems with blood sugar, even for no apparent reason as bob discovered serendipitously.
We had already been vaguely aware that sweet potatoes were a pretty healthy food choice, and overcoming an earlier prejudice against the tuber created by the unfortunate combination of the already sweet potato with other sweet substances like brown sugar, we had been experimenting with it already. It started with a glowing endorsement for Bruce's Sweet Potato Pancake, Biscuit and Muffin mix by a couple during our fabulous culinary week in Grand Case, St Martin, which we followed through by ordering the product on-line and then enthusiastically consuming the package. This put sweet potatoes in a new light, but still it took a few more years before we really started to try incorporating sweet potatoes into our cuisine.
We decided to try the mashed potato route, but mixing sweet potatoes with yellow potatoes (like the 50/50 mix of whole wheat and plain white flour idea) to temper the flavor a bit. The sweet potato orange color dominates of course, so this leads to a colorful mash on the plate, not to be confused with mashed squash though of similar coloring. Smashed seems to be the trendy way to say mashed these days. Maybe we should have called this orange smashed potatoes, since there is no such thing as orange potatoes, but do we really need to be so nitpicky about such details?
When bob checked out the sweet potato/yam collection at Whole Foods, there were about 4 or 5 different choices, not unreasonable, since ordinary potatoes also come in many varieties. But how to choose when you have no clue? Somewhat randomly. bob picked the red garnet yams. They turned out to work well. Experience will have to be acquired with the rest.
Ms_ani did the honors based on our more recent ordinary mashed potato add-ins and served this with some really moist meatloaf (accented with ketchup). bob overate and regretted it immediately afterwards that evening, in fact even as he went for the extra meatloaf slice to finish off that big orange mound of potatoes. The combination was that good. We'll be doing this orange stuff again soon.